Catharine A. MacKinnon - Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination

Equal!

            Sex equality law has been incredibly ineffective at establishing equality for women. This is problematic when attempting to establish a life that allows women to thrive. Protecting their physical security, self-expression, and respect and dignity. MacKinnon discusses how sex discrimination law bounds gender equality by difference. Which, suggests that women should “be the same as men.” This is at least one way to incorporate sex equality. However, is this notion not problematic? Women and men are different, and thus sex equality cannot be reached for women with them being the same as men. The alternate route of course is being different then men, but gender neutrality is the male standard. While it is no secret to feminists it is known that “man has become the measure of all things.” Subsequently, women are then measured according to their relation to men.

            The important question brought up within this article is how do we get women access to all the things men have, and all the things they have been excluded from. The trouble is, part of what women have now has been because of the struggle. The struggle implemented change, and respect, without the struggle what would the world be like for women today?

            “ Men’s physiology defines most sports, their needs define auto and health insurance coverage, their socially designed biographies define workplace expectations and successful career patterns, their perspectives and concerns define quality in scholarship, their experiences and obsessions define merit, their objectification of life defines art, their military defines family, their inability to get along with each other—their wars and rulerships – defines history, their image defines god, and their genitals define sex.”

                        How can sex equality be equal when the above clearly states that most things are regulated based on men? Which seems a bit odd, because men can’t give birth, and if they are unable to provide life, why are they the center of all of these activities. Sex equality needs to be reshaped, and society needs to be reshaped in order for it to be successful.

            If sex equality was dominant and incorporated women successfully, maybe the amount of rape would be decreased. It seems impossible that with the severe rape attempts, and actual rapes that harm 44 percent of women, nothing is done. Seems incredibly wrong, and if sexual equality existed it probably wouldn’t be the case. The article goes on to state, “men who do not rape women have nothing wrong with their hormones.”  Is raping women considered to be the norm for men? I don’t think so.

            Sexual equality doesn’t include making less money than a man does for the same job. It also doesn’t include being humiliated and degraded in pornography, or being bought and sold. If there were sexual equality women wouldn’t be in situations of poverty, and in jobs that are harmful. Sexual equality would be exactly that. Equal. Women would have the same opportunity as men, and therefore everyone would be equal and have a fair opportunity to secure jobs. While sex doesn’t always play a role in these situations, because class ethnicity and poverty also have a lot to do with some situations, women are normally the ones who find themselves trapped within these situations and this is what needs to change. 

            “Men are as different from women as women are from men.” This needs to be discussed within society, and even though men and women are different in no way suggests that one sex should be treated as inferior to the other. Why is society so threatened with having women at equal status to men? This hierarchy has been around for far too long, and it doesn’t make sense. The difference approach and the dominance approach discussed within this article clear up a lot about sexual equality. The difference approach suggests that male supremacy should be the “status of the sexes.” Men are the standard in this approach. In society however, men are not the standard. The feminist approach, which is the dominance approach, realizes the subordination of women. Will this realization change the way sex equality is viewed?

            I agree with MacKinnon, give women equal power, and let them be heard. Sex equality cannot continually be based on the differences between the sexes. Let the women be heard, and sex equality can truly be that. Equal. 

YEAH!

Freedman - Sexism

Freedman sexuality

            In her article on sexuality, Freedman defines sexuality as an arena of both oppressive inequalities as well as a struggle to reach liberation for women. Freedman is very critical of men and masculinity as she believes that male domination in today’s society shapes female sexuality. One of the ways that this takes place is through rape, which happens much more often than we would like to think it does.  However, Freedman does not fall into the trap of simply criticizing men for the oppression of women in today’s world; but rather, she lays out the reasons as to why women are such prominent victims of sexism.

            For example, Freedman is not afraid to be critical of the fact that feminists need to work together in order to end this oppression and not be so divided. She uses the example of the radical feminist view (gender controlled by men) versus political theoretical tradition (historic repression of sexuality). In order for the feminist movement to flourish, feminists must be one collective entity rather than scattered pieces sharing the same vague concepts. Another example of the split between feminists has been the anti-pornography literature. Many feminists began to ask questions as to what exactly the tone and content of the literature was as they were frightened of the possibility of the movement conflating sexuality and violence, even going so far to say that the literature against pornography ‘played into the traditional antisexual attitudes of American culture.’ As Freedman goes on she explains that rather than engaging in fair dialogue, these two opposing forces soon engaged in ‘polarized debtate’. All this split did was create further chaos among an already difficult time for many feminists and women fighting for rights. In essence these feminists were being sexist towards each other in that they were criticizing each other for their own views on sexuality; women were oppressing women.

