omen’s studies was constructed as a world without science.
I have a gut reaction of frustration towards this statement. I feel like describing women's studies as a 'world without science' plays into the common discrediting of personal narrative within science. There are many phenomena in the world where personal narrative is the only 'scientific tool' we have to discover them. I'm interested to see how the author backs up that claim.
But it seems unlikely that the physiological different between men and women would be adequate to motivate the de- valued view of women were that view not lent further weight by the social and psychological variables dis- cussed abov
It is my opinion that it is also a sort of domino effect; the initial reason for the discrimination against people who are perceived as female bodied was physiological but as these differences drove them further into 'nature' and their prescribed social roles, they became more and more embedded into their second class citizenship and all sorts of new reasons for sexism presented themselves and were validated by woman's already subordinate position.
femaleness is read simply as a middle position on the scale of culture to nature, then it is still seen as lower than culture and thus accounts for the pan-cultural assumption that women are lower than men in the order of things. If it is read as a mediating e
the difference between woman as middle and woman as mediating does a far better job of explaining these 'inversions of culture'
Mother is the "obvi- ous" person for this task, as an extension of her "natural" nursing bond with the children, or because she has a new infant and is involved with child- oriented activities anywa
I'm not sure if this is necessarily true. I know there are cultures where many women nurse the children and there is more of a communal raising of the child hence the phrase "it takes a village"
cause of woman's greater bodily involvement with the natural functions sur- rounding reproduction, she is seen as more a part of nature than me
This narrative of women being devalued because of their proximity to nature has taken on a life of its own... women are seen as more natural, nurturing, etc even if they are not involved in the reproduction cycle at all. Women who don't menstruate, have chosen to be childless, who are infertile, trans, etc all still suffer from this narrative
n sum, de Beauvoir concludes that the female "is more enslaved to the species than the male, her animality is more manifest."5
This is so viscerally brutal and depressing. Another painful reminder that not we cannot transcend our bodies (yet) but we will also be punished by society for this
may thus equate culture broadly with the notion of human consciousness, or with the products of human consciousness (i.e., systems of thought and technology), by means of which humanity attempts to rise above and assert control, however minimally, over nature.
I remember reading some Marx text where he said that man gains joy from exercising his control over the material world by making (and capitalism destroys that through stealing his labor etc etc). If this is an inherent human need, to rise and differentiate ourselves from the animal / natural world, it does make sense that women would be devalued. Birthing, menstruation, sexual attraction and desire are all associated with womanhood and are painful reminders that humans are trapped in their bodies and forever tied to 'nature,' their often dirty and somewhat uncomfortable bodily needs. I can imagine a room full of men philosophizing about politics and culture wouldn't want to be reminded of their own humanity in such a way.
a sense of non-physical mi
this phrase is so perfect, not just buying into mind body dualism but still leaving room for lived experience
Similiar examples could be multiplied ad infinitum, but I think it is time to turn the tables. The onus is no longer upon us to demonstrate that female subor- dination is a cultural universal; it is up to those who would argue against the point to bring forth counter- examples. I shall take the universal secondary status of women as a given, and proceed from there.
