Is The Oppression of Women The Root Of All Oppressions?
| December 31st, 2005Since there are now something like 300 posts in the thread Heart started, I thought I’d extract an exchange Heart and I had in that thread to start a new post.
In response to that, I wrote:
However, if I understand your argument correctly (and maybe I don’t), you seem to be saying that this sort of comparison shows men to be better off “across the board,” and therefore we should understand “sexism as the first or root or foundational or core oppression, with all other oppressions … racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, modeled after this one.”
Here’s where I’m confused: Couldn’t you say the same thing about virtually any other kind of widepread oppression? For instance, I’d argue that the correct way to evaluate white supremacy is to compare whites and blacks who are similarly situated in all ways other than race. Doing this will show whites to be better off than blacks “across the board.” Does it therefore follow that racism is the root oppression, and all other oppressions are modeled on it?
And Heart responded:
First, I think if we compare black people and white people who are similarly situated, we do not find that across the board, white people are worse off than black people. I think we find, for example, that black men, in general, earn more money than white women and have consistently for a very long time. I think we find that black men were, for example, enfranchised as citizens in the United States 70 years before white women were. And I think we find, for example, that black college-educated women earn more money today, than similarly situated college-educated white women. I have written about this in some depth here.
I think we can say that male supremacy is the first, or root oppression, because men, throughout history and in every culture, first oppressed women, before any man, or any tribe or culture, ever oppressed anyone on account of race, class or whom someone loved. Racism, classism, homophobia, are recent inventions compared with the subjugation of women to men because we are women. The first oppression — oppression of women because we are women — occurred wherever women were assigned the tasks of sexual servicing men, reproduction for the benefit of the tribe or people group, and wherever women were assigned the tasks of the care of infants and children for the benefit of the tribe or people group. This goes back to the very earliest civilizations in all and every part of the world, without respect to race, ethnicity, religion, people group. Students of black history — which I am — know, for example, that in the 10th, 11th centuries, kings in African people groups exchanged women, wives, concubines, with kings in white European people groups. And the African kings were as racist in the direction of European royalty as was true, vice versa. A good book to begin with for those who are unfamiliar with this history is Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America by Lerone Bennett.
Male supremacy was the very first “othering,” the very first objectification by one class of people, men, of another class of people, women. Men’s otherng of women occurred, again, across the boundaries of race, culture, class and history. The othering was enlisted in the service of specific goals, i.e., the sexual servicing of men, the bearing of children, creation and perpetuation of family dynasties, and all of the caretaking and labor involved in these efforts. In the othering of women, men learned the usefulness and efficacy of dominance hierarchies. Power-over was eroticized and celebrated. Over time other people groups were othered, in later periods of history and in various cultures, for specific reasons, most of them having to do with the amassing of wealth or the preservatin of dominance hierarchies. But the techniques by way of which a class of people — women — were made the servants of an upper class — men, were honed in the earliest relationships between men and women. And for this reason, among others, radical feminists attend to the *way* women as a people group continue to be objectified and othered by men as a people group. Other otherings are important and the subject of the attention of all feminists, including radical feminists, but radical feminists attend first and foremost to this one, which is so central in so many ways.
Heart
So that’s where we stand. I do intend to respond to Heart, but it may be hours before I can do that, because I’ve got things going on in the meatworld right now.
December 31st, 2005 at 9:40 pm
Hey, you guys, is it too stupid to wish a happy new year to everyone, REALLY radical feminists, really radical feminists, somewhat radical feminists, not-so-radical etc? Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful year ahead!
Your-ex-really-really-feminist-reader,
Audrey H.
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January 1st, 2006 at 12:54 am
Happy New Year to you, too!
Amp, I agree with you on this one. Heart’s examples actually did the opposite of what they were meant to do, because they don’t compare opression across the board.
I think we find, for example, that black men, in general, earn more money than white women and have consistently for a very long time.
An across-the-board comparison would be to ask whether white women earn more money than black women, and whether white men earn more money than black men. An across-the-board comparison would hold one variable steady as it changed all the other variables, but in this case, both variables are being changed, and therefore the example says nothing about whether racism or sexism is the root of other oppressions.
I think we find that black men were, for example, enfranchised as citizens in the United States 70 years before white women were.
Again, an invalid comparison, because it doesn’t hold one variable constant while changing all the others.
And I think we find, for example, that black college-educated women earn more money today, than similarly situated college-educated white women.
This is the only example that would prove something one way or another about the relative position of whites to blacks across the board (i.e. while controlling for all other opressed-group statuses).
Aside from that one example, if it is true, it does seem that at least in America, blacks are worse off across the board than whites, controlling for age, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.
The rest of Heart’s points are interesting, though. I still don’t agree with her that sexism is the root of all other oppressions, but it’s a discussion worth having. I might post more later after I think about it more.
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January 1st, 2006 at 1:15 am
Amp: For instance, I’d argue that the correct way to evaluate white supremacy is to compare whites and blacks who are similarly situated in all ways other than race. Doing this will show whites to be better off than blacks “across the board.” Does it therefore follow that racism is the root oppression, and all other oppressions are modeled on it?
Amp was disputing my statement that sexist oppression was the first oppression and the model for all following oppressions. To prove this he was saying that where we control for race (as opposed to sex), whites will be better off than blacks across the board, just as when we control for sex, men are better off than women across the board. This isn’t true, and I’ve given some, but by far not all, reasons it isn’t true. White skin alone doesn’t privilege white people over black people. White skin *plus maleness* privileges white people over black people. In the instances I’ve offered (and there are many more), both black men and black women enjoy some privilege over white women.
I will not be actively participating in this thread. Hopefully some of my radical feminist colleagues will be, though.
Happy New Year to all!
Heart
This comment was written by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 2:08 am
But since black women have to deal with both sexism and racism, don’t they face greater obstacles, and have less privilege, than anyone else? I just can’t believe that black women actually have more privilege than white women.
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January 1st, 2006 at 2:33 am
I hate the primacy arguments, although I only ever have them with my Marxist friends. I just don’t think they matter.
I don’t think we have enough evidence about the many different societies people have formed to say that the first surplus productive labour was always extracted before the first reproductive labour was extracted (or vice versa), and I don’t think it matters to our struggle today. It wouldn’t suprise me if societs in different times, different places and dealing with different problems developed class and gender hierarchies differently. It also wouldn’t surprise me if they sometimes developed together - one informing the other.
For example, I could be persuaded that racism developed significantly later than class or gender hierarchies (I don’t know enough about the subject, but since you have class hierarchies as soon as you have even some surplus labour, and you have gender hierarchies as soon as reproduction became controlled by men, I wouldn’t be surprised if (at least sometimes)these happened as communities were developing, and therefore before it was possible to say that someone belonged to a differnet community), but it wouldn’t mean that I would think racism was any less important to fight, any less entrenched, or affect my analysis of racism in any way whatsoever.
Cheryl I think comparing black men to white women in a ‘who is worse off’ contest is both sexist and racist (and apparently Sojurner Truth still ain’t a woman). I would also like some evidence to back up your claim that black women enjoy some priviledge over white women (the link you provided isn’t working).
