To anyone who cares to answer – do you believe the bias in family courts against fathers is based on a handful of sexist individuals or do you think it is a systemic problem? Do you think the gradual hysterical demonization of men is a problem with some crazy individuals, or do you think society and the media perpetuate the problem? Do you think society should take some responsibility for it? Do you think policy should change to correct the problem? Do you want consciousness to be raised on this issue?
Because what is clear to me from Captain Ridley’s post is that some men have a clear understanding of systemic and cultural bias and the kind of damage it does to men. Why is it so hard to grasp that systemic discrimination happens to women also? Why *shouldn’t *society do something about it?
I believe the bias in family courts against fathers is a holdover from judges who grew up hearing “A child needs his/her mother” over and over and over again. Much the same way that older generations think there’s something icky about homosexuality, but most people under the age of 25 think nothing of it. It’s a problem that people know is happening and is slowly being weeded out.
As for the hysterical demonization of men, I know it happens. I’m a male librarian, I’ve seen mothers steer their precious little snowflake away from me to ask a female desk clerk for help because they think I want to diddle their kid. They are individual crazies. It happens so rarely that placing the blame on society seems wrong.
And yes, it’s pushed in the media, but that’s because the media knows that hysteria sells. That’s not a society problem, that’s a problem with the 24-hour news cycle.
Gender roles are almost entirely arbitrary though, in some cultures there are three genders and one (perfectly accepted within the culture) is more or less “effeminate male/butch female.” (I believe that Wikipedia has an article on this, under “Two-Spirit” I believe) There’s nothing inherently, biologically masculine or feminine about many of those traits. I could argue that most traditionally “female” traits are passive, and therefore work against women. Being quiet, people pleasing, over-politeness, all things that fit the female gender roles in our society to a T, are in large part why women find themselves in the situation they are, they lack the conditioning for standing up for themselves, or butting heads for positions that men are given while growing up.
If women are taken less seriously than men, it’s because we raise women to be less serious in a competitive sense as men. I don’t think “strong women” are portrayed as masculine in demeanor because we see males as good, but because in our society traditionally masculine traits happen to encompass many of the traits that cultivate success; I don’t think it’s out of some misguided subconscious “hate of femininity.”
I should also point out that in my observation that “butch” lesbians are often disliked more than feminine lesbians. When you think of guys drooling over hot girl on girl action, it’s almost certainly not going to be women with short hair and tats that act with masculine traits. It is true that female homosexuality is treated with more disregard than male homosexuality, we (as a society) get uncomfortable when people break gender roles too much from either side, even if women may have to go farther than men to have it be considered “breaking gender roles.” And indeed, men liking SOME feminine things can even be encouraged, it’s all a matter of how far you go. It’s the line between being considered “sensitive” and being considered “feminine” for men (just as one example).
Because then the actual subject (i.e. inequality) would be fully confronted. We would, in fact, what we were talking about. And sexism needs to be talked about.
Yes, I think the term “sexist” is not used enough.
I think this is an excellent point and other cultures can be extremely helpful in helping us understand where all this stuff comes from. I remember studying literature from Heian Japan in which three genders were represented… man, woman, and effeminate male (in this case usually a young boy.) For one thing there was this blatantly obvious issue with men sexually dominating these youths–totally unacceptable within our own culture, and yet the youths exhibited no evidence of psychological damage precisely because it was a socially sanctioned activity. And then just the concept of three genders… It was the hardest thing for me to wrap my mind around. Fascinating stuff.
I believe there are some inherent biological differences between men and women, but by and large I think our gender roles and our reality is socially constructed. If it weren’t, Heian Japan would never have happened.
Of course, in that society, even though property rights and so on were passed down through women, and woman were a greater part of the power structure than a lot of cultures at that time, they were still oppressed. The Plum in the Golden Vase was a pretty insightful look into that culture… and I am convinced the anonymous author was a woman. The insight into female sexual politics, oppression and domestic issues of the day was just too powerful.
I think I might grasp what you’re trying to say, kind of.
To me it somewhat mirrors the way I see the problem of racism in society. Professionals in the public eye who make racist comments are vilified and demonized and pushed away from society. I believe this serves (unintentionally) as a convenient excuse to ignore the fact that that crazy individual act of racism is the product of a racially biased and systemically discriminatory society. The louder we cry, ‘‘racist!’’ the easier it is to ignore real racism, such as the aforementioned poverty statistics. We hate racism, therefore we, as a society, cannot possibly be racist. Therefore we, as a society, could not possibly be responsible for poorer outcomes for minorities in health, education, poverty, life expectancy, infant mortality, etc. Therefore we, as a society, are obligated to do nothing about it. Because we hate racists, see.
So maybe what you mean is, because we hate sexual abuse, and we hate women dying of cancer, and we hate domestic violence, that means that we, as a society, cannot possibly be sexist.
I totally conflated Heian Japan with a book based on Chinese culture, sorry. :smack: The book about Heian Japan was The Tale of Genji.Plum in the Golden Vase is Chinese. Two totally different things. Both very interesting insights into gender roles and gender identity.