I've never seen an academic article 'turn the tables' in this way and instead of arguing for a point, force the reader to argue. very cool
in its own way and in its own terms
another good example of the point i made in my last post
. As for the third level, it will be obvious from my approach that I would consider it a misguided endeavor to focus only upon women's actual, though culturally unrecognized and unvalued, powers in any given society, without first understand- ing the overarching ideology and deeper assumptions of the culture that renders such powers trivia
the phrase "without first understanding the overarching ideology and deeper assumptions of the culture that renders such powers trivial" is so significant... anthropological analysis of gender roles in non-western cultures are so often colored with unconscious (or conscious) biases. I'm glad to know the author understands this and seeks to work through it, understanding the need for cross cultural research and a deep understanding of the culture before making moral judgements as to whether women are second class citizens and in what way. The author isn't using this idea as a cop out to avoid this analysis altogether though; she still wants to explore and critique gender roles
But should women want to become "just like men" in science, as many of these studies assume? That is, should feminism set such a low goal as mere equality with men? And to which men in science should women want to be equal-to underpaid and exploited lab technicians as well as Nobel Prize winners? Moreover, should women want to contribute to scientific projects that have sexist, racist, and classist problematics and outcomes? Should they want to be military researchers? Furthermore, what has been the effect of women's naivete about the depth and extent of masculine resistance-that is, would women have struggled to enter science if they had understood how little equity would be produced by eliminating the formal barriers against women's participation?7 Finally, does the increased presence of women in science have any effect at all on the nature of scientific problematics and outcomes?
This paragraph is so good - critique of the assumption that just because male achievements are dominant, should they be? also touches on intersectionality; 'good' feminist science cannot be achieved without the eradication of racism, classism in science; intertwined struggle
By put ting women's perspective on gender symbolism, gender structure, and individual gender at the center of their thinking, they have been able to reconceive the purposes of research programs in anthropology, history, literary criticism, and so forth.
the ideas of perspective and personal narrative have been so feminized in their own right. i think it was Susan Brison who said something along the lines of 'philosophers are so concerned with the self, what happens with the destruction of self or the challenging of the self, destruction of the self by the other etc yet they never thought to ask victims of trauma that is self-shattering their opinion on this matter.' I wish I could find the quote because it is far better than this. However, the idea of scientifically/objectively interrogating the personal perspective has added so much to both science and philosophy in recent years. It truly has helped to reconceive these disciplines
Moreover, we need to recognize that in cultures stratified by both gender and race, gender is always also a racial category and race a gender category. That is, sexist public policies are different for people of the same gender but different race, and racist policies are different for women and men within the same race. One commentator has proposed that we think of these policies as, respectively, racist sexism and sexist racism
intersectionality between oppressed identities is not simply experiencing racism and sexism in tandem, but also facing specific issues that only exist for people who occupy both spaces (misogynoir and transmisogyny).
economic, political, and social accumulation and control. Now we can see that the hope to "dominate nature" for the betterment of the species has become the effort to gain unequal access to nature's resources for purposes of social domination
Both Marx and Sherry Ortner (author of 1st reading) spoke of humans inherent desire to master / dominate nature. I want to explore how this desire developed and became a constant between human societies (if it even is).
the question may not be whether the human race can survive the machine age – but whether it deserves to
such a good ending line
n fiction, as in life, one way for oppressed people to free themselves is to use technology to master the machines that made them.
I have a friend who is diabetic and needs her insulin pump to live. She considers herself a disabled person (an oppressed group) and 'liberates herself' by mastering the machinery that she needs to survive. She actually identifies as a cyborg herself...
Every iteration of the boy-meets-bot love story is also a horror story. The protagonist, who is usually sexually frustrated and a grunt worker in his own right, goes through agonies trying to work out whether his sili-cone sweetheart is truly sentient. If she is, is it right for him to sleep with her? If she isn’t, can he can truly fall in love with her? Does it matter? And – most terrifying of all – when she works out her own position, will she rebel and how can she be stoppe
TW// pedophilia, CP
This reminds me of an article I read some time ago about rehabilitation for sex offenders, particularly pedophiles. One debate posed by the article was the question of animated child porn which someone touched on earlier today in class. If these men can express their desires through animated child porn that does not exploit children it could potentially help them from abusing real children. Is this even ethical? I personally have a gut reaction that says no. Theres also not enough research that says whether porn can be helpful in rehabilitating various sexual deviances etc, or if it actually causes addiction and makes this worse. This seems to connect specifically to the question of whether or not it is okay to fall in love with something that is not sentient, and does it even matter? These drawings are not sentient, so does it matter ethically if one exploits them?