Your arguments comparing black men to white women are intellectually shoddy. In New Zealand there were limits on Maori franchise long after women won suffrage in 1893 (and quite frankly to say that black men were enfranchised before white women in the states is bullshit, because in significant number of states almost no black men (or women) could vote until the 1960s, and there are still quite concerted efforts to disenfranchise black voters today). If a white woman can vote and a non-white man (or woman) can’t - does that prove anything? If it doesn’t then the inverse shouldn’t either.
Oh and while I’m being grumpy can I point out that I hate the term ‘classism’ the fundamental problem with class isn’t discrimination (although that can and has been an additional problem in certain times and places), it’s extraction of surplus labour. It’s the fact that someone gets rich off someone else’s back that makes the class system a problem, not just the fact that they make fun of their accents while doing so.
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January 1st, 2006 at 5:10 am
According to this definition by Heart, I am a radical feminist. I don’t identify as such because of differences with some radical feminism about where to and how to from there., but I have absolutely no dispute with this statement.
I’m confused about how black women are privilidged over white women, and hope for an eccsplanation if it’s not a diversion, because it’s interesting. (My keyboard has disappeared the letter ‘eccs’, so please bear with me as it appears thus…)
This is kind of how I see it. Possibly. Based on the essential differences between males and females: that females give birth to new life and males don’t, and that males are, in general, physically larger and stronger than females, males, suffering from womb envy if you like, or just because they could, have determined everywhere, in seperate groups, that everything else of importance will be undertaken by them, and this has been enforced in the beginning through superior strength and brute force. How else could the universality be eccsplained? (if you don’t accept, as I don’t, that this has ever been a ‘natural order’…with regard to the full range of human capabilities and desires of both male and female human beings.)
I think it was the anthropologist Margaret Mead who wrote that in every society she studied, whatever the men did - whether it be hunting or cooking and sewing baskets, (as in Bali at the time), that activity was regarded by the whole society as more important than whatever activities the women did. I’d be interested to hear others interpretations of this observation of Mead’s, or of ‘how it all began’.
Following the ‘beginnings’, and put very simply, having everywhere given only themselves the right to ‘make meaning’ of the world and society, men have piled on layers and layers of rationalisations, ‘proofs’ that this is the natural order, through centuries of patriarchal education, religion and - in short - all avenues of ‘knowledge’ and power. So I guess what I’m saying is that I believe the oppression of women is the ‘original’ oppression and still the most universal. I’m still wondering whether that makes it the root of ‘all’ oppression though. Or are other oppressions parallels, or ‘different’ oppressions.
This is my first post here, and I’ve only been reading for a few days. I’d been looking for an active feminist discussion board through google, and kept skipping this one because the phrase ‘anti-feminist’ was prominent in the few lines written there. (about the new moderation as it turns out..) Finally, I found a link to here on another feminist site. I’m very happy to have found y’all. I eccspect I’ll learn a lot here.
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January 1st, 2006 at 7:14 am
I don’t have an actual stand on this issue, but I think I can at least defend Heart’s argument a bit.
If we’re trying to prove that one type of oppression is actually stronger, we have to look at different information. If we’re holding variables constant, all we will know is that there is 1) oppression based on sex and 2) oppression based on race. But it won’t tell us anything about which has a stronger influence. Perhaps oppression based on sex is twice as potent as that based on race. Or maybe it’s the opposite. How can you tell? One way to start would be to compare white women’s status to black men’s status and control all the other variables like class, education, etc. So she was completely right to start in that direction.
The reason I don’t have an actual stand on this is because a) I don’t have enough evidence to honestly know “who has it worse” , b) I’m inclined to think that the root of oppression goes even deeper than gender or race - that the only true way to overcome both has to do with channelling our human instinct to rank each other so that it’s not based on superficial criteria like how someone looks.
Not saying we’re going to get there tomorrow (or ever!) but it’s worth pushing in that direction…
This comment was written by Barbara Preuninger.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 7:49 am
Barbara, I think you may be onto something there. As far as I can see oppression goes like this:
This comment was written by Lu.1) Identify people who are like you (in some way).
2) Identify people who are not like you and who are vulnerable (in some way).
3) Enlist the help of group 1 in oppressing group 2.
4) Enjoy the spoils.
The process may not be deliberate or even conscious.
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January 1st, 2006 at 8:45 am
I think I agree most with redecca that (a) it’s not clear it matters “which came first” sexism or racism or that (b) we can ever really answer the question definitively, particularly for prehistoric societies that no longer exist in any meaningful way. This doesn’t strike me as a fruitful way of discussing feminism or feminist issues, and exactly why does it matter that there exist some category that we can all agree on that constitutes “radical feminism” in such a dogmatic way? In order to be in the club, one must make assumptions about subjects of which one has virtually no knowledge, i.e., one must “take it as a matter of faith” that sexism is the root of all oppression. Cerainly, one can agree that where it exists, as it most assuredly does in nearly every cultural context I can think of, subjugation of women is wrong, even if one can’t say definitively that such subjugation took place in all cultures in every location for all of history. And I hate primacy arguments too.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 9:00 am
Much has been written (not that I can find any of it at the moment) about the male instinct to preserve his genes by getting as many women pregnant as possible. In this context it’s easy to see male subjugation of women as simply controlling the means of reproduction. It’s also easy to see other kinds of subjugation and oppression as rooted in survival instinct — I’m afraid I won’t have enough, so I’ll take some of yours if I can, and if I can I’ll institutionalize that by controlling the means of production and/or based on your alleged inferiority so my kids can have more (=better survival chance) than your kids.
Of course the easy explanations aren’t necessarily the right ones, and it gets complicated quickly.
As is subjugation of any other group. I don’t like trying to decide which came first either; I’m more likely to say let’s work to end all oppression.
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January 1st, 2006 at 9:14 am
I disagree w/Heart on the universality of male domination. Egalitarian societies have certainly existed in many Native American and Oceanic societies. I recommend the works of Riane Eisler, Peggy Reeves Sanday, and Pueblo Indian feminist Paula Gunn Allen for further exploration of cultures and societies where women are valued and considered equal to men.
The problem I have with “male dominance is universal” arguments are first, they tend to portray men as brutes and women as patsies. I don’t think that Man As Universal Brute and Woman As Universal Doormat is a healthy dichotomy, nor is it going to get us far in achieving equality for women in the here and now - how can we, if the genders are as polarized as this?
Second, I detect a whiff of racism in the argument that I am sure is not intended. Western feminists have already shot themselves in the foot when they have the attitude of uplifting their poor, oppressed sisters. I don’t need to detail the numerous arguments by feminists of African and Native American descent who note that a) they DO have traditions that empower women and b) white, middle-class feminism does not work for them (hence “womanism”).
The late archeologist, Marija Gimbutas, wrote extensively about egalitarian Neolithic cultures becoming much more violent and male-dominated in the Bronze Age. With the evidence of her and others, we can’t say with any confidence that prehistoric societies were patriarchal. And to say that every society that ever existed was male-dominant - even the ones which have disappeared with little to no trace - we would have to say not only that there is “no evidence” for egalitarian societies (not true) but also that there is compelling evidence that an egalitarian society could not exist. So far I don’t think anyone has found that - not to my satisfaction, anyway.
