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| Nora in the mode of being a doll |
Why is it that sexism and racism are the two prejudices particularly looked down upon? It is because those who practice sexism and racism have power over the victims. If they all had the same power and rights, even if one side holds prejudices against the other; it would not amount to anything too harmful.
Proletariats revolted, black Americans revolted, the next was the women. Did they develop the “species conscience” like the other revolutionary forerunners? Looking at expressions from feminist artists such as Mapplethorpe and Judy Chicago, surely they notice the difference between them and others – men. De Beauvoir argues it is hard for women to organize themselves or to form a common enemy. They always stand by their husbands so that they have nothing much in common: A higher-class wife does not have any contact with middle or lower-class wives, or anything in common. It seems women need men, and it sounds ridiculous for some women to make men the common enemy.
Consequently, the feminist revolution was much less noticed than the civil rights movement. There has not yet been a woman Martin Luther King and definitely not a woman Malcolm X. Can you imagine, women binding together to form a new religion of the females and take up arms against the males? Nature has made it impossible.
One may not even notice how women were suppressed during the post-war era, where a higher-class wife appeared to be as well off as a higher-class husband. However, as Ibsen’s A Doll's House reminds us, women were not in the higher-class with the same reason men were. They were there because men took them in as dolls. I don’t think it is any more of a problem for wealthy men to take in doll women than for wealthy women to take in doll men; it would be a problem when taking in doll women was the normalized practice of the society and anything goes against the norm is criticized or deemed distasteful. Unfortunately the latter was true. In the post-war west, feminists sat forth to expose and eliminate socially accepted gender norms, to exorcise the idea of a female essence: women should be able to freely choose to be who they will to be. Art is a passive aggressive method in this effort, but we can’t deny its success in nudging us to look at reality in the eyes. Feminist artists were the precursors of wider feminst movements.
One may not even notice how women were suppressed during the post-war era, where a higher-class wife appeared to be as well off as a higher-class husband. However, as Ibsen’s A Doll's House reminds us, women were not in the higher-class with the same reason men were. They were there because men took them in as dolls. I don’t think it is any more of a problem for wealthy men to take in doll women than for wealthy women to take in doll men; it would be a problem when taking in doll women was the normalized practice of the society and anything goes against the norm is criticized or deemed distasteful. Unfortunately the latter was true. In the post-war west, feminists sat forth to expose and eliminate socially accepted gender norms, to exorcise the idea of a female essence: women should be able to freely choose to be who they will to be. Art is a passive aggressive method in this effort, but we can’t deny its success in nudging us to look at reality in the eyes. Feminist artists were the precursors of wider feminst movements.
I do have a question in mind: after gaining voting rights for women, what is the next step for feminism? Is an androgynous utopia as described in some feminist novels really the ideal?
Let me start by saying that humans without judgment would not be human. If we are speaking in existentialist terms, we could not properly exercise our freedom without judgment of what is proper. I think that prejudice is, in its simplest form, a negative extension of basic human judgment, and we cannot avoid that some people will take this to wicked extremes wherein they claim that they are better than all others that are not similar to themselves. That being said, take a society where those under extreme prejudice choose to leave that society and begin their own. Will the same scenario not occur, where those who are seeking power choose to isolate their peers for some quality or another? I believe the distinction can be made that prejudice is unavoidable.
ReplyDeleteIn light of our new, technology and information driven society, it seems that prejudices will arise in different forms. While those historically suppressed are progressively receiving equality, prejudice will most likely live on. We live in a world of changing values, and while it will be more fulfilling to live in a world where sexism and racism are abolished, we should be wary of what new prejudices will arise from our "second-selves" on Facebook.
Your concluding question is very interesting to me because it's actually a topic that's been debated amongst my friends, albeit in a less academic manner. Some of my friends argued that society would eventually evolve past the idea of gender and sexuality, or even the family unit. Everyone would just be people forming relationships with other people--someone's gender would not even be an issue. There would be no "mother" and "father," just kids and adults. While some aspects of this are appealing, such as the idea that there would be no cumbersome concepts of gender roles or limitations attached to women or men, or the universal acceptance of homosexuality, I think that the rest of it sounds a little too "Brave New World"-y to be desirable. I won't get into it, because that would make this comment a bit long-winded and perhaps stray too far from the original topic--but anyway, I think that while the idea that women are less capable than men, or more suited to certain jobs, is ridiculous, I don't see the idea of gender roles ever disappearing completely. As long as women are the ones who bear children, there will always be implications attached to that--that they are the natural caregivers. I think feminism has succeeded in that women are now perceived as more than just wives and mothers, but competitors in the world outside the home. I'm not sure where feminism will lead us in the future.
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