Theory Nerds!

[Mary]

A great deal of feminism, once you get beyong the basic let us vote/let us speak/let us work/don't beat us into cooperation, is about choice. But in having those choices, without giving men those same choices, where are we?

Ah, but here I think smart feminists will say that feminism isn't just about getting more choices for women. It's about creating a society in which gender roles don't produce constrained subjects - both men and women. Just as an intereseting side note, my dissertation advisor wrote her own dissertation, many years ago, on the way in which political theory constructs "manhood" - feminists aren't just interested in women, they're interested in gender, period.

So, then, men should have the same choices. In fact, it's essential for women that men do have the same choices. If it's just maternity leave, and not also paternity leave, then the policy reinforces the notion that a woman's role is to stay home and look after the children, that she has more of an obligation and more of a natural calling than her husband to do so, and so that she requires time off from work more than a man. So gender equity here is essential. I think there should be both maternity and paternity leave.

I know, I know... but only women can become pregnant. For the sake of conserving space, I'm bracketing this, but I'm aware it's a "real" difference and I don't mind various kinds of employment policies taking this into account where it's really relevant to the kind of work being done.

Now these kinds of broad leave policies might well threaten absolute economic efficiency. Fine. I don't see any reason why absolute economic efficiency trumps all other interests. Society has an interest in efficiency, it also has an interest in loving parents and healthy families and good care for newborns. There are no trump cards here.

.....obviously none of this addresses the other debate regarding the sexual objectification of women.... one thing at a time!!

Cheers,
M

[Meursault]

Women can have all the power, as far as i'm concerned, i want to sit at home and clean the house and play with the kids and make food.

Thanks to my ancient male ancestors for thinking ahead and using reverse psychology, i honor the debt i owe to them.

[Mary]

Last but not least....

Do women "have" to take their clothes off to succeed in entertainment?

Obviously, taken as a statement of absolute truth in all circumstances, the answer is no. No one holds a gun to an aspiring singer's head and demands that she take it all off.

But that's hardly the point. As I tried to say before, first, it's an incredibly narrow conception of freedom where "choice" simply means that no one is about to blow your brains out if you don't comply. Choice can obviously be entirely denied through violent compulsion, but it can also be shaped, influenced, and constrained through socialization.

The question for me is what kind of messages do women receive regarding the qualities for which they are valued, the ways in which society regards them? And here one brief look at the barrage of half-dressed borderline anorexics in the mass media makes the answer clear. It's not just about the biggest actresses and singers (nor, incidentally, am I saying that every instance of derobing is the equivalent of sexual objectification! I'd be out of my mind to suggest that Jodie Foster was sexually objectifying herself by playing a rape victim in The Accused because her clothes got partially ripped off) It's about the images of women in commercials, the women who will be chosen for reality TV parts, the women who will be chosen to be VJs on MTV and VH1, and what they will be asked to wear. And I'm not suggesting there are no exceptions, or that men are never similarly objectified. It's not about absolutes, it's about general tendencies. And I can't beleive it's really arguable that the general tendency is toward presenting women, far more than men, as sex objects.

I realize this is just an anecdote, but... the other day I watched this adapatation of a Bret Easton Ellis book (god I loathe him), The Rules of Attraction. It's supposed to be about a Northeastern liberal arts college in the 80s. There's a scene in the movie of a party - all the women at the party look like beautiful models, and moreover, they're all completely naked. On the other hand, all the men are fully clothed. Tits everywhere, not a penis in sight. Moreover, the men come in all shapes and sizes - fat, trim, fit, skinny, bald, ugly, etc etc. In the corner a fat stubby short guy is getting a blowjob from a beautiful naked woman with huge tits. Obviously this is the problem in hyper-exacerbated form, as we can only expect from a fuckwad like Bret Easton Ellis. But it still seemed fairly normal as an image, fairly expected, nothing too jarring or shocking about it. On the other hand try if you can to imagine the converse scene: try to imagine a movie which featured a college party where all the men were naked, all the women were fully clothed, all the men looked like models, and in the corner a naked Adonis was giving oral pleasure to a fat chick with pimples. It's almost completely and totally unimaginable. People wouldn't even be able to process what they were looking at. You just wouldn't see a scene like that in any mainstream movie, ever.

To me, the fact that those two scenes soooo obviously feel completely different, that one isn't particularly surprising and the other is totally jarring, demonstrates the kind of images we're used to, and the way in which women, far more often than men, are portrayed merely as sex objects.

Cheers,
M

[luke]

One of my communication professors, she had a lecture where she told us guys to just sit there and shut up, and she'd explain to the women why they didn't make as much in the workplace.

First thing she did was bring a guy in front of the class and ask him to pretend like he was being interviewed for a job. She'd ask him how much he expected to make. Without fail, the guy would say something like "we'll talk about that later" or "that's negotiable."

Get a girl in front of the class and do the same, and she'd give a solid figure, say, "$29,000" or something.

Point was that women don't know how to negotiate salary. They never get taught such.