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January 1st, 2006 at 9:26 am
I have been hesitant to post here since the discussions started on Heart’s thread. However, this comparison actually puts in context my discomfort or rather clarifies my issue with the discussion Heart started.
Barbara and reddeca are going in the direction my thoughts are going. I think that sexism, racism, and any other type of oppression stems from the same place in the human brain- fear and hatred of other or difference and desire to maintain power and priviledge. I think these are two drives are natural human tendencies.
I think even Heart’s desire to have rad fem or feminist only spaces is about that. Heart’s thread seemed to have an underlying implication that if you aren’t a radical feminist as she defines (and others who agree with her) then you are feminist enough. That is, if you are different, have different beliefs or experiences, then you don’t fit in her space which I understand and respect to a certain extent. I think carving out safe space for yourself is important. However, I think dismissing and invalidating the beliefs of others who don’t hold they same beliefs is not okay. I think the nastiness and vehmence of some of the posters on that thread in their own spaces is a good example of that. (Please note, I am referring to the dismissing of other feminists, not trolls and other people who seem to enjoy starting trouble.)
I think that it is wrong to try equate types of oppression or identify which originated first because it ends up making a competition about who is more oppressed and worse off. Primacy arguments ultimately result in a competition and distract from the real issue which is where we are today.
I think we have to accept that oppression comes from similar places and ultimately can have similar solutions, but are parallel. I understand that it is a complex and difficult think to tease out the different strands. I think you will have different permeations of oppression depending on who is in power and what culture you are dealing with. I think sometime it is hard to separate oppression. Which is more damaging and oppressive for a woman of color- racism or sexism? Does it matter which is more damaging and can you even separate the damage? When someone is given the message from all quarters that she is lesser does it matter whether it is her skin color that makes her lesser or her sex which makes her lesser?
I also don’t think we can or should try to equate experiences which are impossible to equate. You cannot equate the experience of being a white woman to a black man while they both may experience similar forms of oppression and the results might be similar in some ways- ultimately, they are dissimilar experiences because there are so many different variables.
I think it is important to understand the history behind the different types of oppression because it gives us a context, but I think concentrating on solutions is a much more worthwhile venture. Understanding the root causes and working toward solutions which short circuit those roots is the goal I want to be working toward.
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January 1st, 2006 at 9:57 am
I think that whole exchange was an indirect commentary on my comments in one of the early posts on that thread. Let me dissect this statement a little because it is wrong in many ways. Here is the quote,
I think we find, for example, that black men, in general, earn more money than white women and have consistently for a very long time. I think we find that black men were, for example, enfranchised as citizens in the United States 70 years before white women were. And I think we find, for example, that black college-educated women earn more money today, than similarly situated college-educated white women. I have written about this in some depth here.
First, let me reject the idea of comparing only people who are “equally situated in the class structure.” The first problem with that statement is that we are not equally situated and racism and sexism contribute to that, so comparing earnings for WW (white women) and BW (Black women) with college degrees ignores the fact racism makes it much harder for Black women to get degrees. (For a detailed discussion about the connection between racism and class, I wrote this blog entry a while back http://www.rachelstavern.com/blog_comment.asp?bi=46&m=9&y=2005&d=1&s=month.) It is also unfair to reduce this issue to earnings alone, obviously racism and sexism manifest themselves in other ways. For example, BM (Black men) who work full time year round do earn more than White women, but if add the number of Black men incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses into these figures I suspect that the gap would close entirely and perhaps WW would earn more. These Black men are no more likely to abuse drugs than Whites, but they are the one in jail. This is the product of structural racism in my view.
I would also like to challenge some of the data above. Any family sociologist knows that we need to look at not only individual earnings but household or family earnings since most adult workers live in households. Middle class heterosexual white women often benefit from their White male partners’ earnings–these relationships are still patriarchal, but things like good quality education, health care coverage, safe housing, and general economic stability is afforded to these White women through their spouses, in fact, some of the women in this group do not work inthe paid labor force at all.
So let’s look at ffamily (not household–it’s a different measurement) incomes in 2000 for Non-Hispanic Whites($56,422), Blacks ($34,129), and Latinos ($35.054). This compares with median individual earnings for full time year round workers–Non-Hispanic White men ($42,365), Black men ($31,422), Latinos ($26,218), Non-Hispanic White women ($30,658), Black Women ($25,937), Latinas ($21,362).
Incidentally, when you compare full time year round median incomes for college educated (BA)women–Non-Hispanic White ($39,122) and Black ($38,017). Thus, White women do earn more than similarly situated Black women.
Anyway, gender based oppression was one of the earliest and is probably the most universal, but I’m not so sure it is the origin of all others, especially class based oppression, which may indeed be more universal than gender. You know it’s funny radical feminists say sexism caused racism and Marxist say class inequality caused racism. I don’t agree with either of those contentions, but it seems like many people want to put the type of oppression they experience first, as the most important. Therein lies much of the problem here. I wish people would do a better job putting themselves in other shoes–unfortunately, most of my fellow White feminists are not too much better than others.
If you want to access this data here is the link….. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/income00/tableindex.html (Sorry for all of the typos, in advance.)
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January 1st, 2006 at 10:17 am
Crystal said:
I’d just like to add that arguments that deny or ignore the existence of such cultures can tend to add strength to those who would argue that feminism is impractical because of human nature. Recognizing historically egalitarian cultures gives us something to point to and say, “No! Look! This is not impractical. This is not impossible. This is not ‘just how men and women are.’ Sexism is a choice we have made as a culture, and it is an unnecessary one.”
—Myca
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January 1st, 2006 at 10:21 am
Peggy Reeves Sanday noted in the afterword to her “A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape On Trial” book that oppressing women was unlikely to contribute to the good of the species or society - that if you want to talk about “evolutionary advantages” then it’s gender egalitarianism, not male dominance, which is productive of the most well-adjusted, likely to thrive societies, at least up until agriculture and the plow.
We must also remember that much of what seems to have been construed as male dominance and female oppression in tribal societies was filtered through Western eyes. First, Westerners assumed (and still assume) that “those people” are brutal to their women because they are “primitive.” Second, the 19th century saw the “angel in the house” ideal, aka “MY wife doesn’t have to work.” So Western men saw non-white women working hard gathering food, growing crops, etc. and assumed they were oppressed because they were working, not idle as in the angel-in-the-house ideal. Most feminist anthropologists now take the idea of the “poor, oppressed tribal woman” with a grain of salt because of this. Lilian Ackerman, in Women and Power in Native North America, says that “complimentarity and egalitarianism are more appropriate terms than domination and inequality in understanding tribal cultures” (1995, p. 77).
So yes, definitely, the concept of universal, timeless male domination needs to be taken with a small Siberian salt mine. It’s hard for Westerners to get away from the idea of dominance, subordination, and diametrically opposed genders, since they have been part of our culture since ancient Greece. But many other people in the world do not see the genders as eternal opposites and eternal enemies in the way that we do. Nor do men and women hate and fear one another.
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January 1st, 2006 at 10:24 am
(x-posted w/Myca) Exactly, Myca! Elizabeth Cady Stanton said the same thing; she noted that the existence of egalitarian societies gave modern women a sense of dignity and of new possibilities.
