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From: ag1v+@andrew.cmu.EDU ("Andrea B. Gansley-Ortiz")
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: feminism & simplification
Message-ID: <UbV9pQ_00Uzx40wd9A@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 91 06:53:13 GMT
References: <9012052040.AA03770@decpa.pa.dec.com>,
	<1991Jan2.155342.1414@arris.com>
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Richard Shapiro in the article <1991Jan2.155342.1414@arris.com> writes:
]In article
<9012052040.AA03770@decpa.pa.dec.com>baranski@meridn.enet.dec.com writes:
]>If we need to change our society, why should it be the feminists alone
]>who should be redefining society?  Won't that simply replace the
]>current situation where female roles are supposedly defined by men,
]>with a society where feminists define male roles and oppress them?
]
]Why should it?  Feminists are interested in understanding what goes
]into a "female role" or a "male role",

    First, you have to be a feminist that believes in female and male
roles to believe in any of Richard's disertation.
    We should be tearing down the barriers between thinking that there
are any roles that go with a certain sex.  In that way only will men and
women be equal because they will be doing the same things.  It is
incongruent to say that cooking and plumbing are equal.  They are not;
they do not achieve the same goal, nor were they ever meant to.

]and understanding the methods
]by which individuals assume these roles (of course, disregarding the
]specious free-will argument that we simply "choose" them).  They're not
]interested in prescribing what those roles should be, except to say
]that neither should be intrinsically inferior to or less privileged
]than the other.  Actually there are any number of male and female
]roles, and any number of ways individuals relate to these various
]roles.  The problem comes, not from one role being oppressive to
]another, but from the fact that the amorphous complex of roles we call
]"female" is a less privileged position than the amorphous complex of
]roles we call "male".  That, ultimately, is what feminists want to
]change.

    I believe that feminism should be going one step farther into 'Now
that we realize these are the roles people used to take, and we realize
that these roles are no better or worse than eachother, we should make
an effort to allow people to choose the role they wish to pursue without
labeling it 'male' or 'female'.

]>Isn't mere definition of a group's role from outside the group
]>oppression?
]
]I suppose it would be, but no group defines roles for another group.
]Roles are defined as part of a overriding system that determines each
]role within it, in just the same way that phonemes are defined by the
]language of which they're a part.  No one sits down and decides what
]they are; they evolve over time for reasons that have little to do
]with anyone's specific intentions.

    I tend to disagree with no group defines the roles of another.  The
tribes of Africa defined the roles of their enemies when they sold them
into slavery to the whites.  Those whites further defined the slaves
roles into what was required of them.  A role is not completely defined
by another group, it can however be severely constrained.  What the
opressed group does within that broader definition is thier own doing.
    I do think that women's roles have been defined by men through the
years.  So much so that much of the work women have done has been
covered up by men in an effort to put women in a certain place.  The
more I read about women in history the more I see them doing things for
money, as opposed to being in the home taking care of only thier
families' needs.  This has indeed been glossed over in an effort to keep
women out of the work force and in the home.

]"feminism and simplification" indeed...

Indeed?

Andrea Gansley-Ortiz