Then, being a comminications professor, she'd whip out tons of surveys and statistics showing that women are more catty in the workplace, and that when a woman gets to the top, she plays a man's game. Which means, yeah, she's more likely to hire a man and interact with her male coworkers, and almost go out of her way to keep other women away from the top. Women lack a sense of, well, fraternity, and it comes out in the workplace.

Of course, this was all generalization.

I dunno, this sounds anecdotal, and I guess in a sense it is (being that it's coming from me and not my professor), but my views on why women get a smaller paycheck really changed that day.

Oh man I'm dead tired. Would probably just wake up and erase this post in the morning if I weren't off to the beach.

[luke]

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Women can have all the power, as far as i'm concerned, i want to sit at home and clean the house and play with the kids and make food.

Dear god this is so true.

[luke]

Went to a toga party a few years back, it was for Chili's staff, before I worked there but I had a few buddies there. Lot of those girls didn't wear much under their togas, and it all came off. And no, none of these girls who were naked were fat or pimply or whatever. But a lot of the guys there were. Sure, there were "ugly" girls, and a couple of them without really great figures, but those weren't the naked ones. And yeah, when I see Rules of Attraction, I think of that party. It really happens. Not as ridiculous, sure, but let's think about it for a minute, Mary...

...that scene DOES look ridiculous, and I believe that it's supposed to. You're reaction isn't supposed to be "hmm, okay, what's next," it's more like, "yeah, right." There are lots of similar scenes in any of Ellis' books (both Sean and Patrick Bateman are in more than a few of them.) Not to pretend that I can in the least bit imagine what you were thinking, but I do think you were looking at it from too much of a "I know better, but look what these other people watching think" standpoint.

Although, yeah, I'd point out that the book is fairly different from the movie, as the movie doesn't even take place in the 80s.

BTW, Ellis is my favorite author.

[chrisfan]

Interesting point on the welfare mothers and how that reflects on domestic work Mary. That one has me thinking. I know that there is a "yeah, but ..." in my conservative mind somewhere ...

For the most part, I agree with you on the notion feminisim needing to give men choices as well. Just as long as we're truly giving men choices ... which carries out all the way down to them having an equal voice in what happens to that unwanted fetus they've helped to make. I would venture to guess that where we differ is that, looking just at maternity/paternity leave for example, I agree that if women truly want to be equal, then both men and women need to be able to take time off from work for family. I think that women need to stand up and tell their husbands (which happens more now than it did 10 years ago) "I have to work today, you stay home". But I back off on saying "Yes, that's what i want!" for 2 reasons -- first, I'm concerned about the economic ramifications of wiping out that much of our workforce to taking care of families. Second, there is a strong part of me that believes that for the most part, women ARE better at caring for children, nurturing them, etc etc than men. Are there exceptions? Absolutely! But for the most part, I DO believe that women are better nururers and care givers, and I belive that men are better providers. And when you look at the gender roles throughout times, I have a hard time saying that is simply due to traditional societal roles.

[chrisfan]

On the issue of objectification/take it off to get ahead of women ... Again, to me, it's a chicken or the egg question with no answer. I see women contributing to these situations continuing in SO many ways. When women comment on women,they talk about their physical attributes, negative or positive. When men talk about other men, they talk more about their personality traits. You hear women saying "Oh, she's got the tiniest waist" or "Her butt has really gotten big" frequently. But when was the last time you heard a man talk about another man saying "He's got the greatest pecs". Women ALLOW that much value to be put on their physical appearance. They do it themselves. If we as women want these things to change, we're not very committed to sparking that change IMHO.

[chrisfan]

Okay Mary, I've been thinking about the issue you raised with welfare mothers and the notion that by being home they're not working ... To me, both nurturing and caring for children (and in turn taking care of the home) AND providing for your family are the vital roles of parents. You have to do both to be an effective parent/family. It's no an either/or equation. Being the "personal responsibility conservative" that I am, I see it as the responsibility of the individual to fulfill these roles, not the government. When you compare the "just a mom" stay at home mom (and I agree with Maria Shriver, the "Just" there has GOT to go) to the not-working welfare mom, the stay at home mom typically has a husband (or husband has a wife in some instances) who is fulfilling the provider role by going to work while the stay at home parent fulfills the nurturer role. In the welfare example, the provider role is not being fulfilled at all. Compare that to the working parent who is maintaining both the provider and nurturer roles. I would guess that most people would agree that children are not being raised i nteh best way possible when they're provided for, but not nurtured. So how is it any different if they're nurtured, but not provided for?

[strat-0]

I can hardly wait to get caught up and reply here!