And guess where Stanton, Lucretia Mott and the other women who met at Seneca Falls in 1848 got many of their uppity, radical ideas - from Native American women in matrilineal, egalitarian societies. Sally Roesch Wagner documents this in her book Sisters in Spirit.
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January 1st, 2006 at 10:33 am
I sort of want to participate more, but I’m feeling less welcome on Alas than before so I’m just going to remind people no feminist in history has infamously been called anti-feminist more by of her fellow feminists than radfem Andrea Dworkin (has Susie Bright ever been called anti-feminist by a prominent feminist author?), and drop off this 1982 quote by a boat-rocking heroine of mine, Shirley Chisholm:
“I’ve always met more discrimination being a woman than being black. When I ran for the Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being black. Men are men.”
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January 1st, 2006 at 10:52 am
I haven’t read all the 300+ thread. So apologies if this is naive:
I’m really not sure I agree.
Think about a society where there are 50 rich people, 10 of whom are women; and 50 poor people, 40 of whom are women. Women would be disadvantaged in that they are more likely to be poor than men. Now imagine that the reason people are poor is because they have childcare responsibilities, and 40 women are parents whereas only 10 men are. Looking across society women as a whole are disadvantaged relative to men, but “all things held equal” they’re not.
Sorry for the contrived example, but I want to try and isolate the point to make it as clear as possible. I think it’s of relevance to debates over the “pay gap” and so on. You can treat people the same, but injustice against a particular group can still result. Suppose men and women with degrees earn the same, but fewer women have degrees - because being pregnant stops them. “All things held equal” there isn’t a disadvantage, but the situation still clearly disadvantages women.
This is obviously the roots of a clash between (some forms of) liberal though and (some forms of) feminist thought. There’s a lot of things that “all things held equal” and “similarly situated” hide.
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January 1st, 2006 at 10:56 am
redecca wrote:
I don’t see why one should distinguish between mockery of accents and surplus labor. They are part of one continuum. Or the accent and the way it’s regarded by the powerful is both symptom and proof of oppression. Discrimination in education and housing, for example, contributes to the existence of a “funny” accent. This accent then becomes proof and/or reason (to the powerful) that he/she who has the accent belongs doing endless menial labor at somebody else’s whim. Somebody with a different accent.
Apart from that, I agree with you. The trouble with arguing “which oppression came first,” in addition to being unproveable, is that it all too quickly becomes “my oppression came first so it has to be dealt with before yours.” They’re all important, they all need to go, and attacking them in isolation from one another won’t produce anything (at best) but superficial results anyway. Case closed.
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January 1st, 2006 at 11:10 am
has Susie Bright ever been called anti-feminist by a prominent feminist author?
I might be wrong–I can’t recall where I read this–but I think Andrea Dworkin, who I’d certainly call a prominent feminist author, has at the very least implied that Bright is anti-feminist. I’ve definitely heard less-prominent feminists make that accusation.
And Chisholm’s experience is her own. Personally, I’ve had the opposite experience when it comes to racism vs. sexism in terms of discrimination, hateful words and violence. I definitely wouldn’t use this to say that racism is somehow worse than sexism, though. I agree with Alsis and Reddecca that ranking one kind of oppression as “worse” or more “rooted” than another is pointless.
I don’t have much else to say but I’m really learning a lot reading this discussion.
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January 1st, 2006 at 11:45 am
I just want to offer a slightly different perspective. As a graduate student many of the feminists around me became intoxicated with the work of Luce Irigaray (me included). Irigaray argues that sexual oppression is the root of all other oppressions too and then, in her later writings, posit that we need to build a new concept of woman that is not dependent on the concept man.
This can be alluring because in part it simplifies things. But, after years of moving away from Irigarary’s view, I realize how insufficient and problematic it is. In fact, I think beginning in Women’s Studies course with the view that women’s oppression was in the beginning the first oppression can lead to reinforcing feminism as a white woman’s movement. The discussions all presume some common experience as women, which is generally the white woman’s experience. And the substance of discussion focuses on sexuality. It is often not that difficult to get a classroom of mostly white students to get interested in issues of sexuality: rape, objectification, pornography, etc.
What is really hard, and I speak from experience, is to get a classroom of mostly white students to get interested in the problems of (a) structrual adjustment on third world countries, (b) anti-union tactics in third world countries that fundamentally target women who are seen to be inferior and less likely to fight for wages, (c) the disappearance of the middle class, (d) the rates of incarcertation of african american men, (e) the high rates of alcoholism among Native Americans, (f) the relationship of white middle class African American women to third world women, etc.
The point of this partial list is to illustrate a “women’s studies” class that doesn’t put white women from the US at the center. If you start looking at problems of oppression and identity from a totally different perspective than your own, which is the case for many of my students, then you tend to feel rather alienated from the subject matter. I found that at the end of my last course on WS, the students had scrambled for the whole semester to show that the US wasn’t unfair in its foreign policy, treatment of people of color and nor were they in any way racists or classist. In fact, I remember distinctly how irate they were after reading a piece written specifically on class.
So, the danger in arguing that sexual oppression is the locus from which to study all other oppressions is that your account of what counts as sexual oppression gets pretty abstract or it starts to look a lot like the problems of white women (not impoverished). IF you want to articulate a radical feminist position that consistently and concretely takes seriously the above problems then I am interested in seeing what that looks like.
This comment was written by aspazia.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 12:01 pm
I really liked reddecca’s comment.
The primary factor that seperates my views from radical feminism is that I tend to see class oppression (in the surplus extraction sense) and gender oppression (in the reproductive sense) as developing roughly simultaneously out of the two essential functions of any society from a historical materialist perspective (production and social reproduction) and both can, in my view, roughly be dated to settled agriculture. Beyond that my own views are pretty close to a (non-determinist) historical materialism of gender (that is, to distinguish myself from socialist feminist thought, I don’t see gender oppression as a consequence of class oppression but rather as a seperate oppression that must be understood in its own terms).
In other words, I reject primacy for methodological reasons, but also because I don’t see it as productive. From my point of view it doesn’t matter which came first, not even for theoretical or methodological purposes. I see nothing inherent in a historical materialist understanding of class or gendered class that requires primacy. Of course, other strands/threads of radical feminism disagree on this point or even on using historical materialism as a methodology for understanding gender oppression.
This comment was written by Lorenzo.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Linnet, I find your counter that probably but you don’t know where or what was said Andrea Dworkin called Susie Bright anti-feminist wholly unconvincing in its attempt to deflect the well-known truth of how Dworkin, and radical feminists in general, have been constantly maligned by mainstream feminists as delusional right wing patsies working against feminism.
I would never claim radical feminists are the most knowledgeable people on matters of race because feminists as a whole are woman-centered-women necessarily (hence the fem prefix), but I think as far as seeing the underlying forces that work together behind the institutionalized oppressions of gender, race, age, class, able-bodiedness, nationalism, etc. radical feminists have keener insights than most other kinds of feminists.
