rshapiro@arris.COM (Richard Shapiro) (01/07/91)
In article <15207@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> bloch%thor@ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch) writes: >But the EXISTENCE of "the amorphous complex of roles we call 'female'" >and its "male" counterpart is a problem too, in that it excludes (or >at least discourages) people of both sexes from playing certain roles. "Role" is a somewhat unfortunate term; I only used it because I was pointing out the problems in another article which referred to roles. I would rather say something like "subject positions", so as to avoid the implication that we can wear such positions (or not) like costumes. With that out of the way -- I don't agree that the existence of gender per se is a problem. I don't see any reason to believe that any and every gender system would priviledge one gender at the expense of the other. "Different but equal" may be a bit utopian, but surely it's less utopian than a world that doesn't have gender at all. But in either case, whether you want to end gender or just reorganize it, the first step has to be to understand how it works right now. This was my point: feminism is about understanding the gender system we all live with; it's not about women telling men what to do. >It happens that, perhaps partly because women are trained to be more >introspective and aware of their feelings than men, women (on the >whole) feel more oppressed by the current system than men do. But it >really is oppressive to both. You're assuming here (I think) that oppression is a necessary by-product of the mere existence of gendered subjectivity. That is, the there's some pre-existing subject which is oppressed by the limitations inherent in gender roles, and which needs to be liberated from such limitations. I think this is a mistaken notion. Gendered subject positions are not chosen by a pre-existing subject; they *form* that subject. Freedom from such positions means the end of subjectivity itself. No, oppression is something else -- a specific set of relations between the sexes in which one sex has less access to subjectivity than the other. In our society, women are oppressed in this way, and men are not. If you mean only to say that everyone, man and woman, loses in such a system. I agree with you. But not because everyone is oppressed. rs
gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit) (01/08/91)
In article <1991Jan5.142726.5081@arris.com> (Richard Shapiro) writes: >This was my point: feminism is about understanding the gender system >we all live with; it's not about women telling men what to do. Would you mind to quote some feminist texts, which were written after 1975, to prove your point? ["You Just Don't Understand" by Deborah Tannen, "Women's Reality" by Schaef, "Feminist Challenges" edited by Pateman and Gross, "Toward a New Psychology of Women" by Miller, "Feminism and Science Fiction" by Sarah Lefanu, "Reflections on Gender and Science" by Evelyn Fox Keller, "The Second Shift" by Arlie Hochschild, "On Being a Woman" edited by Fay Fransella and Kay Frost, "Gender Blending" by Holly Devor, "Regulating the Lives of Women" by Mimi Abramovitz ... all of these books are concerned with understanding the gender system -- none of them "tell men what to do." This is but a small fraction of my library at home. --CLT] (Hint: what you call "understanding the gender system," I call "suggestion a new gender system which is more oppressive toward men than what we have now.")
rshapiro@arris.COM (Richard Shapiro) (01/09/91)
In article <663265517@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit) writes: >In article <1991Jan5.142726.5081@arris.com> (Richard Shapiro) writes: >>This was my point: feminism is about understanding the gender system >>we all live with; it's not about women telling men what to do. > >Would you mind to quote some feminist texts, >which were written after 1975, to prove your point? All of texts I've read are from after '75, and all of them are as I describe. I'm not sure how I can quote what isn't there, but I can list some books: Feminist Theory and Poststructuralist Practice Chris Weedon (Basil Blackwell) The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcok and Feminist Theory Tania Modleski (Methuen) Women in Film Noir ed. E. Ann Kaplan (British Film Institute Press) The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality Annette Kuhn (Routledge & Kegan Paul) Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema Annette Kuhn (Routledge & Kegan Paul) Women's Oppression Today Michelle Barrett (Verso) The Sex Which Is Not One Luce Irigaray (Cornell Univ. Press) [I haven't read all of this one yet] Beyond The Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism Rowbotham, Segal and Wainwright (Alyson Publications) The Desire to Desire: the Woman's Film of the 1940s Mary Ann Doane (Indiana Univ. Press) Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture ed. Tania Modleski (Indiana Univ. Press) Visual and Other Pleasures Laura Mulvey (Indiana Univ. Press) Feminism and Foucault ed. Diamond and Quinby (Northeastern Univ. Press) plus numerous articles in New Left Review, Signs, and Camera Obscura. >(Hint: what you call "understanding the gender system," I call >"suggestion a new gender system which is more oppressive >toward men than what we have now.") Have you read *any* feminist theory at all? Do you keep up with the new psychoanalytic and post-structuralist feminism (not even to mention good old socialist feminism)? What is the basis for this specious "hint"? What I call "understanding gender systems" is just that, as even a casual glance at any of these books will show you. If you think otherwise, please supply quotes from these books, or any other substantive book of feminist theory.