[Mary]

Forgive me if I don't manage to respond to everything that was addressed to me here...getting a bit overwhelmed!!

luke - as far as that scene in the movie, just to be clear, I wasn't saying the scene seemed "realistic" like it seemed like something we'd expect to find on a regular basis in real life. What I meant was that it didn't seem all that surprising for a movie, whereas the identical scene with the genders reversed would be totally jarring and people would have no idea what to make of it. To me, that just demonstrates that we are far more used to the sexual objectification of women than of men. Just to be clear, I'm not drawing some ultra-radical-prude conclusion from this - I'm not saying we need censorship, I'm not saying all porn is evil, I'm not saying men only think of women as sexual objects, I'm not saying women are incapable in this society of overcoming that objectification. (in other words - I'm not Catherine Mackinnon!!) I'm just saying that the objectification of women is pretty rampant, and surely sends signals to girls about the kind of expectations that surround them.

Chrisfan on the welfare example - I'm not really sure what to say in response that wouldn't just repeat what I said before, because again, I think each of us can see where the other is coming from, but we just have really different presuppositions grounding our politics to begin with. So, yes, of course I'd grant that the welfare mother is different from the stay-at-home mom insofar as the children of one are provided for and the children of the other are not. But I still think that the level of animus in the rhetoric around single welfare moms really does betray a belittling and degraded view of domestic labor. The assumption that someone is necessarily "lazy" if they are raising a child and not working outside the home strikes me as deeply problematic. Of course there are all kinds of other class issues here as well, regarding what kind of work these women could find depending on their class and educational backgrounds and such. If it's a choice between the woman providing for herself by working two crappy ultra-low-income jobs and having the kids home by themselves practically all day, or the woman receving welfare, or maybe working part-time and receiving welfare benefits on top of that, and actually being there for the children, it's by no means clear to me that the former is somehow a better choice, a more diligent choice, a more respectable choice, or even a more socially beneficial choice than the latter.

Cheers,
M

[chrisfan]

Mary said:

Chrisfan on the welfare example - I'm not really sure what to say in response that wouldn't just repeat what I said before, because again, I think each of us can see where the other is coming from, but we just have really different presuppositions grounding our politics to begin with. So, yes, of course I'd grant that the welfare mother is different from the stay-at-home mom insofar as the children of one are provided for and the children of the other are not. But I still think that the level of animus in the rhetoric around single welfare moms really does betray a belittling and degraded view of domestic labor. The assumption that someone is necessarily "lazy" if they are raising a child and not working outside the home strikes me as deeply problematic. Of course there are all kinds of other class issues here as well, regarding what kind of work these women could find depending on their class and educational backgrounds and such. If it's a choice between the woman providing for herself by working two crappy ultra-low-income jobs and having the kids home by themselves practically all day, or the woman receving welfare, or maybe working part-time and receiving welfare benefits on top of that, and actually being there for the children, it's by no means clear to me that the former is somehow a better choice, a more diligent choice, a more respectable choice, or even a more socially beneficial choice than the latter.

Cheers,
M

Allow me to play devil's advocate. With the welfare mother, we're faced with the puzzle of how she can be both provider and nurturer, agreeing that children need both. So, why not free up her time to work to jobs in order to provide for her family, and give the public/government the responsibility of play the role of nurturer rather than provider?

[Kensterberg]

Chrisfan -- because it is more offensive to have the government interfering in the most private aspects of a person's life, and not nearly as offensive for the government (the societal whole) to simply provide that person with a bare minimum level of existence. Surely as a conservative, you favor minimal government, right? If so, how can you justify having government interference in such a fundemental area as how a person raises a child? Surely you must agree that within certain very broad limits (you can't beat your kids, you can't refuse to educate 'em, etc.) a parent is free to raise a child as he or she sees fit, don't you?

Just my half a cent ...

[chrisfan]

KenHolzman said:

Chrisfan -- because it is more offensive to have the government interfering in the most private aspects of a person's life, and not nearly as offensive for the government (the societal whole) to simply provide that person with a bare minimum level of existence. Surely as a conservative, you favor minimal government, right? If so, how can you justify having government interference in such a fundemental area as how a person raises a child? Surely you must agree that within certain very broad limits (you can't beat your kids, you can't refuse to educate 'em, etc.) a parent is free to raise a child as he or she sees fit, don't you?

Just my half a cent ...

Ken, don't forget that I said at the beginning of that point that I was playing devil's advocate ... not advocating the idea myself. My intent in making the point was to say that I see providing and nurturing children as being equally important aspects of parenthood. Like you, I don't endorse the idea of handing over nurturing responsibilities to the government. However, (as you said, as a conservative) because I see providing as equally as important, I think that it is important for that role to be fulfilled by the parent as well. In other words, I think that parenting should be done by parents, and not by the government.

Further, to answer your question, my belief that parents should be free to raise their children goes beyond the mere idea of freedom to do so. I believe that with that freedom comes responsibility. I believe that when you take on parenthood, you accept the responsbility to provide and nurture for your children, and it is your job to do so. When you do that, you get the freedom to do it as you see fit. Freedom and responsibility are linked so closely that they can't be divided in my mind.

[strat-0]

I can hardly wait to get caught up and reply here!

Oh, I said that already. Anyone noticed how the banner ads take key words out of the thread? The last one I saw here was all feminism-related stuff - maternity leave, discrimination, etc. Most of the threads here are so strange their logarythm can't figure out what they're about!