I read a lot about progressive politics and a lot about feminism, and I have read just about every book, essay and website about radical feminism I’ve come across. I say that because there is one essay by a long-time lesbian radical feminist that is, in my opinion, possibly the most important and best-written essay about capitalism, globalization, imperialism, and gender written in the past ten years. Words fail to describe the oppression-integrated awesomeness that is D.A. Clarke’s 2004 essay, “Prostitution for everyone: Feminism, globalization and the sex industry” appearing in the book Not For Sale: Feminists resisting prostitution and pornography. All progressives, feminist or not, should read this essay for its genius critique of imperialistic neoliberal free marketism, but I dare anyone to read this essay and suggest radical feminists are out of touch with racial, economic, and nationalist oppressions.
Now that I’m looking at the table of contents for Not For Sale, a book co-edited by an American Indian woman, there are essays from black radfems (”Prostitution and the new slavery”) and Asian radfems (”Nobody’s concubine” and “Pornography, prostitution and women’s human rights in Japan”). There’s an essay from Robert Jensen linking militarized racial aggression to pornographized sexual aggression (”Blow bangs and cluster bombs: the cruelty of men and Americans”) and from Gail Dines on racism in pornography (”King Kong and the white woman: Hustler magazine and the demonization of black masculinity”). There’s an essay linking the racism of Canada’s First Nation’s colonization to the ignored murders of more than 60 prostituted women in Vancouver, where 52 percent of prostitutes are native women in a city with a native population estimated at 2 percent to 7 percent (and if you didn’t know that fact, but you did know about Robert Pickton’s pig farm, ask yourself why the feminist source you heard about it from left that information out.)
If you think radical feminists aren’t paying attention to race, nationalism, militarism and the intersections of these oppressions with women’s rights it could be you haven’t read enough about radical feminism in the new millennium to make that assumption.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Linnet, I find your counter that probably but you don’t know where or what was said Andrea Dworkin called Susie Bright anti-feminist wholly unconvincing in its attempt to deflect the well-known truth of how Dworkin, and radical feminists in general, have been constantly maligned by mainstream feminists as delusional right wing patsies working against feminism.
Don’t put words in my mouth. I wasn’t trying to “deflect” anything or to argue that Dworkin hasn’t been maligned. I know she has. I was saying that Susie Bright has received hatred from radical feminists as well.
This comment was written by Linnet.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Samantha: but would the authors of those essays self-describe as radical feminists, and agree that the oppression of women is the root of all oppressions? Would they agree that black men are necessarily privileged above white women?
I’ve read many radical feminists who are aware of ” race, nationalism, militarism and the intersections of these oppressions with women’s rights,” as you put it. But my contention (and many others’ too, I suspect) is with the claim of women’s oppression being the most oppressive and the root of other forms of oppression.
This comment was written by Linnet.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 2:22 pm
I don’t know that the writers of those essays would “agree that black men are privileged over white women,” although most of those Samantha listed I recongize as self-identified radical feminists. And I haven’t made any statement that “black men are privileged over white women.” I have said that privilege attaches not to whiteness alone but to maleness plus whiteness, and that is evident in that while white men earn more money than men or women of any other race, the same cannot be said about white women. Which is a statement about the way race privilege is a function of sex privilege, which is a statement about sex privilege as “root” or central, not “more than.”
What I do know the writers Samantha cited to would agree to is, for example, that without regard to race, men bond over the objectification and exploitation and degradation of women in pornography in a way women, without regard to race, do not bond over the similar objectification and exploitation of men of any race. And I know they’d all agree that although white women are treated “best of all” when it comes to, for example, how women are depicted in pornography, that just means that what is done to white women can be done to all women, and then some, or as one writer puts it, “This is what privilege as a woman gets you: most valued as dead meat.” When radical feminists speak in terms of root oppressions, we’re not talking about “more” or “greater” oppressions necessarily. We’re more talking about what all men can and do do to all women, without regard to race, which women can’t and don’t similarly do to men, again without regard to race.
Heart
This comment was written by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 2:29 pm
You know, Susie Bright has email, we could just, I dunno, take the radical step of asking her.
Or would y’all rather fight with each other over who’s really feminists?
And how the hell did we get onto Dworkin and Porn again? I thought this thread was about the root of oppression.
I think he idea of gender oppression as being the root has some valid reasons for looking at it as a good hypothesis. IMO, oppression ties in to gender on a near universal level. Going back to the beginnings recorded history, almost all societies, even isolated ones, have a history of gender based opression. It’s certainly a universal experience.
I hate going in to evolutionary psychology, because I think it’s mostly bullshit, but it’s obvious that teritoriality is a strong trait among almost all animals, including teritoriality of one’s mate. Is it possible that this is the root cause of opression in general, and gender based opression in specific?
I think it’s facinating that we humans have so little social mechanisms built to supress that mechanism, but so much to supress, say, the urge to kill the jerk how cuts you off in traffic. Both have a biological component (if I’m right) but opression is actually helped along by society’s rules.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 2:49 pm
What?! *This* is what Heart has been doing instead of sending me that “This Advice Sucks” column she promised me?
Heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This comment was written by flea.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Josh Jasper wrote:
This comment was written by Crystal.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 2:53 pm
This is a great discussion thread, I’m enjoying it very much. I’ve been lurking pretty regularly at this blog for a couple of years (possibly longer), but haven’t ever posted anything substantive. (I once posted a link some time ago in a marriage equality thread under a different handle.) I’d like to participate more in the discourse, and the recent changes Ampersand is experimenting with regarding limiting certain threads to feminist, pro-feminist, & feminist-friendly only make me feel far more comfortable doing that. These conversations are becoming the sort that I feel are worth participating in.
As to topic, count me in as another feminist who thinks the detriments of the primacy arguments outweigh the benefits. Along with what others have already posted — specifically regarding the history of egalitarian societies that has gone unnoticed and/or erased — it seems to me that this is a question we can never answer definitively, and that therefore it becomes an argument of belief or faith between feminists; and the moment one group of feminists uses it in an attempt to discredit, negate, or even criticize another group of feminists’ brand of feminism or “way of doing” feminism, it then becomes just another power struggle, another site of arbitrary oppression that serves to detract from furthering the generally feminist goal of achieving gender equality. My own personal belief regarding the constitution of “the core oppression” is that it varies depending on context, but this is not something I’d assert as objective or provable.
Regarding Luce Irigaray, I have heard her style described as “strategic essentialism”, with the suggestion that she does not really write from an essentialist place so much as she utilizes essentialism as a strategy to elucidate concepts in a world where essentialism is a primary underpinning of the binary oppositional gender frame in which she argues that women have been defined by men to be their opposites…this interpretation reads right to me, based on my read of Luce Irigaray’s work, but I cannot read her in her native French so I’m open to reinterpretation.
This comment was written by IndyLib.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Urgh. I don’t know how that happened, that only my block quote posted. The rest of my message got cut off and with it was lost most of my point.
Because I don’t feel like typing out the whole long damn message again, I wanted to reiterate that male dominance is NOT universal. Gender-egalitarian cultures existed and continue to exist. Space does not permit me to give an annotated bibliography, but the works of Riane Eisler, Marija Gimbutas, Paula Gunn Allen, Barbara Mann, and the archeologist Sarah M. Nelson are some of my suggested readings.
