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VITA BREVIS
I used to think I was a traitor to my sex when it came to the feminist movement. While I could honor women's efforts to gain political and legal equality, sometimes I felt feminism got extended to a lot of unnecessary hoopla that ended up undermining the movement altogether. Things like how the English language is oriented towards men (how the word "wo-man" is implicitly derogatory to women by being just mere morphological derivations from the root "man"), how women were being subjugated by popular biases regarding their roles, don't seem as relevant to me as what I think are the REAL issues seriously threatening women: poverty, lack of educational opportunities due to cultural constraints, lack of opportunities for advancement in the workplace, legal and societal protection particularly in areas of rape and sexual abuse.
Until I realized today that 'Feminism' isn't about specific issues, but addressing a MENTALITY.
Got into a bit of an argument with Dad today. I've always known he's a typical Fifties 'dad' with all the characteristic biases, so I shouldn't have let him get to me. I'm not mad at him though, it's the mentality he subscribes to that ticks me off. He thinks there are certain professions in which men will certainly be superior by nature. Women, according to him, because of their 'nurturing' nature, are more suited to fields more akin to responsibilities involving caring for the home and what-not. Even among lawyers, women are supposed to be more proficient in the field of family law and corporate law rather than the 'masculine' fields of criminal litigation. At this point, when I told him that I wasn't exactly outstanding in family law but conversely, excelled in criminal, political, commercial and international law, Dad invoked the last line of argumentation resorted to by most men I've talked to about this topic: THE BIBLE. Allegedly, because God created Man first, and God decided to BECOME a Man (read: Jesus Christ), He more or less gave the signal to men throughout the world of THEIR place in humanity vis-a-vis women's.
Hogwash. I'm not even going to get started on the theological dispute because it's so demeaning. (For the ultimate rebuttal on this topic, I refer you to the works of St. Catherine of Siena, as well as to Pope John Paul II's book, "Crossing the Threshold of Hope".)
The alarming thing is, a lot of men think like him and probably don't even realize what's wrong about it.
I live in an extremely liberal society where cultural norms aren't imposed in terms of legal limitations for women. I have an economics degree and I'm now pursuing a law degree. I'm currently the head of my law school's debate union, co-captain of the moot court team, member of the law school honor society, life member in international honors organizations like Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Gamma Mu. I have the luxury of working on my own time on projects for which I have a manifest advocacy. I pursue a variety of interests without any sort of "gender" boundaries: tennis, debating, writing, violin, etc. Marriage is not an imperative, and my folks have made it clear that this is a decision I alone am to make. For all intents and purposes, I SHOULDN'T feel like there IS some sort of gender restraint. But the odd thing is, I DO.
I remember a conversation with Suchita, a friend I met in Oxford. Extremely talented individual, studying to be a doctor, a product of the "Oxbridge" universities. One very windy night as we were walking along High Street headed home after dinner, I observed that it was fortunate we were both born in this generation, where women were free to pursue their interests (in most societies) without legal restrictions. Suchita's reply was:
"I don't think so. A lot of this is really like lip service because we're a potent social and economic force and it was only a matter of time before the male-dominated government was forced to grant us legal recognition. But if you look at it, do you really think male mentality with respect to women has changed since then? Now they're just more careful with how they express themselves."
She has a point. And if you look at it, this mentality is a particularly insidious and vicious way of perpetrating bias. This is why the issues I consider relevant still arise today...underneath the poverty, lack of educational opportunity or workplace advancement, rape and sexual abuse, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, there is a belief somewhere in the back of our minds that the difference between men and women matters. Some men translate that difference in terms of their notions of the roles a woman should fulfill. Some women see that difference as a source of subjugation. Whichever way you look at it, by consciously or unconsciously relying on that 'difference', no matter how you construct it, you're laying the foundations for difference in TREATMENT. It's not about 'equality' of men and women, but the equality of members of the human race.
Perhaps the approach has been wrong. Perhaps we shouldn't be making legal instruments like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), or affirmative action programs for women. Perhaps what we should have focused on is our basic humanity, and the rights of a human individual to similar fair treatment, whether in the home, the university, or the workplace. While I will concede that there are issues which are unique to women (i.e. pregnancy, childbirth), these need not be the basis for drawing too stringent a dichotomy in our approaches. Parenting, for example, and the equal responsibility of both the father and the mother to rear children is common ground enough. And even as the scale of abuse against women in terms of rape and other depraved sexual acts is undoubtedly larger than that committed against men or boys, abuse in both cases exist. It should be enough to deal with the issue as ABUSE, rather than 'abuse of women'.
(Of course, in this entire line of argumentation I intentionally left out societies with strict religio-cultural norms with respect to women. This is a different debate altogether because of the context. There are competing values sought to be protected and balanced...rights to religion and the free exercise thereof, and rights of women adhering to that religion who may be clamoring greater liberality in treatment WITHIN that religion. It would take one who is well-versed in the knowledge of both to be able to craft such a delicate balance.)
All in all though, maybe it SHOULDN'T be 'feminism'. Maybe all it should have been, really, is 'humanism'.