My Responce to LeCLown’s Show Her It’s a Man’s World

I had spent all of Saturday looking at apartments as I have to be out of my place by June 1st. I have been home for about an hour and finally had a moment to process and read an interesting post from The ClownOnFire Blog entitled: “Show Her It’s a Man’s World“. I started writing this as a comment but I felt after a while that it would be best as a blog post, so that I can invite the few brave souls who constitute my faithful readership, to share your thoughts on the matter and visit LeClown’s Blog if you havent already.

Gender Inequality Ruminations

I have been ruminating on Gender Inequality and gender relationships for the past few months producing in particular 3 interesting post that in a way have served to catalogue the ongoing conversation in my mind. Without a doubt gender inequality exists, and there are very questionable sentiments  in our society about rape, look at what these politicians have said . Also mass media seeks to exploit gendered inequalities to make a profit rather than to educate and empower. But beyond these and other clear ramification of gender effect we can see and measure in our society I think it is important to bring up what we dont easily see everyday and I would like to add these observations of mine to an already interesting discussion that I read in the comment section of Le Clown’s Post

Observations

#1  If I look subset of the American population that comprises the female demographic  I don’t see all the women there have the same potential for success, social mobility. The women here are of different enthnicites, religious  and linguistic backgrounds, they are of different ages, sexual orientations etc. This  is a very diverse group, and the playing field isn’t level when it comes to education, financial awareness, access to legal representation, medical coverage, life expectancy, social mobility. Look at the following women while in our minds we may say they are all equal socially they are not

Causasian Women

MUslim Women

Old Black Women

Native American Women

The FEMEN Topless  acts clearly shows that Western Caucasian women still house very colonial and sometimes racists attitude when approaching with or deal with their counterparts from other religions, cultures, racial backgrounds other than their own.

I bring up this point not to complain but to illustrate how complex this issue is. it is quite possible that the privileges that one group experiences (unwillingly or not) can in fact be the one of the possible roots of the continued observable inequality. If we don’t make sure to  include these observations in our discussions then what happened in the early history of feminism the emancipation and preoccupation of one main subset of the total group of women will occur again

#2 The lack of inclusive Dialogue – I have noticed a lack of inclusive dialogue inclusive of men. A whole essay can be written about why this exists. But the main point I want to bring up is that  it is always the most extreme proponents of any movement or ideology that are heard the most. I have met some very radical feminist that I feel do a disservice to the movement and to just discussion.

One reason why I feel there are isn’t inclusive dialogue or that  it is difficult as for men to include themselves in the issues is because there are many factions and groups in feminist dialogue: Socialist feminist , Marxist feminist, radical feminists, ecofeminist and it goes on and on. With so many groups each vying for an audience and a chance to share their agenda it become very difficult to facilitate or include people who want to contribute  but who are not necessarily followers of an ideology.

I think that this suppression of women has had extremely serious ramification in terms of the psychology of the men and women in the West. In seeking to suppress women we have sound top repress the expression of many feminine characteristics which of course has clearly lead to the the unbalanced psychologies we see in the west or rather I see. I think it is important to approach this topic from a place that involves inclusion of men and an the emergence of an integrated healthy psychology.

Unknowing Support – The companies that shape the images help maintain and reinforce gender inequality are invested heavily in many different industries. We can although refusing to buy one product still support the company because they endorse manufacture/distribute many other products. We can choose to not buy dove soap  but how effective will that be when Unilever the company that owns Dove make 400 other products like margarine , ice cream, tea noodles, bouillon cubes etc ( Check out the list here.

I have an idea basically to take this conversation even further. But I have to get back to work now, My Main point is that if this gender inequality persists to this day it might be that all of us whether knowingly or unknowingly help maintain it in time. I think we each and everyone of us has to look at what it is that we are doing to help contribute to this social inequality.

Meanwhile Im back to work be well

Dave

 

Related articles

• The difference between and egalitarian and a Feminist from mrMary’s Point of View (aspoonfulofsuga.wordpress.com)
• Gender Inequality & Power Relations (minkairlea.wordpress.com)
• Feminism, Women’s Studies and Education (theravenwine.wordpress.com)
• Femen’s obsession with nudity feeds a racist colonial feminism (guardian.co.uk)