I do not believe that male dominance is the default setting for our species. I think it is caused by social and cultural factors, not some kind of Brute Gene residing on the Y chromosome - or a corresponding Patsy Gene on the short arm of the X. Evo-psycho rationalizations for “universal male dominance” have somehow taken the place of Judeo-Christian religious ones in the philosophies of the educated and the secular. In fact, primatologist Robert Sussman has debunked the “man the hunter, man the killer” theory on just such grounds - that this is not science, but an ideology masquerading as science.
I have always called myself a feminist, but to be honest I don’t know about the “radical” part - perhaps I should categorize myself as a Pollyanna feminist! At any rate, I think it’s important to establish the existence of egalitarian societies. As Myca pointed out above, denying the existence of egalitarian societies is a tremendous setback to the feminist cause. It robs us of credibility, and gives ample ammunition to those who say that feminism is doomed because it’s somehow against human nature.
This comment was written by Crystal.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 3:11 pm
HA!!!
Hey, you know what happens when I start tweaking things, flea…
;)
Heart
This comment was written by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 3:52 pm
I don’t disagree with that at all. I just think using the term ‘classism’ implies that discrimination, rather than extraction of labour, is the primary problem. Sexism means discrimination on grounds of sex, racism means discrimination on grounds of race, in both these cases we actually have supplementary terms to describe what else is going on (misogyny, and white supremacy). But to talk about ‘classism’ (particularly using that your only term to talk about class), to me, puts too much emphasis on discrimination.
Just for the record I’m enough of a materialist to believe it’s nothing to do with our psyche’s and dislike of the ‘other’. Oppression happens because it benefits the groups who perform it, and because they find sustainable systems to do it.
This comment was written by reddecca.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 4:17 pm
reddecca, I think the stumbling block for me here is that there is no disconnect for me between “extraction of labor” and “discrimination.” Hell, a major pet peeve for me is the deification in this country of the 40-hr+ work week. One of the reasons I decided to quit my job is because I decided that my superiors’ interest in keeping me stuck in that particular rut– to the detriment of other goals I might have– was intolerable. Did they discriminate against me by making it crystal-clear that my only option if I wanted an alternative was to quit ? No. Did they exercise power-over as members of higher class (leaving me to make a decision that has far more material risk for me than it would for one of them) ? Yes.
Truthfully, I also don’t see any disconnect between the concept of “othering” a traditionally subordinate gender/race/class and the benefits accrued by doing so. Obviously “othering” feeds the status quo by making it seem ordained and innate, and the conditions of the status quo in turn reward the superiors in any caste system for practicing “othering” in the first place.
Maybe it’s hard for me to see where you’re coming from because I’m from the U.S., which is legendary for pretending that class doesn’t exist, and that anybody who tries to bring it up worships Stalin or Castro or whomever. In other countries, class is one more tool in analyzing power relationships. In the U.S., it’s dirty pool. >:
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Oh, and just for the record, both the superior who made it impossible for me to change my work schedule and the one who threw up her hands and would not get involved when I had a male co-worker routinely harrassing me for years were female. Which to me says that “core oppression” isn’t the more important question in my day-to-day life. The more important question is how to practice the feminist tenets I believe in when the other “sisters” in my life either never got the memo, or prefer to reap profits for themselves at my expense by ignoring it.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 4:58 pm
I’m not certain if this is the place for this particular comment and I apologize if I’ve errored.
I think sexism is more entrenched because it is not possible, at least yet, for women and men to distance ourselves from each other and continue to exist as a species. People have lived without “the other” for years, for whole lifetimes, and survived as nations/tribes what have you. That doesn’t mean that “the other” hasn’t contributed greatly to the scope of world knowledge and progress; but in day to day lives we can survive.
No tribe/nation etc. could survive without both sexes.
Fear is at the heart of all prejudices. That could be a rational fear or irrational one but it is still fear.
Anyway, I don’t think sexism is the cause of all other prejudices; but it is and will be the hardest to end.
This comment was written by Rachel Ann.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 5:00 pm
You could be right (although New Zealand is also quite good at ignoring class, for many of the same reasons as the US is).
I guess I see discrimination as quite a weak tool of analysis, which doesn’t necessarily include any analysis of power. So white people can call affirmitive action racism, and men can call the family court sexist.
This comment was written by reddecca.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 5:16 pm
I forgot to add some of my critique of this statement:
I think we find, for example, that black men, in general, earn more money than white women and have consistently for a very long time. I think we find that black men were, for example, enfranchised as citizens in the United States 70 years before white women were. And I think we find, for example, that black college-educated women earn more money today, than similarly situated college-educated white women. I have written about this in some depth here.
I the idea that Black men were able to vote before White women ignores the fact that the 15th Amendment to the constitution was not enforced until the 1960s–hence the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For the most part White women were voting before Black men. I’ll have to look at historic income tables to compare BM and WW, but obviously Black men earned nothing under the system of slavery.
Anyway, this is my last comment on this particular thread. I can only read so many “gender is the root of oppression” posts in one day. To be frank, it angers me when we try to place these isms as more or less important. When I’m around White feminists, who focus on their own oppression, without giving significant attention to other forms of oppression it makes me mad, and when I’m around some of my Black male collegues/friends and I have to make the case for focusing on sexism I feel the same. I figure someone has to standup (and I see a few others did as well) for a more integrated perspective.
This comment was written by Rachel S.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 5:57 pm
I just wanted to second or third the commenters who noticed that based on hearts definition of radical feminist in the first paragraph, I am one–ie, I believe that we live in a male-supremacist society and that in our current historical moment, male-supremcay is as universal as anything can be. But I don’t think that “therefore gender oppression is the root of all oppression” necesarrily follows from that argument.
I would further argue, that, leaving aside the oppression progression that took place in the distant sands of time, we now live under a (fairly recent) global regime of capitalism. I would argue that much of the gender oppression we face now takes the form of extraction of surplus labor, made possible by widespread “discrimination,” though I wouldn’t favor that term. I’d replace it by something like “dehumanization” or something similar…
K
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 7:14 pm
Crystal: I’m not asking you to argue for the existance of a negative (ie. Prove that the gene does not exist!), but teritoriality and social ranking is something that primates do frequently. If there were no propensity towards some sort of teritoriality in humans, I’d find it totaly at odds with our closest genetic relatives.
I’m also not saying that, if it exists, it’s a good thing. I’m classing it on the order of our urge to murderous violence. If it exists, it’s better off supressed.
I’m also quite willing to accept a good argument that it does not exist, and that the urge to dominate comes from cultural reasoning, and pure greed. I’m certainly not an expert on anthropology either.
As for egalitarian societies, I’d be happy to admit they existed. I think there are even some female dominated societies out there as well, but they’re not the norm.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Wow, I’m feeling woefully underread, but I’ll throw my two cents in…
This comment was written by AlieraKieron.I’ll ditto several people above: we simply don’t know enough about human civilization before, say, three thousand years back to difinitively identify a root cause. I would tentatively suggest that if gender discrimination were the prototype of discrimination, we would expect for that to change before any other kind of societal change can take place. But in the period I study (mainly late Republican/early Imperial Rome) we see that economic changes preceed alteration in gender roles: namely, in this case, that increased economic power for women led to greater societal power and a relaxation of gender roles, and specifically an alteration in marriage customs that allowed women to remain legal entities separate from their husbands.