            To further this topic of feminist’s being split are the two views of radical and liberal feminist positions, both of which have differing views on many features, particularly those of sexuality. However, as Freedman explains, both are ‘ahistorical and insufficiently complex’ views that do little to better the feminist world. Each of these views has their own personal paradigm of sexuality. These debates within feminist society about sex and sexuality, exemplify the centrality of the languages of sexuality as well as control within the modern feminist world.

            According to Freedman sexuality is about pleasure and intimacy. Assuming we understand sexuality, we see it as a socially constructed term. Sexuality is mainly about having control over one’s body in that sexuality shapes one’s own identity. In today’s society it is very difficult to even start talking about sexism and sex in more general. In order to be critical of different ideas revolving around sexuality we must overcome resistances externally and internally as we live in a society that is quite inhospitable to any sort of analysis of sexuality. To be more specific, the sexuality of the female in particular is considered taboo in many cultures. We must be brave to overcome these obstacles as the majority of the time if one is speaking about sexuality one will be speaking in opposition and to do this is to encourage strong and negative reactions.

Butler - Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire

"... The distinction between sex and gender serves the argument that whatever biological intractability sex appears to have, gender is culturally constructed: hence gender is neither the causal result of sex nor as seemingly fixed as sex."

            Judith Butler critiques the distinctions made between sex and gender. What is sex? What is gender? They are both culturally constructed. While yes, I always knew that gender was a social construct, but to argue that sex itself was also culturally constructed seemed incredibly strange to me. While continuing to read Butlers piece I began to draw the connections that both of these are constructed culturally within today’s society. There is no longer a binary of sexes, but multi-levels, and therefore one cannot solidify sex into one specific category. So, back to the question of what is sex? Is it just the biological traits associated with what it is to be male and what it is to be female? I no longer believe that this is the case. Sex according to Butler is culturally constructed much like gender. It is strange to think that men will exclusively relate to male bodies, and females only to female bodies. Society no longer has this binary, and to define behaviors and norms based around the discussion of sex and gender is incredibly problematic.

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            The article goes on to state, "Gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a pre-given sex (a juridical conception) gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established." Gender is what society believes how specific sex should act, and behave. For example, because of the way men have been socially constructed it is difficult for them to have relationships with other men without be perceived as gay. Male friendships are usually displayed in forms of comedy, in order to avoid the emotional attachment that is usually associated with females, and their friendships. Continuing on, they way females have been socially constructed is that if they have more than one sexual partner they are deemed to be “slutty”, which is ridiculous, because men are applauded for this behavior. Nonetheless, it is obvious that gender is culturally constructed. The discussion however, about sex being culturally constructed somewhat baffles me. Sex; if your born with a penis you are a man, and if your born with a vagina you are a woman. However, if you’re born with a penis and identify as a woman doesn’t that change your sex? Why does it have to be so solidified as Men and Women? Why can’t society wrap their heads around the idea of more than two sexes?

Really Though?

  “Whether gender of sex is fixed or free is a function of a discourse which seeks to set certain limits to analysis or to safeguard certain tenets of humanism as presuppositional to any analysis of gender. The locus of intractability, whether in “sex” or “gender” or in the very meaning of “construction,” provides a clue to what cultural possibilities can and cannot become mobilized through any further analysis.”

www.vfa.us/ - Archive Miss America Pageant

"VFA is a nonprofit organization for veterans of the Second Wave of the feminist movement. The goals are to enjoy the camaraderie forged during those years of intense commitment, to honor ourselves and our heroes, to document our history, to rekindle the spark and spirit of the feminist revolution and act as keeper of the flame so that the ideals of feminism continue to reverberate and influence others."

Link

 Miss America Pageant - While sifting through the articles on this website, I encountered this article 
 that states essentially that there should no longer be a Miss America Pageant. These pageants are 
 extremely problematic in the sense that they in a way hyper-sexualize women, and give young girls 
 role models with ideal beauty in mind. While yes, they aren't shown as a Victoria Secret Fashion show, but they still promote a message to young girls that they are to look a certain way, and act a certain way in order to be socially accepted within society.

