Gender Studies Crash Course - Lab Stylee
So I have a bay mate who I am getting to be friends with. It's Newish Indian Post-Doc (NIPD) who you will remember from the baking incident. NIPD took me into confidence about his dating woes and complained that he just doesn't know what women want! He also made some comments about how dating (a woman) takes up too much time and money. However, he still would like to date one ... How to resolve this?! To help my new friend I wrote the following.
Dear NIPD,
I've been thinking about this for several days so I am going to be presumptuous and adopt a slightly professorial tone for a few minutes. I don't mean to be in any way condescending, but I have thought, read, and talked a lot about these issues over the last ten years - possibly at the expense of knowing calculus.
It occurs to me, and I'm sure this is hardly a new or novel thought, that the stereotypical "woman who wants money from men" is a product of patriarchal culture itself. Traditionally, well-paying professions (or any professions, depending on how far removed in space/time you are from Boston in 2007) have been reserved for males. Women are/have been expected to remain dependent on male relatives (father, husband) their whole lives. It's still true even in America today that women make 75 cents to the dollar of their male equivalents in the workplace, and female versions of the same occupation ("cook" vs "chef") tend to be lower status that the males'. Let's forget Larry Summers' hypothesis for a minute and focus on demonstrable history.
For most of our history, the males have been calling the shots (for various reasons), and as my step-dad always says, though usually he says it in the context of labor relations: When someone's got the pie and they've also got the knife, who do you think is going to get the biggest slice? There's a particular advantage to limiting the pool of workers in competition for jobs (and some advantage, historically, for division of arduous domestic labor). (Aside: this holds true for race/caste as well as sex.) The option for women in this system is to hawk their only constant asset, i.e. their bodies. Historically, the respectable version of this is marriage, in which the woman trades access to her reproductive system in exchange for social and material support, but generally at the cost of her freedom. The other version is prostitution, in which the woman is more physically free (not beholden to one particular man or family) but is socially castigated. Of course, here and now it's not as clear cut, but the wife/whore dichotomy still holds cultural sway.
In any case, the basic principles of sex inequality remain:
1) systematic or unintentional discrimination (old boys' club networking, boss less likely to hire woman who may have babies soon, male boss feeling "just more comfortable" around men);
2) the cook vs chef issue (studies have been done that show an unconscious bias in both men and women to rank a male resume over a female's even though they have the same qualifications; see Nature article by the male-to-female scientist for more evidence of this); and
3) the emphasis on a woman's youth and beauty as defining her value and social standing (e.g. there are lots of mediocre looking actors, but very few non-gorgeous actresses; people feel free to comment on Hilary Clinton's physical appearance in a way they would not think of doing about John Edwards - talk to me later about Barack Obama, that's the Race In America lecture!)
Read any Victorian novel and it's all about match-making - mostly (with a few notable exceptions) about girls making the best match in terms of wealth and social status. Gold-digging? Think of this: these characters know that they have no way to advance their wealth and social standing apart from through a man! It's only recently, in this country, that women could vote, own property (and not have to turn it over to their husbands upon marriage), open a bank account without a male relative, attend universities (Princeton didn't admit women until 1969). If those women didn't "marry up" they had to make a living as a governess or live on charity, neither of which option had any social status at all. Their marriageablility was based on either their parents' wealth or on their "charms and virtues" which, if you think about it, all relate directly to their being ornamental and likely to bear their husband's children. Which means that a woman is foremost a body which exists for the needs of others (men, children) rather than a person with personhood and agency in and of herself.
It's somewhat different here and now, but not completely different. The old modes of thinking persist. We humans have short memories and have trouble thinking outside of our own experiences. This is why when mysoginist "funny" emails circulate, otherwise educated people laugh at them, feel slightly mystified about "what women want", and feel put upon by the thought of being judged as a material resource by the opposite sex...
But now, having thought about it, we can see that the problem is inherent in the system; in fact, it is created by the system. The only solution is to move beyond gender roles toward a system in which womens' work is valued and renumerated equal to mens'. Some people actually don't want this, because it means giving up that pie knife. It also means, for the knife-wielders (i.e. men as a group), giving up power over reproduction and companionship, which historically have been up for purchase, to the suppliers of those things (i.e. women as a group).
However, people like you and I, who are interested in people as people and not as vehicles for the satisfaction of our own needs, don't need to keep that dynamic or to traditional notions of gender. In fact, gender roles hurt both of us. It's a little more obvious why they hurt me, as a woman, in terms of power and resources, but you, as a male, also suffer personally, as we have seen. We are not people who need the uniforms of gender to tell us who we are or what to think or how to be. I don't need for my husband to make more money than me in order to find him valuable, and his masculinity doesn't enter into it. I know he's a man. He knows he's a man. And what's so special about being a man, anyway? Half the world are men. Likewise, I don't want my professional peers to judge me on my boobs. Half the people in the world have boobs. So what? I'm Joolya first, and a boob carrier second. Anyone who judges you for not conforming to gender norms is lame and not worth getting involved with. But we enlightened people do exist. We're just beset on all sides by tv and magazines and stupid people who don't know any better. But we all just need to get over gender, or we will stay being unsatisfied.