Not, of course, from their fathers, but then again, noone was ever legally separate from their paterfamilias.
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January 1st, 2006 at 9:23 pm
I’m happy to concede the existence of egalatarian societies re men and women, as evidence has been offered. I’ve certainly never believed the most universal inequality is ‘the natural order’ in any case. You only have to have felt the resentment and strain, as a girl or a woman living under and fighting against limitations to know that - even if you were in total ignorance of discussions such as this.
This comment was written by cicely.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 10:35 pm
This is the first time I’ve been to this site. Pity I haven’t found it before, its great! I’ve enjoyed reading the discussion. There is a lot I would like to add, but I don’t want to make it too long and I’m sure that the discussion will continue for quite some time.
However, let me start by saying that I disagree with what I see as the key components of Heart’s argument. 1.)I don’t agree that gender was the first othering and therefore the original oppression. 2.)I don’t agree that the best way to fight oppression is to focus on a ‘root’ cause, and 3.) I don’t feel that radical feminists have to agree that sexism was the original oppression.
To briefly address the first disagreement, I’d like to point to Carol Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat. Her work addressing absent referents could easily be construed as evidence that the first instance of othering was that of humyns declaring themselves superior to the natural world (she speaks specifically of animals). And that this othering has been used throughout time to furthering the oppression of other groups.
However, I’m not about to argue that therefor the root (or radical) target of oppression is speciesism. Trying to cling to a specific type of oppression as the ‘root’ of all other oppression is a very slippery slope, and one of dangerous consequences. First off, it ignores the intersections of identity, asking a persyn to seperate themselves into tiny pieces and then decide which piece of their being is more important or more oppressed. That dehumynization is exactly what I want to fight against, whatever form it takes. I think if we are ever to end oppression then we must recognize that oppression is oppression and needs to be fought in whatever way necessary (not whatever way we feel comfortable).
And the third argument is one that I find particularly dangerous. Setting a hierarchy of dedication is guaranteed to do nothing but discourage the majority of people from getting involved. This isn’t just true with the example of radical feminism that was given. Take for example the activists that feel they are more radical because they are involved in sit-ins or window-breaking. This attitude (one that I briefly danced with not so long ago) alienates those that are doing what they are able to at the moment; whether that be letter-writing, passing out fliers, or blogging. In my opinion, anyone that is challenging themselves to stop Male Supremacy, White Supremacy, ableism, or any other form of institutionalized oppression is taking a positive step and doesn’t deserve to be treated as an intellectual inferior. That doesn’t mean that I’m suggesting letting people get away with minimal actions. I’m a strong advocate of continually challenging ourselves and others to take further action (we are all hypocrites). I just don’t think we need to degrade others and their struggles in the process.
This comment was written by vegankid.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2006 at 10:47 pm
The problem with invoking “human nature” with respect to male dominance, or for that matter racism, classism and all other “isms” that many of us hope to minimize or eradicate - is that I see “human nature” used as a cudgel by conservatives to beat liberals about the head with. Not just feminists, but anti-racism activists and other progressive sorts get fingers wagged at them and told, “It’s human nature to be sexist/racist/whatever. You can’t change human nature. It’s futile. Give it up. Boys will be boys, and whites will be whites.” And when feminists (or whoever) protest or rebut such arguments, we’re told we suffer from “biophobia.”
The thing is, I don’t believe that it is “human nature” for men to oppress women, for whites to oppress people of color, for genders and ethnic groups to hate each other forevermore. It’s certainly something we are prone to under certain environmental and societal conditions. But the idea of an innate evil and destructive human nature has been traced by Sussman and others to the Judeo-Christian idea of original sin - not to science.
For what it’s worth, I do not believe that the oppression of women was the “original oppression.” I believe that social classes and slavery originated first (in most cases) and that the Othering and oppression of women was a way for elite men to maintain control over the social hierarchy. We can’t have a noblewoman falling in love with a handsome serf and upsetting the applecart, now can we? Also, by othering women (and gays) and labeling them inferior and loathesome, this made true friendship, companionship and love between men and women less possible - another way of saying “divide and conquer” as well as keeping men’s hearts pure and austere in the name of serving state/royal interests.
While there are a few societies that are basically classless and egalitarian and yet oppress women (the Inuit, for example) and others which are gender-egalitarian yet have social classes and even slavery (some Native American, Asian and Polynesian societies - and note that often, the slaves in these societies were from the same ethnic group as their masters or very close) - I would say that, by and large, where you find gender oppression you find other kinds of oppression - by class, race, sexuality, etc. - as well.
This comment was written by Crystal.Report this comment to the moderators
January 2nd, 2006 at 4:34 am
Crystal, I’m not saying it’s human nature to explain any particular “ism”, or that it can’t be fought, I’m saying that it’s the nature of almost every mamal to have some sort of teritorial impulse, much in the way that the urge to violence as a response to anger is a part of animal behavior. These certainly can, and should be resisted in most situations.
I do recognize that the argument ahs the potential to lend it’s self to the sort of political and social views that feminism fights against, but I don’t want to abandon it as an argument just ebcause it’s politicaly inconvenient, I’d rather abandon it if it were untrue. So far, I’m not convinced, but I should look into those books you mentioned. I examined the “Man the hunter debuked” link, and while it’s compelling, it’s not proof of a lack of teritoriality within a social group. Lots of herbivores are teritorial.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:01 am
My view has come to be that whether or not pre-historic or extra-historic (to coin a term) societies have been egalitarian or not is interesting but irrelevant. People seek this information because so often tradition and “nature” are used to oppress women. I think that this sort of archeology misses the happy elephant in the room: that the most stable, peaceful, educated and wealthy societies today are the ones in which women have the highest status and power, even if it’s still less than men’s. So maybe women’s oppression is the most basic in this way: it’s the one whose abolition brings about the highest standard of living for everyone.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:29 am
“But the idea of an innate evil and destructive human nature has been traced by Sussman and others to the Judeo-Christian idea of original sin - not to science.”
I think humans have an instinct to survive and compete, and that in certain circumstances, these can lead to oppressive systems. These aren’t “evil” instincts in themselves, but it depends on context, of course.
I remember reading once about different “cultures” among a certain primate (Unfortunately, I don’t remember details here - maybe they were baboons? - It was years ago, and I think it was a Newsweek article.)
Anyway, on one coast of Africa, this species of primate had plenty of resources (food, water, etc.) and had very “egalitarian” societies (both socially and by gender). On the other coast, with the same species, resources were more scarce and the males were very dominant of the females and very prone to “warlike” behavior. I thought it was fascinating in that we could look at culture to some extent as a natural occurrence. It implies that in some ways, both egalitarian and patriarchal societies could result from basic human nature, not just “higher order thought”.
This comment was written by Barbara Preuninger.Report this comment to the moderators
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:09 am
A few points.
Radical feminism encompasses two big ideas:
1. Gender inequality is a deep-structure issue, interwoven with the very fabric of society. Confronting it means confronting the core values of the patriarchal culture. Legislative remedies alone won’t do the trick (which is what liberal feminists hoped); even when legal barricades to women’s advancement have been removed, the hearts-and-minds stuff (gender stereotypes and expectations) will get in the way.
