Monday, December 7, 2009
Women Must Wait
MacKinnon’s article is an excellent critique of the male-dominated world. However, it falls short in attempting to make serious headway in feminist ideology by merely identifying THAT the legal system (and basically the world) is sexist instead of WHY it is, and so offers no real solutions to the issue. For example, if I were to tell you “that ball is white,” how would this be useful to your attempts to change its color? It would depend entirely on WHY the ball is white. If the ball is painted white, you could paint it a different color. If it’s white-hot, you could cool it. In short, until you understand why the ball is white, it will be very difficult to figure out how to change it. The same problem arises with MacKinnon’s views on feminism. Personally, I think male dominance rests in our physical superiority. Few would argue that men are advantaged in this respect, and natural selection would seem to favor us. Before technological advancements in agriculture, men hunted and provided the majority of the most basic aspect of life. Wars, traditionally fought by men due to the necessity of strength on the battle field, determine political control. There is a myriad of such examples, but what is important is what’s changing. Intellectual horse-power is pushing the acquisition of materials (in the traditional, mining-type sense) out of the forefront. This means that the reasons males gained their control no longer exist, and thus male-dominance is no longer a necessity. Modernity values technological innovation, and women’s physiological equality cannot be hidden forever. In this respect, I feel that a change in gender-bias in any aspect, including jurisprudence, is a waiting game with no alternative.
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I liked your point on the question of "why". We need to look at the why the world is sexist and once we answer that, how we change it. In one of my other classes we learned that it is not acceptable to ask a woman who is in a abusive relationship, "Why didn't she leave?". The better question is, "Why did he hit her in the first place?" We need to find out the why, so we can come up with an answer on how to fix the problem.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jim. Although society has come a long way in women's rights, sexism is still all over the place. I am sure there are millions of men that still see women as inferior. Our society has come a long way since the 50s, when women were expected to be perfect homemakers for their husbands. But, some of this old-fashioned thinking still exists. And the fight against domestic violence and other pressing issues are still looking for suitable solutions.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you Andrew. She does a good job of putting her opinion out there, but gives no concrete definition as to why. Also without the answer to the question "why?" we cannot even account it as a valid opinion. She talks about the position of women and men, and really only says that she feels that women have no control, and unless her reasoning is that women have no control simply because they are incapable of possessing it, then there is little validity in her theory.
ReplyDeleteThis is my biggest problem with the Critical Legal Studies, Economic theories, and feminist theories. They make no attempt to propose a better system, they just talk about how the current one is bad or broken. I can sit here and talk about how dumb our health care system is all day, but I do not have a proposal to fix it so I just keep my mouth shut. I would be able to take these theorist much more seriously if they had any solutions to all the problems that they talk about.
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