Perhaps the fact that you want to throw terms like “chauvinist” and “sexist” around and not stick to specific issues partially explains why you find it hard to discuss the relations of men and women without raising hackles…
I’m going to have to disagree with this. Granted, this is just a little pet hypothesis of mine. But I’ve been looking at a lot of gender-related stuff lately, and your statement just doesn’t ring true to me.
Yes, there are inherent biological differences, and they’re not all between our legs. Most of the differences are between our ears. And these differences are largely because in tribal cultures men hunted and women tended the nest. These differences are measurable and repeatable. And they are universal. A tribe living in 18th century North America, a tribe in 20th century Borneo and a tribe in 200th century BC Africa are all going to have pretty similar social structures. Matriarchal societies have existed, but they were very rare.
I find it hard to believe that such a repeatable and repeated social structure is the result of arbitrary decisions. There’s got to be biology at work there.
As societies got more sophisticated, this biology got enshrined into religious and and social constructs, but deep down it was still our biology at work. That goes deep, and we’re not going to erase it by wagging our fingers at each other.
I remember reading that the airline pilots are overwhelmingly male. Is this because of some “old boys network” in the industry? No. As it turns out, just not very many women try to become pilots. And a good number that do flunk some of the tests. Men, because of our hunter ancestry, tend to be a lot better at spacial skills. Look at a different vocation, though, like those involving language, and the population is overwhelmingly female.
Does this mean that it’s OK to discriminate in the workplace based on sex? No, not at all. But when we fool ourselves into thinking that equal rights before the law means that we’re all the same, we’re going be sorely disappointed.
I guess what this means that we can make some superficial improvements in society, but we’re not going to undo a couple of million years of evolution so easily.
But couldn’t you argue that maybe men are pushed into pilots because of deep seated attitudes like that? That is, more men are encouraged and maybe more women think to themselves, “There’s no way I should even try”? I don’t know that this is the case, but I do think that if something just seems way out of bounds, people might not even want to try it.
Actually, even a Father who is proven to have sexually abused his child still gets visitation. If the Mother is really lucky, she can get it limited too supervised, but the courts will mandate a gradual return to unsupervised. There is a constiutional right to one’s biological children, and the only way to cut him out is if the County Child Protective Services initiates the request. CPS doesn’t have enough funding to help all the children who are in immediate danger, and will not devote resources to a case in which the Mother is protecting her child.
In 80% of cases where a Mother brings sexual abuse charges against a father, it is the Mother who ends up in jail. If the court orders her to hand over the child to the abuser for unsupervised visitation and she refuses to do so, or attempt to protect her child, she will be jailed and the abuser will be awarded custody.
It’s a terrifying world out there, where children are handed over to abusive fathers on a regular basis, and for years on end. The Mother can only fight until the money runs out.
Also, the men hunting/women gathering thing–is that really a brain thing? I think it also makes sense that maybe men are physically stronger and thus more suited to hunting. Plus women back then were probably pregnant, nursing, or tending to little ones, so gathering would have made sense for that sort of a lifestyle. I’m just not sure that in our minds, men are hard wired to hunt and women are hard wired to gather. It is tempting to say that because those things happened that it’s because we were hard wired for it. Almost too pat, like a little just so story. I mean, I read about how you have to play hard to get with men because they’re all little hunters deep down, or look at women buying clothes and makeup, they’re little gatherers at heart. So much of this seems circular.
Are you also saying, tdn, that men hunted because they were wired to do that? Or that all the hunting has resulted in their brains being wired in that way and it manifests itself that way? Because the latter just seems like it’s so easy to look for examples that seem like men are more hunter-y and cast off examples where that is not the case.
The United States is much more civilized in this (and many other) areas than it was even 20 years ago. Better than most societies that have ever existed. But there’s always room for improvement.
Some things will never be fixed outside of genetic engineering – stuff like widespread rape, violence or the existence of strip joints, prostitution, pornography, and any other outgrowth of male sexual desire where women complain about being objectified or degraded (even going all the way to commercial advertising).
Other stuff though, like random men coming up to you on the street and telling you to smile (or worse), employers requiring you to wear painful or silly business dress, and societal disapproval of assertive or intelligent women can probably be solved by continued consciousness raising.
Slut bashing, reverence for virginal women, or the continual scrutinization and judgment of a woman via beauty I don’t think will ever disappear either, minus the genetic engineering angle. Stuff like that is veering back to basic biological differences and ingrained sexual strategy.
Being that I’m not an evolutionary biologist, I couldn’t tell you with any degree of certainty. My WAG is that it’s a little of each. Certainly men that had more of a gift for hunting had a better chance of survival, right? And would pass those genes on, right?
But look to the animal kingdom and we still see some of these same gender roles. It’s definitely not just a human thing.
And yes, it’s most definitely a brain thing. I’ve seen brain scans of men and women trying to perform various tasks. Very different parts of the brain light up. With spacial tasks, for instance, men have one very dedicated part of the brain. Women have tiny little sections all over both hemispheres of the brain to accomplish the same task. Genders are reversed for other tasks, such as those involving language.