wilburforce wrote:
Yes, there are cultural pressures that prevent women from asking for higher salaries or that cause them to take fewer hours/less pay, like the pressure to be the primary caregiver for children and elderly/disabled relatives, the pressure not to be "bitchy" and ask for more when we are told we don't deserve more, and we are discouraged and penalised for negotiating when men are rewarded for it. There are many things that contribute to the pay gap, most (if not all) of which are symptoms of institutionalised sexism. If women are getting payed less in the same jobs as men because they are actively discouraged from negotiating higher pay for themselves, or expected to be the ones to parent children more than men, isn't that a problem and a gender imbalance that needs to be addressed and fixed?
The problem is this has to be backed up with evidence. Anecdotally it can appear to be the case, but the reality can be quite different.
Of course women experience pressure, and some do have socially conservative pressure on them. Men also experience pressure. However those that lump it all together in one overarching conspiracy, make a poor model of reality and solves nothing.
Women also have to take responsibility too. Women sometimes conform to gender stereotypes quite willingly. They don't have personalities like you or I, and they are entitled to live their life how they wish.
Not all sexism is driven by straight men. The fashion industry for instance, it is very tenuous link to the "patriarchy" in that case. Why is maleness seen as the problem there? It is an industry run by many women, and large proportion of the male designers are gay. Yes that is a stereotype, but there is truth to it. Regardless the males involved regardless of their sexuality aren't exactly representative of the averaged male population. These model don't fit an ideal that is commonly found attractive by males. The models are walking clothes manikins and that is their intention. Quite honestly many men can barely get their head around this fashion. Some participate in it, they sort catch on to the trend or are knowledgeable There is a fair amount of communication from women to men how to "scrub up" to fit an aesthetic that they like, which you could argue is pressure. I have heard it myself first hand.
People need to be judged objectively or not at all. So it would be a double standard to say if said women do this, it is not their own doing becuase the idea was somehow implanted in their head by men, yet when men do similar it is their own doing.
If this is just as ridiculous to you, then we are on the same wavelength, and I can happily point you to a handful of prominent activist who have made ridiculous statements to that effect.
Female competition is a thing, ask any biologist. Women don't just behave in a certain way becuase men want them too. Not everyone is the same so we have a range of behaviour thankfully, however is undeniable that female competition among other things is an influence on many women's behaviour, this is something observed in other animals.
Part of pressure women face is the stress of female competition. Not all, these are not mutually exclusive phenomena. However to lump it all under some patriarchal conspiracy is dishonest and not true to nature. Real patriarchal societies also tend to have anomalies when it comes to careers, becuase there is less choice.
Saying sexism is "intutionalistised" is a cop out becuase it too vague a claim, there has to be more specifics. Who is running this institution and how do all the foot-soldiers mange this conspiracy?
What I know is if this conspiracy exists and it may do, I'm not a willing participant and many of the male being generalised by it aren't a part of it either. Isn't it Bush who said "you are either with us or against us?". That kind of mentality is disastrous, being seen as the treatious or evil group for not conforming if it is possible to satisfy at all.
Men also are increasingly looking after the children as a stay at home dad, or making use of maternity leave to look after the kids. It is not the norm yet sure, but still more and more common.
All of this is a quite different problem from the pay gap though. That is my main point.
If you want to do something about this all power to you, however you will likely to be more successful if you intend to use the "politics of persuasion" as Mary Beard would say. The identity politics, which aims police behaviour, this is not only a terrible strategy but by its nature very divisive.
Making people walk on eggshells where they could slip up an any minute and do something "wrong", where they are in need constant correction, like some North Korean re-education camp, is just terrible advocacy. Most people don't aim to be bad people, and people make their own choices. Yes we can have influence on each-other, not all of this choice and influence can be morally discerned, where there is a clear and exclusive perpetrator. People can have symbiotic behaviors and can get soemthing out of the arrangement or not.
Women should not be treated as entirely defenseless or unable to make choices, and I think there is quite a lot of contradictory ideology in feminist groups tbh.
The reality is, stay at home moms/mums are becoming more a rarity. Women are leaving childbearing for later, putting career first initially. This is not wrong, but neither is being a stay at home mom. It depends on the individual and what make sense to them. It is not financially viable to do in many cases. Yes in relationships couples do divide duties differently and some are more egalitarian than others. However people also make their own choices. Seeing everything that doesn't fit an egalitarian ideal as wrong isn't all that constructive.
If you take myself, I'm very non-conformist, individual and independent in spirit, I can't really see how any companion could work if they are not similarly independent too. Most people are not to that extreme as me, they want conventional relationships, co-habitation, eventually children. Neither side is wrong, just different.
My main beef with these groups isn't to do my male entitlement. There are some cry baby groups who give men's advocacy a bad name. I also don't agree with the social Conservatives, who expect certain social conventions to be enforced. I'm more social libertarian in that respect.
My main issue is more to do with basic freedoms. Some of the ideas, unintentionally perhaps, are at odds with preserving basic freedoms for all. I don't necessarily disagree with their objectives, I just don't think the strategy makes sense. Also I find it odd the obsession with pigeon holing people, that seems very counter productive and a slap in the face for the civil rights movement who fought hard against such proscribed categorisation. Other then those aspects I'm not fussed, it is actually great that people have different opinions, becuase nobody could be 100% right all the time.
27 Dec 2015, 7:04 am
