Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ucla-cs!uci-ics!tittle From: rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Advocacy and What Is Advocated Message-ID: <46498@bbn.COM> Date: 4 Oct 89 22:51:53 GMT References: <8910041915.AA05706@mimsy.UMD.EDU> Sender: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle) Reply-To: Richard Shapiro Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 48 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu In article <8910041915.AA05706@mimsy.UMD.EDU> mangoe@cs.UMD.EDU (Charley Wingate) writes: >>Non-advocacy (or gender-blindness) means maintaining the status quo, and if >>that status quo discriminates against women, than non-advocacy means >>discriminating against women. > >You are omitting the key portion of the phrase; I said "advocacy >*for*women*", not just any old advocacy. It's the intent here that is >the problem, not the need for action. Action which is in the >interests of women isn't necessarily in the interests of gender >equality. By equating "non-advocacy" (in this case) with "gender blindness", I think I made it quite clear that I was referring to "advocacy for women". In any case, I said so explicitly later in my article. I did not say that actions in the interests of women are *necessarily* in the interests of gender equality, so that's a bit of a red herring. What I said was that, given an existing situation in which discrimination against women and gender inequality exist as a social facts, gender-blindness can only lead to perpetration of that situation. Therefore, the interests of gender equality may very well require that feminists advocate for women. How else is existing inequality to be undone or overcome? Do you have any suggestions? >If you are talking about >actions which have effects on specific individuals, then I suggest >that the comparisons be between specific individuals. Gender is a social fact which appears in individuals, but is in no sense local to individuals. Likewise, gender-based discrimination and gender inequalities are facts about groups, not about individuals, even if it's individuals who suffer the consequences. Most of what can be said about "gender" and gender inequality is independent of any given individual. Is it surprising that working against gender inequality is just as social as the inequality itself? >"Gender blindness" means acting on real inequalities. Statistical >means and medians are not real. The "reality" of gender (whether it's social or biological) transcends any single individual. Insofar as statistics can be used to measure gender inequality, it is clearly more "real" than any single, isolated case.