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Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Is Affirmative Action Sexist?
Message-ID: <8910200344.AA29498@uunet.uu.net>
Date: 21 Oct 89 02:43:18 GMT
Sender: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle)
Organization: UC Irvine Department of ICS
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Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu

Affirmative action starts out as the perception that certain 
categories of persons are unfairly treated by "society" -- 
and before anyone reminds me that society consists of 
individuals, let me temporarily define it here as the 
summation of interactions of individuals in a community.

Such unfairness is thought to be a bad thing, generally by
the objects of it, and often by others who for various
reasons desire that their society be "fair."

However, as one begins to think about the problem, there
are certain taboos.  For instance, one can conclude that, 
in a highly competitive society which also maintains rights 
of inheritance and other strong familial connnections, it 
is almost certain that inequality between categories of 
families will persist for many generations.  Thus, the 
situation of black persons in America.  However, in thinking
of solutions to the problems of the disadvantaged, one is
not allowed (in practical politics) to suggest that the
structures and traditions of the society be changed very
much.  Most specifically, the power of existing elites may 
not be seriously disturbed.

Another important taboo is: substantial expenditures of
public or private funds may not be demanded.

Thus the affirmative action solution: if the figures are wrong 
for one disadvantaged group, change the figures, more or less 
by force, at the expense of another disadvantaged group.  For
instance, jobs which in the former course of events would
have gone to white ethnic working-class males can be 
transferred to black working-class males.  The problem can
then be declared solved, without any substantial change in
the power of those who have power, the structure of the
economy, or anything else except the prospects of one group
whose prospects were already somewhat limited.  In the case
of racial discrimination, this may in fact solve the problem,
because the public image of the formerly discriminated group
as somehow inferior to all others will disappear.  That the 
people who paid for the solution were probably those least 
able to pay for it can be forgotten.  Whether there should 
have been more jobs, or better educational opportunities for 
everyone, are questions that can go unanswered and in fact 
unasked.

It is admittedly an inelegant solution -- a kludge -- which is 
itself unfair.  But there is probably no other solution given 
the requirement of avoiding the taboos, which protect a kind of 
inherent "unfairness" in the situation as a whole.

The case of affirmative action for women is a little different.
On the one hand, women come from not just one kind of family
but all kinds, so the relative status of families does not
enter into their disadvantage.  The disadvantage seems to 
arise rather from the possession of certain traits or "skills"
which may be merely traditional or may stem from biology.  Some 
of these  are nurturance, cooperativeness, sensitivity to 
others, docility in the original sense (ability to be taught),
affective (as contrasted to cognitive) intelligence.  But these 
traits are evidently disadvantageous in a highly competitive 
society, at least in concert with each other and with a moral
sensibility.  

Thus, the surface fix which may work for racial minorities may 
not work for women, because it demands acceptance of an existing 
structure of things which some of them may be unwilling, or 
unable, to accept.

This brings me around the the question of whether affirmative
action on behalf of women is a form of sexism.  Some people
say that any difference of thought or treatment of another 
based on the other's gender, other than in sexual and 
reproductive matters, is sexism -- in other words, women are 
men whose bodies are shaped somewhat differently, and to think 
or act otherwise is to be a sexist.  In this case, affirmative 
action is non-sexist, since it assumes all that need be done is 
to force a sufficient number of members of arbitrary category W 
at the expense of arbitrary category M into various social slots, 
such that the statistics are changed to the point of appearing to 
balance.[1]  Since the categorization is superficial (under this
theory) a coerced decategorization will remove the possibility
of distinction, and the categories will then merge.

If, on the other hand, women really are different from men in
some essential way (or have developed a side of human nature 
which is too valuable to be abandoned just because it is not
sufficiently in accord with dominant values) then affirmative 
action may have an objectively sexist aspect, in that it seeks 
to incorporate a new category of persons into a system many of 
whose values are derived from sexist precursors.  This is not to 
say that it should be abandoned under the circumstances, but 
that the circumstances themselves should be questioned.  "The 
stock market is rising and the acid rain is coming down."

--
[1] The truly pure among the 'equalists' will not be satisfied 
with this, because they believe that, statistics to the contrary 
notwithstanding, there is already no difference between the sexes, 
or the races, or whatever.  For them, affirmative action is sexist 
and racist, because it recognizes such differences.   Their refusal
to accept the statistics and the evidence of daily life which
oppose their arguments put them beyond the scope of this article, 
and vice versa.
--
Gordon Fitch  |  uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf