Oppression

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

I found this piece was very hard going.heart rending, even.
It has helped me to understand why some feminists are so angry, resentful and bitter.
the question is, how do we stop this happening? I have been in jobs where I was 'damned if I did, damned if I didn't.' I have some sense of what is meant by ' the double bind of oppression'. I got miserable and, yes, suicidal, because I lacked the skills, education or opportunity to leave and still keep my home, etc.
Fortunately, circumstances changed and I went on to better things.
For many women, however, what happened to me in the past - for a couple of years or so - is a continuing experience with no end in sight.

Do any women here think things have changed since it was written? is it something you are aware of as it affects your daily life?
Does anyone have any answers to undoing this terrible situation?
http://www.terry.uga.edu/~dawndba/4500Oppression.html

Comments

[meretrix-jones.livejournal.com]

"The message of the false helpfulness of male gallantry is female dependence, the invisibility or insignificance of women, and contempt for women."

YES, this effects my daily life - and I personally feel it's 100%crap. I've grown quite tired of people "rescuing" me from the evils behind chivalry and decent manners. If you want to rescue women from something, enforce the myth of equal pay - don't strip away the perks of being feminine and then say, "There....see? Opened your own door. Consider yourself liberated."

Some aspects of this paper make sense - it's a shame she was compelled to go completely over the top.

I don't want to live in a largely genderless society. I want the differences between men and women to be acknowledged and respected....jumping right into the "oppression" argument when a man does the unthinkable and actually opens a woman's door is hardly furthering anyones cause.

[joeboi4u.livejournal.com]

Yeah but why does it have to be a man who opens a women's door? Shouldn't all people be opening doors for everyone. I dunno i think for some people these gender roles are cool. But for me and people like myself these gender roles are a bunch of crap.

[kungfufelon.livejournal.com]

....jumping right into the "oppression" argument when a man does the unthinkable and actually opens a woman's door is hardly furthering anyones cause. ...Unfortunately, it is the feminists who have been so good at doing just that...

If you want to rescue women from something, enforce the myth of equal pay - don't strip away the perks of being feminine and then say, "There....see? Opened your own door. Consider yourself liberated." But those little gesutres are the materialization of the idea that women do need to be helped by men. If you want equality, you must eliminate all manifestations of inequality, may they be beneficial to you or otherwise. If not, you only allow the idea behind a small gesture to pervade all levels of society by making it so that there remains a notion of acceptability for such an idea. Opening your own door is liberation because the idea behind the act is the same idea as that that justified unequal pay, job hiring discrimination, and gender discrimination in education (the notion that since men are necessitated to support women, men should be given more opportunity, more pay, etc.).

What is ridiculous about this article is it still assumes--and supports--the opposition between opressor-opressed and equate that with the man-woman binary. It never realizes that maybe the system is neither controlled by nor connected to either gender, but rather a system that hovers over both men and women, andopresses both men and women. Some thousands of years ago social rules have been set by consensus among the human population because it allows them to survive and live peacefully. Right after they created that code of rules for proper behavior--again, a code established through a consensus--it becomes an entity unto itslf. Men do not control this system, despite the fact that they were entrusted by that system to be the controller, the opressor, the implementor of that system. They were entrusted, but they are not in and of themselves the opressors. Rather it is the system that opress men and women by relegating them to social roles and positions.

I guess what I'm saying is is that men and women are opressed by a system we all somehow chose to live in. As women are relegated to a subordinate position, men are forced to be the provider, the bread-winner, the person to bring home the bacon. In other words, the system opresses them into a specific role; albeit a different role, a restricting role nonetheless. Once one starts emphasizing the opression of one side, one ultimately starts to forget that it is the system that opresses the society and the society does not opress itself. Just by looking at a bird on the birdcage, one is already limiting one's self, for one does not see that there is a second bird in the birdcage. We can focus all we want to the suffering of one bird, but as long as we continue to neglect the idea that the cage itself is opressive, then we are really not solving anything. We are only overturning the gender roles that the system has imposed on the society and imposing them on different elements in that society, not eliminating them. There is still opression, only it becomes the kind that we could be comfortable with.

[meretrix-jones.livejournal.com]

But those little gesutres are the materialization of the idea that women do need to be helped by men. If you want equality, you must eliminate all manifestations of inequality, may they be beneficial to you or otherwise. If not, you only allow the idea behind a small gesture to pervade all levels of society by making it so that there remains a notion of acceptability for such an idea. Opening your own door is liberation

Again, this is just too over the top for me. NOT ONCE have I witnessed a man opening a door for a woman and thought, "That Bastard!!!....Oh, the Oppression!!"

Feminism wasn't intended to eliminate femininity and it hasn't - nor should it eliminate gentlemanly behavior.

The day men stop opening my door and offering me a chair is the day I take up cropped wash and wear hair, wearing a lot of flannel and Birkenstocks, and farting at the dinner table. As long as I put in the effort to remain feminine, I expect to be treated accordingly. It's been my experience that people are intelligent enough to distinguish between an act of civility and one of oppression.

If opening a woman's door is a sign of viewing her as incapable of opening it herself (ludicrous no matter who says it), then I guess offering her a chair is a sign of her being unable to find her own ass without a man's assistance? Nonsense.

If you have an appreciation for women, show them. If not, don't - but don't say that the disrespect is done in the name of equal rights....opening a door was never a right - having one opened for you was never a right - just a sign of good manners. Something men do when they like women.

[joeboi4u.livejournal.com]

So only a certain type of woman should have her door opened? I am a very masculine female. Not by choice but simply by the way i was born. Men hold the door open for me and I hold it open for them. It's something a person does when they like a person. I'm not saying that a feminine person, if they are looking for that kind of attention shouldn't seek it out. But you assume that you have to be feminine to have men do things like hold doors for you. you may have more men doing so but as a butch person i have men open doors for me all of the time. It's the mentality, the "in the box" thinking that is presented here. A woman should.... A man should....these are all constructed notions. If you get to caught up in it then that becomes dangerous.

[justjanuary.livejournal.com]

What does being feminine have to do with having someone open a door for someone?

[dojothemouse.livejournal.com]

No, maybe she's right. Maybe it's oppression.

So we'll deal with that kind of oppression last.

[dojothemouse.livejournal.com]

It has helped me to understand why some feminists are so angry, resentful and bitter.

Funny, you were supposed to say, "It has helped me to understand why I thought feminists were angry, resentful and bitter".

But, you know. Whatever.