bloch@thor.ucsd.EDU (Steve Bloch) (01/14/91)
"You" in this post refers to Richard Shapiro. I've posted this rather than emailing because I think it may be of interest to others than the two of us. If I'm wrong, tell me :-) rshapiro@arris.COM (Richard Shapiro) writes (in response to some of my comments): >You're assuming here (I think) that oppression is a necessary >by-product of the mere existence of gendered subjectivity. That is, >the there's some pre-existing subject which is oppressed by the >limitations inherent in gender roles, and which needs to be liberated >from such limitations. I think this is a mistaken notion. Gendered >subject positions are not chosen by a pre-existing subject; they >*form* that subject. I certainly didn't mean to say there's a Platonic ideal subject out there, developed independently of gender roles and merely oppressed by them a posteriori. (I DO believe in some inherent tendencies: to take an oversimple example, a male who's genetically small and weak does not belong in physically aggressive roles, although he can over- come some of the tendency through hard work.) But I question what you call "the limitations inherent in gender roles" on two counts. First, the mere fact that Behavior A is "feminine" and Behavior B "masculine" shouldn't prevent me from practicing BOTH, either choosing between them as circumstances warrant, or even making both of them primary modes of operation. Second, as long as these "subject positions" are called "gender" and named "feminine" and "masculine", females will be steered toward the former and males toward the latter. Without claiming the "self" is pristinely unaffected by socially accepted roles, I maintain nonetheless that an individual has a wide range of preferences and whims from time to time, and that constantly-present, gender-labelled roles will tend to encourage some of them and discourage others for no particularly good reason. We've got two clusters of behaviors, attitudes, etc.; my second objection is to their labelling, the first to the clusters themselves. >Freedom from such positions means the end of >subjectivity itself. Subjectivity depends for its very existence on gender-labelled roles? I KNOW you didn't mean that... did you? I think we're getting down to the substantial differences in assumptions here... >I don't agree that the existence of gender >per se is a problem. I don't see any reason to believe that any and >every gender system would priviledge one gender at the expense of the >other. >... >No, oppression is something else -- a specific >set of relations between the sexes in which one sex has less access to >subjectivity than the other. In our society, women are oppressed in >this way, and men are not. OK, you're defining "oppressed" as "on the losing end of an inequality", while I was using something more like "unnecessarily restricted in freedom". By your definition, certainly, it's mathematically impossible for everybody to be oppressed simultaneously (at least on the same dimension). By mine, it's quite possible. >"Role" is a somewhat unfortunate term; I only used it because I was >pointing out the problems in another article which referred to roles. >I would rather say something like "subject positions", so as to avoid >the implication that we can wear such positions (or not) like >costumes. I have no idea what you're talking about. My subject position is that of Steve Bloch, who has a number of properties (physical sex, educa- tional background, occupation, skin color, talents, interests...) Each of these contributes significantly to my "self", no one a great deal more than the rest. I see no reason to classify all (or many) behaviors, assumptions, and whatever else makes up a "subject position" into two mutually exclusive categories and label them "gender", nor to reify that label into a fundamental property of human personality, much less to associate those categories with physical sex (as Richard doesn't seem to want to do either). Oh, yeah... >...one sex has less access to >subjectivity than the other. In our society, women are oppressed in >this way, and men are not. To willfully misread this by using the everyday definition of subjectivity (introspection, emotion, empathy...) rather than the philosophical one you intended, I would have thought WOMEN in our society have more "access to subjectivity" than MEN do. Thus men are oppressed, and women are not. -- "I'm nobody's savior, and nobody's mine either..." -- Ferron Steve Bloch bloch@cs.ucsd.edu
gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) (01/15/91)
In article <1991Jan8.233427.22767@arris.com> (Richard Shapiro) writes: >Have you read *any* feminist theory at all? Do you keep up with the >new psychoanalytic and post-structuralist feminism (not even to >mention good old socialist feminism)? What is the basis for this >specious "hint"? I look at what the feminist movement *does*. I don't care too much what they write, till this writing becomes the basis for the actions.