First Black Miss America - Vanessa Williams

The article in question was written during a time where Black women weren't even eligible to enter. While, this has now changed majority of winners remain white females. "Our purpose was not to put down Miss America but to attack the male chauvinism, commercialization of beauty, racism and oppression of women symbolized by the Pageant. We arrived on the Boardwalk at 2 p.m. Saturday and began picketing in front of Convention Hall. Some of our signs read: "Everyone is Beautiful," "I am a Woman, Not a Toy, Pet or Mascot," "Who Dares to Judge Beauty," and "Welcome to the Miss America Cattle Auction." Commercialization of beauty has become increasingly problematic, and with a neo-liberal capitalist society is only ever increasing. Consumption has become huge, and the lengths women go to now in order to endorse beauty is detrimental to women's health across the globe. Stemming from bleaching treatments to look white, or Asian women going in for plastic surgery to make their eyes look more like a white woman's eyes. The fact that in some villages where woman are considered beautiful when they are curvy is ever changing because of media. These women are instead starving themselves to fit this ideal that the Miss America pageant helps promote. Jessica Simpson reveals some of these destructions on her show the Price of Beauty. Where she goes all over the world, and sees how different woman define beauty.

 Continuing on the website itself has a lot to offer, I'm speaking to a specific article that struck my interest, but it has poems about women, and various other resources to sift through and learn from and is all in all empowering.

I have a question... there is no male equivalent to pageants? 

Bromance - Always Comedic, or seen as 'Gay'

All of the above are examples of Movies where "Bromances" are shown in comedic fashion. A Bromance being a relationship between two men, who aren't afraid to show their love for each other.

Sexism- Cudd and Jones

Cudd and Jones Sexism

                  “There are one hundred million missing women. Many more in the world lack access to education and many more are illiterate.” (Cudd 73) With this words in their [Cudd and Jones] opening paragraph, they set the table for their piece on sexism. I personally had no idea that such an enormous amount of women are simply missing from the world. Just as scary of a fact is how many more women are being exploited due to sexism. I found many of Cudd and Jones’ ideas on sexism interesting in that they were able to outline why the different forms sexism takes place, why there is sexism in the world, and lastly, they explain how there are two views that feminists have towards sexism. 

                  There are two possible reasons as to why sexism and inequality is so present in our world today. The first could be purely biological. That is that many, including both women and men; see that by nature and biology women are a inferior and weaker species. There is one problem with this view that many people have. The reason is that men and women are the species so one cannot be inferior to the other either biologically or intellectually. They go hand in hand; an example of this is to look at a bird and its wings. One of these wings is man and the other is women. It is not until both of these wings are equally developed biologically can the bird fly and should one of the wings remain weak then flight is impossible. In essence then not until men and women are seen as equals then society will be unable to flourish. Another reason why there are so many inequalities among us today is that women are systematically disadvantaged by society. It is because of this that without a massive change in society then women will continue to be victims of sexism.

                  Cudd and Jones divide sexism into three levels. The first two are standard and quite easy to understand, however, I originally had some difficulties fully comprehending the last one. The first is Institutional sexism. This is sexism through social institutions and the sexual inequalities within “the explicit rules and implicit norms governing and structuring these social institutions” (Cudd 78). The example that is given in their piece is within the Catholic Church in that how all priests are to be men and all women are to be nuns. I can definitely understand how this could create controversy and that many they should have used a less critical example in order to sway more people to their side of the argument. I do have to agree with them though that the fact that such a prominent aspect of today’s society that practically everywhere around the world is practiced shows this aspect of sexism within a revered institution is a major cause for concern.

                  The second level is interpersonal sexism which “involves interactions between persons that are not governed by explicit rules”. (Cudd 78) In essence interpersonal sexism takes place through the interactions among individuals in everyday life, whether between friends or co-workers. The main example of this is in sports. When reading this part I instantly thought back to the aspect of how women are seen as biologically inferior to men. I felt that using sports as an example of sexism could create a problem for readers on the feminist fence. The reason is that Cudd and Jones are not saying that women should compete with men in sports because in some cases this simply is not able to happen however, what they are saying is that girls and women should still have the same opportunity as boys and men to at least be able to play or even succeed at sports that boys do at such a young age. Without a doubt boys are clearly much more encouraged to become involved with sports then girls.

http://pfitzinger.com/labreports/womenmarathoners.shtml                 
That last level of sexism is the Unconscious level. This “refers to the psychological mechanisms and tacit beliefs, emotions and attitudes that create, constitute, promote, sustain, and/or exploit invidious sexual inequalities.” (Cudd 79) Well this is a lot for just a definition of one part of something and I originally had some difficulties unpacking it and I wish Cudd and Jones had made this definition somewhat more clear. I ended up deciding what it meant was the personal level of both the cognitive and effective processes of individuals and how these create a sexist world. In essence unconscious sexism is the precursor to the first two levels and they are each the result of unconscious sexism.

