wow. what a discussion we had in class today. and, of course, we barely scraped the surface.
as several of you asked for a forum on this blog in which to discuss the matter further, i am hereby opening a thread on the topic. in the interest of speed, i won't recapitulate in detail today's discussion; just bear in mind that some of the questions raised were:
[1] semantics vs substance? i.e. the problematic of
male/masculine ~~~~~ female/feminine
first-class ~~~~~ second-class
logical ~~~~~ emotional
powerful ~~~~~ weak
[2] 'feminism' vs believing in equality of the sexes
[3] women with or without agency in ancient greece and rome [and today]
[4] catullus -- 'emotional' and 'mediterranean male with agency'
but don't limit your comments to these topics! please let us know what is on your mind, whatever that may be. you may be as forceful as you like, but always let courtesy and mutual respect prevail.
OK, go.
5 comments:
in typical fashion, i'm going to go stream of consciousness on this one. i'll admit i have a limited knowledge of feminism and have never delved deeply into its philosophies. so, i checked out wikipedia and my opinions were confirmed. i don't like feminism. the group seems to further separate themselves in an attempt to gain equality. to me, it only seems to weaken the conclusion they are trying to strengthen. it's gynocentric. what i do like is post-feminism; "Some contemporary feminists, such as Katha Pollitt or Nadine Strossen, consider feminism to hold simply that "women are people". Views that separate the sexes rather than unite them are considered by these writers to be sexist rather than feminist."
as for males having better traits, i see a trend against such ideas. i have two years experience working with kids and assisting on research pertaining to autism. a phrase i've heard numerous times is that "autism is the over-masculinization of the brain;" thus, resulting in fewer emotions, a higher capacity for visual spatial and mathematical capabilities, etc. it effects three times as many boys than girls. it is a male-biased disorder characterized by logic and categories. being too male doesn't seem like such a good thing...
lastly, with little knowledge and a stereotypical bias, aren't mediterranean males usually emotional and touchy-feely while demonstrating their masculinity through sex? the american and western ideal of a man is different than a mediterranean's, let alone an ancient mediterranean's. (i apologize for my assumptions. it's all i have to go on.)
I personally consider myself a feminist. But I believe American women have equal rights but not gender equality. I find myself becoming more and more interested in the gap of gender equality in this country.
For example, I'm recently engaged and my fiance always assumed I would take his last name. I'm not all to keen on the idea. Not because my last name is better than his or my family is but because the assumption that I have to give up part of my identity to take on his is absurd. But if I were to suggest he take my name or that we combine names it's comedic to him. Why because the idea that men are the dominate race still prevails.
Some women who do not consider themselves feminist do not believe women should have the right to vote. Amanda boldly stated that she is the furthest thing from a feminist in class yesterday. But from the limited amount I know about her I would venture to guess she does not feel that way. Does that make her a feminist? No- because she does not define herself as one.
The point I'm trying to make is this - Are social issues such as feminism like art or poetry?
Who defines "it"? The creator or the critic?
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; so forgive me if I come off as presumptuous or callous.
We could argue this point for a few millennia and never arrive at a conclusion which would satisfy the masses, so in lieu of using that as a cop out, I will give you the plethora of examples that have been shoved into my skull due to the nature of feminism and politically correctness.
“Chivalry is dead, and women killed it”
This expression has been tossed around more times than I would, in particular at me, because I fancy myself a traditional guy or, I’d hate to insult the real ones out there, but a gentleman. I believe in pulling out chairs, opening doors and more importantly, paying the check. Mind you, this isn’t a gender exclusive habit (with the exception of pulling out chairs), but “independent women”, as many of them prefer to be called, take this as a form of discrimination, as if I am acting like I am superior to them by holding the door open, etc.. Fine, I realize many people consider help of any sort as an insult, so I will move away from that and on to my next issue.
I am a business major, the field of business has changed greatly in recent years, the majority of my classes being about discrimination and politically correctness. (I am against discrimination; I just had to lump that in with this because it is where the notion of separating employees occurs, ironically enough).
Now on to politically correct. Growing up I used to go outside and get my mail from the mailman, oh, sorry, I mean the mailperson. Being politically correct at times to me is just stupid, but hey, if it’s not P.C., it’s not for me.
Now here is where my biggest issue arise, the business world.
(Pardon me if I cannot cite the exact articles, but I will gladly go and dig them up if anyone really does care so much.)