dhw@iti.org (David H. West) (01/15/91)
In article <1991Jan8.233427.22767@arris.com> rshapiro@arris.COM (Richard Shapiro) writes: >In article <663265517@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit) writes: >>(Hint: what you call "understanding the gender system," I call >>"suggestion a new gender system which is more oppressive >>toward men than what we have now.") [rs gives short bibliography of what he describes as "the new psychoanalytic and post-structuralist feminism".] >What I call "understanding gender systems" is just that, as even a >casual glance at any of these books will show you. If you think >otherwise, please supply quotes from these books, or any other >substantive book of feminist theory. It's just *an* understanding; others are possible, and *all* are "merely social constructs", no matter how polysyllabic their names. But since you seem to think that a quote somehow has more weight than a netter's opinion, how about: "But there is enormous resistance to be overcome from those to whom exposing ideology _as_ ideology is truly shocking and outrageous, since for them ideology is _truth_, and to question it is to question the whole foundation of their world." Cate Poynton, "Language And Gender: Making The Difference", Oxford University Press, 1988; p88. ["_" = emphasis in original] -David West dhw@iti.org
jdravk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Jeanette Dravk) (01/15/91)
In article <15414@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> bloch@thor.ucsd.EDU (Steve Bloch) writes:
&"You" in this post refers to Richard Shapiro. I've posted this rather
&than emailing because I think it may be of interest to others than the
&two of us. If I'm wrong, tell me :-)
&>I don't agree that the existence of gender
&>per se is a problem. I don't see any reason to believe that any and
&>every gender system would priviledge one gender at the expense of the
&>other.
&>...
&>No, oppression is something else -- a specific
&>set of relations between the sexes in which one sex has less access to
&>subjectivity than the other. In our society, women are oppressed in
&>this way, and men are not.
&
&OK, you're defining "oppressed" as "on the losing end of an
&inequality", while I was using something more like "unnecessarily
&restricted in freedom". By your definition, certainly, it's
&mathematically impossible for everybody to be oppressed simultaneously
&(at least on the same dimension). By mine, it's quite possible.
By this definition, isn't it not only possible for everyone to be
oppressed but impossible for everyone to *not* be? I'm restricted
from killing the next person I meet (by law and the current definition
of a person), however, I would never kill someone. So for me, the
murder restriction of my freedom is unnecessary and I am therefore
oppressed.
But is it oppression? Society demands that everyone be restricted in
some way so that we can all co-exist as peacefully as possible. Hence
the need for restrictions such as the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights wherein the acceptable parameters of our behavior are defined
and limited.
So maybe what's needed here is a re-tuning of your model so that it
can give something a bit more useful. A model which demands that
*all* people must be oppressed is not very helpful when trying to
decide where and how oppression exists in our society.
j-
--
#*#*#*#*#*# Transient Creature of the Wide, Wild World #*#*#*#*#*#*#*
"Time is not linear to me, it is a nebulous web of existential freedom."bloch@thor.ucsd.EDU (Steve Bloch) (01/16/91)
jdravk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Jeanette Dravk) quotes me (addressing Richard Shapiro): >&OK, you're defining "oppressed" as "on the losing end of an >&inequality", while I was using something more like "unnecessarily >&restricted in freedom". By your definition, certainly, it's >&mathematically impossible for everybody to be oppressed simultaneously >&(at least on the same dimension). By mine, it's quite possible. and responds: >By this definition, isn't it not only possible for everyone to be >oppressed but impossible for everyone to *not* be? I'm restricted >from killing the next person I meet (by law and the current definition >of a person), however, I would never kill someone. So for me, the >murder restriction of my freedom is unnecessary and I am therefore >oppressed. Flip answer: If you "would never kill someone", then the laws against murder are not only unnecessary in your case but not a restriction of your freedom. Somewhat more meaningful, but off the subject, answer: There's a saying among libertarians that "laws kill morality". To wit, the more your behavior is circumscribed by positive and negative reinforcement from the legal system, the less opportunity you have to exercise (and develop) your moral sense and behave as a human being. In this sense, yes, that law blocks you in your journey of self- actualization, robbing you of the opportunity to seriously consider WHY you "would never kill someone", or to find exceptions to that rule, and thus oppresses you. However, I'm not actually that much of a libertarian. >But is it oppression? Society demands that everyone be restricted in >some way so that we can all co-exist as peacefully as possible. Hence >the need for restrictions such as the Constitution and the Bill of >Rights wherein the acceptable parameters of our behavior are defined >and limited. > >So maybe what's needed here is a re-tuning of your model so that it >can give something a bit more useful. A model which demands that >*all* people must be oppressed is not very helpful when trying to >decide where and how oppression exists in our society. I think you have a point here. I did say "UNNECESSARILY restricted in freedom," but this begs the question of whence the necessity is derived. The criterion "so that we can all co-exist as peacefully as possible" frightens me, as the worlds of _Fahrenheit_451_ and _Brave_New_World_ are peaceful indeed. I think I cannot give an absolute answer to this; my immediate reaction is to say "necessary under predominant social mores here and now in order to avoid significantly more bloodshed and suffering than are now present." In other words, the status quo, with a good helping of precognition. I'll work on it. -- "I'm nobody's savior, and nobody's mine either..." -- Ferron Steve Bloch bloch@cs.ucsd.edu
