Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!ora!daemon From: rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: how to bash feminism without really trying Message-ID: <47127@bbn.COM> Date: 19 Oct 89 14:48:10 GMT References: <47014@bbn.COM> <15799@duke.cs.duke.edu> Sender: ambar@ora.ora.com Reply-To: Richard Shapiro Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 79 Approved: ambar@ora.com In article <15799@duke.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes: >In article <47014@bbn.COM> rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro) writes: >>1) If you have disagreements in principle with feminism, why not argue >>on that basis instead of expending all of your energy on a mere tactic? >Because what you *DO* is what you are. You can't insist that >race/sex will be mentioned in every job application, college >admission etc. and be an "equal rights" person. Period. I don't see how this is an answer to my question. I ask why you insist on equating the multi-facted and well-elaborated theory & practice called feminism with a minor tactic which is contingently accepted by *some* feminists (as well as some non-feminists), and you reply by repeating (yet again) that affirmative action is discriminatory. Let me repeat my challenge, since you seem to have missed the point: carry out your arguments with feminism over REAL issues, not by attacking peripheral, incidental targets. We've wasted enough time on affirmative action. Some people (you, for instance) see it as discriminatory; other people (me, for instance) see it as a flawed but acceptable means to an essential end. We've gone round and round on this and gotten nowhere. But what's striking to me is that you just won't let this topic go. I think there's something more at work here, and I'd like to know what it is. >>2) Could one of you, any one at all, suggest some alternatives to a.a.? >I suggested to enforce EEO. My idea was that if a manager does not hire the >best candidate then he/she should be *personally* fined in the range >of $10000. Explain to me how this can possibly be effective in eliminating the (often unintended) sexism which consigns women to lower paying jobs. Explicit, intentional anti-female attitudes by employers are of course abhorrent (though some of the more fervent free marketeers would gladly allow it to continue unabated), and your suggestion might be useful in limiting some (but only some) aspects of this. But what then happens (what's now happening, in fact, since changed attitudes have already eliminated much of this kind of sexism) is this. First, the criteria change. Women are kept out of certain kinds of jobs because, by definition, they can't be "the best". Who, in your scheme, judges which candidate is "the best"? Who decides on the basis for making this determination? And who brings the action against this employer? Is it the victim herself? Is the burden on her? Will she have to spend enormous time and money taking a corporation to court to prove her case? Businesses have (typically) deeper pockets than individuals. The second thing that happens is that another, much more significant aspect of sexism which had been "hidden" now comes to the fore. This is the unconscious attitudes we all have which dictate appropriate and inappropriate behavior based on gender. So long as there's a gender-based division of labor, so long as some jobs are generally held by men and others by women, and so long as women do most of the unpaid work of raising children and "keeping house", there will be sexism in the work place. Jobs done by women will be paid less because employers can get away with offering less. Your scheme does nothing whatsoever about this fundamental discrimination. It's, of course, naive in the extreme to think that our ideas of "masculine" and "feminine" (which include, among many other things, suitable kinds of work) can be changed just by willing it. An effective tool for eliminating workplace discrimination MUST take into account the changing of attitudes. It has to work at the ideological level at least as much as it works at the instrumental level. Obviously this is a difficult problem. One possible way to attack it is through the "role model" idea. Will this work? I don't know. But NO OTHER SUGGESTIONS HAVE BEEN MADE which take this crucial issue into account. None. This really goes back to the first question. Most of what constitutes feminism has been about understanding the processes involved in gender identity and about general principles for combating the discriminatory effects of those identities. By focusing exclusively on the immediate effects of affirmative action (the supposedly "discrinatory" effects), you have completely lost sight of these larger issues (as demonstrated by the utter inadequacy of your suggested approach). What I'm really asking in question (1) is this: is this oversight just an accident? Or is it a sign of a much more fundamental disagreement, not with the specific goals of affirmative action, but with the more basic and general goals and ideas of feminism itself?