It's impossible to have a satisfying, intimate relationship with someone who you view as different or less human than yourself (or members of your group, whether that is racial, or sexual, or religious, etc.). Hence the plight of the heterosexual! I mean, how can you get closeness and sex and love from someone you objectify? By "objectify" I don't just mean gaze at lustfully. I mean not seeing that person as just as much of a person as you yourself are. Loving an object is not love.
The system is deeply, deeply entrenched and I'm sure you will see it everywhere you look now. But I think we, as tiny little antlike individuals, can help swing the balance away from inequality and dehumanization by confronting those things in ourselves and in our lives day to day. Even if it's just something so small as looking at a mysogynistic joke and thinking about why it is or is not funny.
Okay, lecture over. If you're still even reading, I hope I haven't said anything patronising. I'm rather passionate on this topic, and I like you too much to not tell you what I think. I'll even loan you my copy of The Feminine Mystique, which is eye-popping, and a good read, too.
Sincerely,
Joolya
PS I need the microscope tomorrow.
Dear NIPD,
I've been thinking about this for several days so I am going to be presumptuous and adopt a slightly professorial tone for a few minutes. I don't mean to be in any way condescending, but I have thought, read, and talked a lot about these issues over the last ten years - possibly at the expense of knowing calculus.
It occurs to me, and I'm sure this is hardly a new or novel thought, that the stereotypical "woman who wants money from men" is a product of patriarchal culture itself. Traditionally, well-paying professions (or any professions, depending on how far removed in space/time you are from Boston in 2007) have been reserved for males. Women are/have been expected to remain dependent on male relatives (father, husband) their whole lives. It's still true even in America today that women make 75 cents to the dollar of their male equivalents in the workplace, and female versions of the same occupation ("cook" vs "chef") tend to be lower status that the males'. Let's forget Larry Summers' hypothesis for a minute and focus on demonstrable history.
For most of our history, the males have been calling the shots (for various reasons), and as my step-dad always says, though usually he says it in the context of labor relations: When someone's got the pie and they've also got the knife, who do you think is going to get the biggest slice? There's a particular advantage to limiting the pool of workers in competition for jobs (and some advantage, historically, for division of arduous domestic labor). (Aside: this holds true for race/caste as well as sex.) The option for women in this system is to hawk their only constant asset, i.e. their bodies. Historically, the respectable version of this is marriage, in which the woman trades access to her reproductive system in exchange for social and material support, but generally at the cost of her freedom. The other version is prostitution, in which the woman is more physically free (not beholden to one particular man or family) but is socially castigated. Of course, here and now it's not as clear cut, but the wife/whore dichotomy still holds cultural sway.
In any case, the basic principles of sex inequality remain:
1) systematic or unintentional discrimination (old boys' club networking, boss less likely to hire woman who may have babies soon, male boss feeling "just more comfortable" around men);
2) the cook vs chef issue (studies have been done that show an unconscious bias in both men and women to rank a male resume over a female's even though they have the same qualifications; see Nature article by the male-to-female scientist for more evidence of this); and
3) the emphasis on a woman's youth and beauty as defining her value and social standing (e.g. there are lots of mediocre looking actors, but very few non-gorgeous actresses; people feel free to comment on Hilary Clinton's physical appearance in a way they would not think of doing about John Edwards - talk to me later about Barack Obama, that's the Race In America lecture!)
Read any Victorian novel and it's all about match-making - mostly (with a few notable exceptions) about girls making the best match in terms of wealth and social status. Gold-digging? Think of this: these characters know that they have no way to advance their wealth and social standing apart from through a man! It's only recently, in this country, that women could vote, own property (and not have to turn it over to their husbands upon marriage), open a bank account without a male relative, attend universities (Princeton didn't admit women until 1969). If those women didn't "marry up" they had to make a living as a governess or live on charity, neither of which option had any social status at all. Their marriageablility was based on either their parents' wealth or on their "charms and virtues" which, if you think about it, all relate directly to their being ornamental and likely to bear their husband's children. Which means that a woman is foremost a body which exists for the needs of others (men, children) rather than a person with personhood and agency in and of herself.
It's somewhat different here and now, but not completely different. The old modes of thinking persist. We humans have short memories and have trouble thinking outside of our own experiences. This is why when mysoginist "funny" emails circulate, otherwise educated people laugh at them, feel slightly mystified about "what women want", and feel put upon by the thought of being judged as a material resource by the opposite sex...
But now, having thought about it, we can see that the problem is inherent in the system; in fact, it is created by the system. The only solution is to move beyond gender roles toward a system in which womens' work is valued and renumerated equal to mens'. Some people actually don't want this, because it means giving up that pie knife. It also means, for the knife-wielders (i.e. men as a group), giving up power over reproduction and companionship, which historically have been up for purchase, to the suppliers of those things (i.e. women as a group).