rshapiro@arris.COM (Richard Shapiro) (01/16/91)
In article <663265517@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit) writes: >(Hint: what you call "understanding the gender system," I call >"suggestion a new gender system which is more oppressive >toward men than what we have now.") To which I respond (after supplying an extensive list of counter-examples): >What I call "understanding gender systems" is just that, as even a >casual glance at any of these books will show you. And then, this: >In article <1991Jan9.154241.15961@iti.org> dhw@iti.org (David H. West) writes: > >It's just *an* understanding; others are possible, and *all* are >"merely social constructs", no matter how polysyllabic their names. I'm not sure I see the point of this. I don't understand exactly what you mean by "merely social constructs" (despite the fact that this phrase appears in quotes, I doubt I've ever used it myself), but I think I agree with this sentiment. Do you think we disagree? >But since you seem to think that a quote somehow has more weight than >a netter's opinion... I'll explain my point again since it's disappeared amidst the partial quotations. Mr Gazit claimed that I could not come up with any feminist books or articles that *explain* gender "roles" (that unfortunate term again) rather than prescribe them, because what I call "understanding gender systems" is actually something else (see above). He's mistaken, as I pointed out in the article quoted above. There are indeed plenty of such books. It's just that Mr Gazit hasn't read them. The reason? >[Gazit again:] >I look at what the feminist movement *does*. I don't care too much >what they write, till this writing becomes the basis for the actions. So that was my point. It is a simple factual error to claim that feminism is always geared towards suggesting "a new gender system which is more oppresive toward men than what we have now," an error caused by a simple refusal to consider any other sorts of feminism. Of course, if Mr Gazit were correct, he would have a good basis for his anti-feminist positions. But this particular basis simply won't stand up to scrutiny. Obviously this has nothing to do with "a netter's opinion" vs a quote. Finally: > "But there is enormous resistance to be overcome from those to > whom exposing ideology _as_ ideology is truly shocking and > outrageous, since for them ideology is _truth_, and to > question it is to question the whole foundation of their world." > > Cate Poynton, "Language And Gender: Making The Difference", > Oxford University Press, 1988; p88. ["_" = emphasis in original] Understanding gender, which is what I claimed theoretical feminism is about, means exactly to understand it as ideology, thereby shaking its apparant connection to truth or nature. As we see on soc.feminism (and elsewhere) there is indeed enormous resistance to this project. Again, I'm not sure if you think you're disagreeing with me or not. I don't see any disagreement at all, at least if the quote from Poynton is intended to buttress your own position.
jdravk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Jeanette Dravk) (01/18/91)
In article <15617@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> bloch@thor.ucsd.EDU (Steve Bloch) writes: > >I think you have a point here. I did say "UNNECESSARILY restricted in >freedom," but this begs the question of whence the necessity is >derived. The criterion "so that we can all co-exist as peacefully as >possible" frightens me, as the worlds of _Fahrenheit_451_ and >_Brave_New_World_ are peaceful indeed. I think I cannot give an >absolute answer to this; my immediate reaction is to say "necessary >under predominant social mores here and now in order to avoid >significantly more bloodshed and suffering than are now present." In >other words, the status quo, with a good helping of precognition. > >I'll work on it. I'll be very interested to see what you come up with. I hope you post it if and when you find a viable solution. One of the biggest problems with attempting to solve "gender issues" is the fact that there's really no effective, comprehensive model for measuring and projecting oppresion on a given group. I think the model will have to assume that everyone (by nature of societies functions, which I think we approximately agree on) is oppressed to some degree. The problem is, who is oppressed to the point where it effectively cripples their creative functionality, what's the definition of oppression such that it cripples an individual's contributions to society/themselves and how are these groups/individuals oppressed? Keep up the good work! j- -- #*#*#*#*#*# Transient Creature of the Wide, Wild World #*#*#*#*#*#*#* "Time is not linear to me, it is a nebulous web of existential freedom."