                  Lastly Cudd and Jones reflect on the two feminist views on sexism. I first have a problem with this. The reason is that if feminists would like to be seen as a prominent group of people then they need to be unified in their decisions that they make or the views that they have because they are simply not powerful enough to have different views on different features and that this creates a sense of anarchy. Perhaps the biggest example of this is religion. Christianity has hundreds of sects and has thousands of problems with it and how it is run, specifically resulting from being disunities.  The first view that feminists have is equality feminism which believe that social institutions are the main medium of sexism and that these institutions must be torn down in order to end sexism. The second group of feminists is difference feminists which explain that unconscious desires are the main medium of sexism and that social institutions are the result. I felt that each of the views has ideas that I can agree with and was curious if there was any view that was a combination because I would be on board.

                 

Men - Bell Hooks

Bell hooks men

                  Bell hooks explains that feminism is defined as a movement that has a goal to end sexist oppression, which in turn “enables women and men, girls and boys, to participate equally in revolutionary struggle.” (hooks 68) Throughout her chapter entitled Comrades in Struggle bell hooks discusses how feminism has been primarily a struggle by women, however, as she explains, this is not all a result of a growing anti-feminist way of though by men. This is something that I personally endorse in that many feminists believe men are the only reason for women’s oppression and throw away any notion that women themselves are their own oppressors.  Throughout her book bell hooks repeatedly explains how women are just as much and in some cases, more to blame then men when examining the causes for enormous amounts of inequalities and this is clearly a breath of fresh air. Never is this more evident than in her chapter on men.

                  The history and future of feminism has been primarily designated as ‘women’s work’, and it is as if feminisms do not even want to give men a chance at aiding their suffering. Women are just as much to blame for sexism as feminism can been seen as an institution which creates inequalities itself as many feminists are critical of men’s inhibition to do nothing in the world of feminism. As bell hooks explains, “Women’s liberationists called upon all women to join feminist movement, but they did not continually stress that men should assume responsibility for actively struggling to end sexist oppression.” (bell hooks 68)

                  Bell hooks is able to portray this feature of feminist society by using the example of the relationship between black men and women versus the relationship between white men and women. Since both black men and women have gone through gigantic amounts of oppression and discrimination throughout their history they are each able to better understand any future hindrances that they come across, resulting in each coming to the aid of the other to such an extent that can create a positive impact. However, as bell hooks explains, white men and women, specifically those within the bourgeoisie, are unable to understand these ties between  men and women within something such as liberation struggle and as a result, have not had nearly as many positive experiences connecting with the opposite sex. (hooks 70) However, even though this is somewhat of a valid excuse, it is still not a good enough reason as to why men and women cannot work together. It is almost as if some women feel as if feminism belongs to them, and that if they lose feminism to men then they will not be as powerful, or as special as they were before. Clearly though the way that women are oppressed currently is no way to live and any help should be greatly appreciated.

                  Although bell hooks explains that men are not at all the only reason why there is so much gender oppression globally, she also does not shy away from still putting part of the blame on men. She explains how all men support sexism as well as sexist oppression in one way or another and that just like women, men have also been socially molded to accept sexist ideology (bell hooks 73). Although men should not completely blame themselves for the creation of sexism, they still must assume part of the burden and responsibility for eliminating it.

                  Without a doubt women are the prime victims of sexism, however, even as bell hooks explains, men too are victims in many ways of oppression and sexism. I for one sometimes feel this way; an example would be how I am a fan and enjoy listening to Madonna. However, it should be easy to understand for anyone living in today’s world how this could be taken in a negative way, resulting in people believing me to be homosexual (‘not that there’s anything wrong with that’).  It is unfair to say that women are the only victims of sexism currently as there are numerous cases of men being unfairly judged as a result of institutional sexism.

                  Overall feminism is in dire need of men and sexism will never end without the assistance of men. “Since men are the primary agents maintain and supporting sexism and sexist oppression, they can only be successfully eradicated if men are compelled to assume responsibility for transforming their consciousness and the consciousness of society as a whole.” (bell hooks 83)