Gender in America
This entry was originally posted on 2 January 2002 at 4:08 p.m.
Wow. Wow, wow wow. I just had my first class of the quarter--Gender and Justice--and it was excellent. I think there are about eight students in the class, two of which are undergrads, and one of which is a Ph.D. student from another department (and the only male student).
Most people might be turned off by the idea of a gender class, but i think it's going to be really good and will make me think more carefully about things. The professor comes from an objective-feminist perspective, which should make it all the more interesting. It's sad that many people are uncomfortable with this sort of class because they expect it to be taught by a raging hard-core anti-man sort of teacher; i think our professor will be particularly good at bringing a more balanced approach to the material, based on things she said today.
Anyway, the focus of this wasn't supposed to be teaching styles; it was supposed to be the film we watched. It's called Killing Us Softly 3 and if you haven't seen it, watch it. As soon as possible. It's very short--about 35 minutes--and it's just a lecture with visuals given by a woman called Jean Kilbourne. She takes an even-handed, gentle manner and discusses women in advertisements. It was wonderful. It's not the sort of thing that will make men feel guilty--but it will make everyone pay much closer attention to how advertisements work and how they affect our culture.
What was particularly interesting was that women are often portrayed in vulnerable, innocent-yet-sexual ways (in terms of clothing, poses, and body language--and all of this is enhanced by copy in some ads), while men are regularly portrayed as aggressive. This in and of itself is no great revelation; people have known about this for some time, and it's readily obvious to anyone who really thinks about these things. What was interesting about it was that it made me consider why this difference exists.
In other cultures, where gender differences are clearly defined and more strictly enforced, women can be powerful and revered among women if not among men. In the US there is plenty of gender-typing in terms of roles, but they are not always clear. It is rare to hear someone state explicitly that a woman cannot have a certain job or that she must do certain types of things (like housework)--but these ideas are still pervasive. In our rush toward gender equality, previous generations failed to repair the damage; they changed our ways only by changing the language we use and what we do and do not talk about--and as a result, we have internalized many of the stereotypes and attitudes that we wish to destroy.
In this sense, gender discrimination and typing is almost worse here--for two reasons. The first is that we consider ourselves enlightened, so we think that, given this, we would not practice discrimination of that sort. We are patently wrong, and this is because of the second reason: the discrimination and typing that does exist has become naturalized through the internalization process. That is, we practice these things on a daily basis and we don't realize that we're doing it. In cultures where this is overt, you can ask a man why some woman cannot do X, and he'll say, "Because she's a woman" and maybe even elaborate on why, traditionally, women don't do X. In our culture, we are so accustomed to these internalized practices that we are rarely able to come up with the answer that some woman cannot do X simply because she is a woman and we believe that women cannot do X.
This is dangerous. It is bias in its most destructive form--because it is so subtle, so ingrained, and so hard for us to see. What is even more frightening about it is that we are doing the same things with race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
We think of ourselves as belonging to the most egalitarian culture in the world. In reality we are, with all good intentions, setting ourselves up for the opposite. Our downfall will be our inability to see the social problems that we have pushed under the rug by rushing through balanced discourse and consideration because we are impatient to solve the problems.
Slow down, America.
Wow. Wow, wow wow. I just had my first class of the quarter--Gender and Justice--and it was excellent. I think there are about eight students in the class, two of which are undergrads, and one of which is a Ph.D. student from another department (and the only male student).
Most people might be turned off by the idea of a gender class, but i think it's going to be really good and will make me think more carefully about things. The professor comes from an objective-feminist perspective, which should make it all the more interesting. It's sad that many people are uncomfortable with this sort of class because they expect it to be taught by a raging hard-core anti-man sort of teacher; i think our professor will be particularly good at bringing a more balanced approach to the material, based on things she said today.
Anyway, the focus of this wasn't supposed to be teaching styles; it was supposed to be the film we watched. It's called Killing Us Softly 3 and if you haven't seen it, watch it. As soon as possible. It's very short--about 35 minutes--and it's just a lecture with visuals given by a woman called Jean Kilbourne. She takes an even-handed, gentle manner and discusses women in advertisements. It was wonderful. It's not the sort of thing that will make men feel guilty--but it will make everyone pay much closer attention to how advertisements work and how they affect our culture.
What was particularly interesting was that women are often portrayed in vulnerable, innocent-yet-sexual ways (in terms of clothing, poses, and body language--and all of this is enhanced by copy in some ads), while men are regularly portrayed as aggressive. This in and of itself is no great revelation; people have known about this for some time, and it's readily obvious to anyone who really thinks about these things. What was interesting about it was that it made me consider why this difference exists.
In other cultures, where gender differences are clearly defined and more strictly enforced, women can be powerful and revered among women if not among men. In the US there is plenty of gender-typing in terms of roles, but they are not always clear. It is rare to hear someone state explicitly that a woman cannot have a certain job or that she must do certain types of things (like housework)--but these ideas are still pervasive. In our rush toward gender equality, previous generations failed to repair the damage; they changed our ways only by changing the language we use and what we do and do not talk about--and as a result, we have internalized many of the stereotypes and attitudes that we wish to destroy.
In this sense, gender discrimination and typing is almost worse here--for two reasons. The first is that we consider ourselves enlightened, so we think that, given this, we would not practice discrimination of that sort. We are patently wrong, and this is because of the second reason: the discrimination and typing that does exist has become naturalized through the internalization process. That is, we practice these things on a daily basis and we don't realize that we're doing it. In cultures where this is overt, you can ask a man why some woman cannot do X, and he'll say, "Because she's a woman" and maybe even elaborate on why, traditionally, women don't do X. In our culture, we are so accustomed to these internalized practices that we are rarely able to come up with the answer that some woman cannot do X simply because she is a woman and we believe that women cannot do X.
This is dangerous. It is bias in its most destructive form--because it is so subtle, so ingrained, and so hard for us to see. What is even more frightening about it is that we are doing the same things with race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
We think of ourselves as belonging to the most egalitarian culture in the world. In reality we are, with all good intentions, setting ourselves up for the opposite. Our downfall will be our inability to see the social problems that we have pushed under the rug by rushing through balanced discourse and consideration because we are impatient to solve the problems.
Slow down, America.
posted by Circus at 11:24 AM
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