peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (11/20/84)
Last Wednesday, Dr. Helen Caldicott spoke at the University of Toronto, giving
a rather moving plea to become involved in the nuclear freeze/disarmament
movement. Part of her speech discussed the psychological effects of the
threat of nuclear war, particularly the effects on children. This is always
something that touches me deeply, often bringing on tears, especially when
children who feel that their lives have been taken away from them express
this in their own words... her example: "No one likes to get a broken toy
for Christmas". It's important to note that this is a real, present-day,
effect-- not some unknowable future (such as whether or not there will be
a nuclear war). The behaviours of people, it is contended, are changed,
radically, by the fear of nuclear war.
I wondered about similar effects, in which entire classes of people are
psychologically oppressed. I was dismayed at how easy it is to come up
with examples, and how each of these strike a responsive, emotional chord.
The way the capitalist system treats workers as cogs, alienating them from
their labour, making their work irrelevant to their lives except to provide
salary. The way pollution makes one suspicious, if not downright fearful,
of the food one eats, the air one breathes, and the water one drinks.
And the way that women are pervasively discriminated against, subtly and
overtly (the reason I'm posting this to net.women).
Each of these effects is characterized by the image of a large institution-
alized structure imposing it on the people, with tremendous inertia,
almost completely impossible to change. With this image, people naturally
feel helpless, resulting (according to some psychologists) in an effect
called "learned helplessness", characterized by depression.
My point: these effects are so subtle and so pervasive, they are hard to
notice. But if *you* feel an emotional response when the subject is
brought up, and feel helpless when you try to think of what to do about them,
perhaps they are affecting you. According to Caldicott, the trick is to
focus the emotional response, to turn it into anger and eventually into
acceptance of the situation coupled with the feeling that one *can* make
a change, albeit small, for the better. This gives you control over your
life again.
My question: I wonder if there is documentation of the general
psychological effects of sexism on women, as there is for nuclear fear on
children. If anyone knows of studies, books, or whatever, on the subject,
or a good place to look for such things, please mail me or post to the net.
I'll summarize any replies I get.
peter rowley, University of Toronto Department of C.S., Ontario Canada M5S 1A4
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