RE: Re: Thunder Rebels

From: Gareth Martin <gamartin_at_...>
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 15:45:14 -0000

 

> So gender discrimnation in Dark Ages cultures based on biological
> roles in particular pregnancy and childbirth and physical strength
> are myths. Hmmm, any supporting evidence?

Plenty. Gender dicrimination is undoubtedly a feature of the Dark (and all other) ages. But that idea that it is biologically determined is profoundly pernicious; it attributes a spurious validity to ideologies based on religious argument and revealed wisdom. After all, two thirds of manual labour in the world today is still carried out by women (UN figures), and the role that women have filled in laborious, tiring and above all physically demanding (tile-making, farming, carrying water etc. etc) work throughought history is well established archeologically.

The claim that these SOCIAL difference arise from biology is false; societies often assume quite a lot of physical strength on the part of women (for, say, carrying baskets of rocks on the Shetland Islands) and yet treat them ideologically as soft weaklings who need male protection.

> Feminism does not necessarily imply Liberal Feminism i.e. we are all
> equal. You should also appreciate that feminist theories such as

That would make Liberal Feminism a kind of non-Feminism, IMO. Most Feminists do not argue for absolute invarying equality, but appropriate equality - i.e. the absence of discrimination.

> Reverse Bioligism, and New French Feminism (in particular see Julia
> Kristeva) suggest that rejecting bioligical difference only occurs
> where we devalue those biological differences as negative. They state
> we are all different, but celebrate that difference (vive la
> difference).

I was not rejecting biological differences - merely the claimed cause-and-effect relationship. Differences exist, but misogynist societies interpret them selectively or artificially. This is a social construct, not the end result of biological design.

> But this is getting very OT, if you really want to discuss feminist
> political theory you might want to talk off-list.

I've pretty much said my piece, but I believe this is germane to the list, given that the criticism was levelled at a recent publication.

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