The Miami Herald and the New York Times have both released articles in recent years which delve into the shallow depths known as women in the workplace. I am the first one to tell you that most jobs are not gender specific, but nearly all people I meet keep screaming out how women get paid less. Sure, on the large scale there is a disparity, but in management positions these articles show that woman not only make as much as men, but surpass them in many areas. Well, how can women make more money than men, in the same jobs, yet as a whole make less money than men? The writers explain this in a simple way, which as I had to research, accurate way. One thing it takes in many fields to reach the executive positions, or upper management, is practically selling your soul. Authors describe necessary steps as:
• Working Longer Hours
• Working More Frequently
• Willingness To Travel
• Willingness To Relocate as Necessary
• Working Rigid Hours
• Working Weekends
• Bringing Your Work Home
• Exceedingly Hard Work Which Can Take an Entire Lifetime and Sometimes never occur.
That being said, the writers of these articles, and the surveys, convey that many women are not willing to make all of these sacrifices, not because they don’t want the job, but because they prefer time with the family, they prefer the ability to take their kids to school and take care of the house, while, evidently, men for the most part just want to reach the top, regardless of what it costs, most likely due to society’s markers for success, which is a whole separate issue. One last thing I will reference before I head off to class, an interesting case study we reviewed was about firefighters in New York. A feminist group sued because there were practically no female firefighters. Over the course of their suit they had a performance review on the potential firefighters and many women were unable to carry passed out subjects down many flights of stairs and out of the building, unable to, some chose to drag them down, (think about being dragged down the stairs and what happens to your head every single step). The feminists argued that the air flow at foot level was far safer to breathe.
Adieu.
PS. I apologize if my opinions insult anyone else’s.
PSS. Here is a recent article from MSN: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/HomeMortgageSavings/TooSuccessfulForAMate.aspx?GT1=33009
hat tip to amanda for sending a link to nicholas kristof's timely post to the new york times online. it's almost as though he had listened to our conversation in class.
I think it would be a mistake to conflate the goal of gender equality with the current trend of "political correctness." However, with the caveat that there are many instances of political correctness being taken to absurd extremes, I think that its important to understand the ways that the manner in which we speak about the world tends to shape our perceptions of it. One quick example is the fact that in many languages, masculine pronouns are utilized to refer to a group of people of both genders. That being said, I feel that being too picky about minor linguistic points can be counter-productive. Language tends to mirror the manner in which human beings think. If language is gender-biased, it’s probably because there is something profoundly biased in the way in which we as a linguistic community have conceptualized the world in the first place. Since sitting around and changing the “e” to a “y” in every printed instance of the word “women” probably isn’t going to change that many hearts and minds, a more productive solution would be to investigate the root cause of gender inequality.
I’m inclined to think that the root cause of gender inequality is essentialism. The one thing that seems to be missing from every discussion of how to promote gender equality is a questioning of whether or not the two accepted categories of gender adequately represent the full range of human behavior. Equality is an ideal, a limit concept of sorts. The point at which all of humanity must be pigeon-holed into one category or the other in this neat and clean binary conceptualization of gender is the point at which one side is always going to be privileged. That’s the nature of a binary. The fact of the matter is that gender is more organic and fluid than it is represented to be in language, it doesn’t fit neatly into two categories.
I think one of the most progressive thinkers of our time with regard to gender has to be Judith Butler. One of the central claims in her book Gender Trouble is that instead of our acts expressing some sort of stable gender identity possessed by each of us, they themselves actually constitute the illusion of a stable gender identity. Our gender is something that we are constantly performing, and there is no reason that this performance has to be the same every time we act it out. Butler actually goes so far as to say that we ought to abandon the subject/object binary. She claims that we need to move towards a world in which the current gender categories are not even thought of as natural categories.
While there are certainly problems with Butler’s theory, I believe that this line of inquiry has a great deal of potential. For example, it seems to me that whenever a woman attains power she is said to exhibit certain characteristics that are traditionally considered masculine. In a certain sense it seems like there’s no particularly feminine way of exerting power because our category of the feminine doesn’t include agency in the first place. To be powerful is not to be feminine. This also contributes to difficulties where men can feel emasculated if their female partner excels in characteristics that are typically thought to be masculine. In addition, conceptualizing of gender as a binary has the effect of polarizing the norms for gender performance, making “mal”es” feel as if they have to perform their gender in a hyper-masculine manner, and females” feeling as if they have to perform in a hyper-feminine manner. Forcing humanity to split itself into two categories with polarized norms of behavior just seems unnatural and detrimental. I think its time that we move towards a conceptualization of gender that is descriptive instead of prescriptive.
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