2. The oppression of women is the root oppression in human society, both typologically and historically; all other oppressions stem from it.
Number one is something that a great many modern feminists would agree with, even if they don’t consider themselves “radical” feminists. Personally, I would argue that #1 has been proven empirically correct; it is an accurate description of reality.
Number two, on the other hand, is a conjecture. It may or may not be correct. Gerda Lerner elucidated the standard approach in “The Creation of Patriarchy.” This is a towering work but, in my opinion, suffers from Lerner’s focus on the rise of civilization in the Near East, which she takes as the model for human social development. It needs to be read against anthropologists like Peggy Reeves Sanday (”Female Power and Male Dominance”) who offers a fuller picture of the range of human cultures, from extremely androcentric to almost purely egalitarian. One of Sanday’s key findings is that female oppression, social violence, class hierarchy, and warfare always seem to be a package, even in the most “primitive” societies. (The obverse is that gender equality and relative peacefulness also go hand-in-hand.) So it’s rather a chicken and egg question as to which kind of oppression came first, since they’re always found bundled together. And asking which came “first” may not even make sense. My point is that the question of origins — which is extremely interesting from an anthropological and historical perspective — is an evolving discussion that can and should be separated from the analytical insights that radical feminism offers about the world we live in today.
As for whether there is a feminism that can unite women across racial, class, or cultural divides, I think feminism suffers from the same problem as classical Marxism: it is descriptively correct, but prescriptively incorrect. That is to say, Marx argued that peasants in different societies had far more in common with each other than with their overlords. And he was right! But he was wrong to think that these same peasants would cross national or cultural boundaries to find common cause together. National and tribal affiliations always trump.
It’s the same thing with women. Across the globe, women face the same issues, the same types of oppression, the same struggles. Yet they rarely see this — and even if they do see it, any kinship they feel with those strange women can’t begin to trump the powerful affiliation with one’s own family, tribe, nation.
This comment was written by Violet Socks.Report this comment to the moderators
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:44 am
Hi. Long time lurker, first time poster. I normally wouldn’t way-in as I am woefully uneducated as far as the literature on feminism goes. However, I am a Primatologist and consider myself to be most assuredly feminist (which is not a small thing when you work in science).
There is a lot of variation in primate social systems and a lot of variation within the same species. It is absolutely the environment that shapes these differences. Baboons are a great example, as Barbara pointed out above, in some stressful environments males have harems that they aggressively control, yet in other environments males and females mix freely, albeit with an established female dominance hierarchy (which is present to some degree in all primates, giving females plenty of opportunity to be mean to each 0ther). Our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, also have a ‘mixed’ community structure, but they are one of the most aggressively territorial primates and, within the group, practice focused and horrifying violence againt females.
That being said, I could care less if it is in our nature to be crappy to each other. If there is one thing that separates ‘man’ from the animals, it’s that we can recognize our biases and therein have no excuse for them. I think our ‘nature’ is irrelevant, because we are intelligent enough to be responsible for our behavior.
Also, I think aspazia’s comments were excellent. We cannot remedy the issues in the US while turning a blind eye to what all Americans are doing to women in the rest of the world.
This comment was written by Prairie O..Report this comment to the moderators
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Very interesting posts, Elena and Barbara. My first reaction to Elena’s post was to wonder if the cause and effect might go the other way: maybe stable, peaceful and wealthy societies foster better conditions for women (both absolutely and compared to men), and maybe this has to do with having climbed up the Maslowian hierarchy far enough to have stopped worrying about food and shelter (I would argue that if you’re starving you’re oppressed by definition, and second what a couple of people have said about US- or Eurocentric views). That this happens with other primates as well as people suggests that it’s very much tied in with survival and/or reproductive instincts.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Barbara and Prairie, I agree that it’s incredibly enlightening to study this from the animal perspective. Personally my own inclination is always to start with the animal basis and work “up” (as it were) to human cultural variations. One difficulty with most social theory (including feminist) is the tendency to view humans as if we exist in a vacuum, divorced from our animal natures.
However, having said that…. the potential pitfall with the animal-behavior approach is that it all too often devolves into evolutionary psyschology/sociobiology, in which the patriarchal status quo is interpreted — and invariably defended — as the “natural” state of women and men. That shouldn’t have to happen, but somehow it always does. One minute you’re studying mating strategies across primate populations, and the next minute some EP is arguing that it’s just plain natural and right for women to stay home and take care of babies while men rule the world. I’m not saying we should jettison the animal perspective — I actually think it’s critical to any genuine understanding of human gender relations. I just find myself being careful about introducing it because it’s so easily misused.
One of the challenges of modern feminist theory, I think, is to develop a Big Picture theory of gender relations that successfully integrates modern findings from evolutionary biology, history, archaeology, anthropology, political science…
This comment was written by Violet Socks.Report this comment to the moderators
January 2nd, 2006 at 3:44 pm
A lot of people have at least touched on what I want to say, but I want to say it again:
“Is The Oppression of Women The Root Of All Oppressions?”
I regard the question itself with suspicion.* It smacks of “There Can Be Only One” thinking. The radical feminist viewpoint may suggest useful ways to fight oppression. So might other viewpoints. (We’ve mentioned some in this thread.) Unless some of these viewpoints lead to testable predictions, I see no compelling reason to prefer one view to another. Even if some do fit the rules of the ’science game’ or scientific viewpoint, that doesn’t strike me as a reason to reject all non-predictive theories — it sounds like a reason not to treat them as science. Whenever one viewpoint suggests a course of action, we could examine the proposal from other viewpoints (preferably including the perspective of science) and see what they say. Focusing on one point of view to the exclusion of all others seems horribly dangerous to me.** In fact, it seems like another possible “root of all oppressions”. We could (if we chose) see racism, sexism and “essentialism” as examples of people seeking One True Way of looking at phenomena. (See Lu, comment 8, and note the use of the ‘is of identity’ in the first two steps.) I hope this helps to explain why I avoid the verb “to be” whenever I want to think clearly.
*Though for all I know, Amp agrees with me about this.
This comment was written by hf.**I don’t mean to say that anyone here definitely does this. I do mean to say that we all tend to make this mistake if we don’t watch ourselves, and the search for one root cause sounds a major warning note for me.
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January 2nd, 2006 at 4:32 pm
I don’t know much about the theory of feminism (I admit to be in the process of learning about it though). I have always focused more on the “how to change it” versus the “why it exists” when it comes to dealing with racism, sexism, and oppression in general.
To me IMO, it matters little if racism preceeds sexism, sexism preceeds racism, or classism or surplus labor preceeds them both. To me what matters is looking at how all the various oppressions intersect and how they function in modern society in order to determine how best to mitigate them and eradicate them.
I have found this discussion interesting from an intellectual point of view, and I’m always interested in learning about the historical, social, and possible biological origins of some of man’s group dynamics. (Note: though I can and do appreciate that homo sapian is an animal, our reasoning skills give us the advantage of being able to change, ignore, and otherwise rise above our basic biology).
This comment was written by Mendy.