However, people like you and I, who are interested in people as people and not as vehicles for the satisfaction of our own needs, don't need to keep that dynamic or to traditional notions of gender. In fact, gender roles hurt both of us. It's a little more obvious why they hurt me, as a woman, in terms of power and resources, but you, as a male, also suffer personally, as we have seen. We are not people who need the uniforms of gender to tell us who we are or what to think or how to be. I don't need for my husband to make more money than me in order to find him valuable, and his masculinity doesn't enter into it. I know he's a man. He knows he's a man. And what's so special about being a man, anyway? Half the world are men. Likewise, I don't want my professional peers to judge me on my boobs. Half the people in the world have boobs. So what? I'm Joolya first, and a boob carrier second. Anyone who judges you for not conforming to gender norms is lame and not worth getting involved with. But we enlightened people do exist. We're just beset on all sides by tv and magazines and stupid people who don't know any better. But we all just need to get over gender, or we will stay being unsatisfied.
It's impossible to have a satisfying, intimate relationship with someone who you view as different or less human than yourself (or members of your group, whether that is racial, or sexual, or religious, etc.). Hence the plight of the heterosexual! I mean, how can you get closeness and sex and love from someone you objectify? By "objectify" I don't just mean gaze at lustfully. I mean not seeing that person as just as much of a person as you yourself are. Loving an object is not love.
The system is deeply, deeply entrenched and I'm sure you will see it everywhere you look now. But I think we, as tiny little antlike individuals, can help swing the balance away from inequality and dehumanization by confronting those things in ourselves and in our lives day to day. Even if it's just something so small as looking at a mysogynistic joke and thinking about why it is or is not funny.
Okay, lecture over. If you're still even reading, I hope I haven't said anything patronising. I'm rather passionate on this topic, and I like you too much to not tell you what I think. I'll even loan you my copy of The Feminine Mystique, which is eye-popping, and a good read, too.
Sincerely,
Joolya
PS I need the microscope tomorrow.
posted by Joolya at
9:36 AM
10 Comments:
That is a fantastic response. I am going to instruct several people to read it.
Good post, Joolya. I believe a number of suitable choices would find it congenial, leaving you to manage the selection.
How'd I get here, BTW?
Here here! Nicely said.
Good retort! (The "P.S." is a nice touch)
If individuals actually had to walk in another's shoes, maybe we would see more mercy than 'knee-jerk' justice, or myopic opinions from pampered folks that have too few years on the planet to actually realize what is really important.
After 'chopping the wood & hauling the water' for too many years, one gets a more balanced opinion concerning life matters, and gender stereotypes.
The most sensible, fairest, and society enhancing positions seem to be the following:
Do not shit where you eat.
Clean up the messes that you have made.
Treat others as you wish to be personally treated.
This is just (uncommon?) 'common sense'. Sometimes, it appears that some folks just Do Not understand.
Oy, Don, I often wonder why they call it "common sense," when it's clear that so few people seem to possess it. But I think that some people don't understand becuase they do not want to understand, or worse -- they do understand and choose contrary positions and perform contrary actions because they are selfish and cynical.
Joolya, thanks for the summary. I too will be instructing people to read it.
Very good, Joolya. It's important you keep telling men because otherwise nothing happens. This is why Don's pie metaphor is so useful, because if you don't complain about getting a smaller slice, the person holding the knife won't give you an equal one. That said, I wonder if your colleague is really holding the knife in this case. Many geeky academics find it hard to get people to go out with them. Maybe he blames the expense and difficulty so he doesn't have to blame himself. I think a lot of men fear women's power to reject them, and this turns into contempt or misogyny. It's easier than self-contempt.
What a great post! Thank you, and bookmarked!
Personally, I don't understand why in this supposedly new age of equality that the guy has to always pay for dating expenses. I thought young people had resolved that issue.
Back in the day, I never let the guy pay for me after I figured out guys thought that somehow paying for dinner entitled him to sex.
Nice post.
people feel free to comment on Hilary Clinton's physical appearance in a way they would not think of doing about John Edwards
Hmm. He's known as pretty boy 'round here.
thank you
- to the comment about making a guy pay?
I usually offer to go dutch over coffee/lunch for a first date. Some men insist on paying and as one friend explained, "you have the babies, I can pay for dinner." and it came from such a truly respectful place how can I say no? And sometimes people do nice things for each other:) And sometimes those men can pay to have my attention. And sometimes I just think fuck it, I like feeling like I get to have stuff handed to me. I like my entitlement in this one area of society so open that door, fetch and carry and damnit, where's your wallet, my coffee is cooling!
I NEVER go for an expensive meal due to feeling that I owed them something. I felt them feeling it. It's very scary that space of objectification. Of having the actions of a normally nice guy tell you that you are no longer a person to him.
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