Tuesday, May 07, 2013

The War on Women


Although they keep trying to deny it, it is undeniable that Republicans have been engaged in recent years in a “war on women.” They are against women’s choice in the matter of their own bodies, against abortion, against contraception,  against Planned Parenthood, against child care, against just about everything that women might both want and need. Interestingly enough, we might actually view this as more of a minor skirmish in the primeval and perennial genuine war on women that seems to have raged since the very beginning of recorded time (and no doubt even before then). One only has to consider the history of women’s rights in the Western World, and the position of women in most other societies, to realize we have been, figuratively speaking, at war with them in one way or another for a very long time.
You have all no doubt seen cartoons depicting a cave man with a club on his shoulder dragging a woman by her hair into his cave. Such cartoons can be very funny, but are also apparently not terribly incorrect. How, for example, are such cartoons so different from the recent Cleveland situation in which three brothers apparently kidnapped and kept three women in an apparently abandoned house for ten years? Granted this is not a common occurrence but it is certainly not without precedent and we know of several similar cases.
More importantly, consider the breaking scandal in the military where rape and sexual assaults have reached epidemic proportions. Even the Air Force Lieutenant Colonel put in charge of dealing with the problem of military sexual assaults has been, himself, arrested for sexual assault, and the incidence of such assaults in the military has increased by a substantial percent in recent years. While it is true that males are also subject to sexual assaults it is also true that it is by far a much more important problem of heterosexuals (curiously enough, although I am not certain, this may not be true in the Catholic Church scandals). In any case it seems to have something to do with situations in which males control the positions of power. But where in history or ethnography have males not been in control.
This raises, to me, some interesting questions. First, rape and assault are by no means restricted to the military. Domestic assaults are so common in the United States that communities have had to create safe homes for battered spouses and children.  A high percentage of deaths by firearms have to do with husbands shooting and killing their wives. Spousal and child abuse are relatively commonplace in our culture. Such violence seems to be related, at least in part, to hard times. The worse things get economically the more such abuse increases, or so I have been told.
Historically, of course, women were always treated as inferior to men. Remember they were not even allowed to vote until 1920, they were basically wards of their husbands even after that, and even now this still continues in certain respects. Attitudes toward women have not been what might be regarded as “healthy” in many respects, they were regarded as childlike, irrational, overly emotional, small-brained, and so on:

“In the most intelligent races, as among the Parisians, there are a large number of women whose brains are closer in size to those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains. This inferiority is so obvious that no one can contest it for a moment; only its degree is worth discussion. All psychologists who have studied the intelligence of women, as well as poets and novelists, recognize today that they represent the most inferior forms of human evolution and that they are closer to children and savages than to an adult, civilized man. They excel in fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason. Without doubt there exist some distinguished women, very superior to the average man, but they are as exceptional  as the birth of any monstrosity, as, for example, a gorilla with two heads, consequently we may neglect them entirely.” (Gustave LeBon, quoted in Gould 1978:46).

We may have come a long way since LeBon and other scientists of the day described women in such unflattering terms. But what do you do with some of our more current male observations on women:
“Turn ‘em upside down, they all look alike.” “Old enough to bleed, old enough to butcher.” “Throw a flag over their head and do it for Old Glory,” and other such flattering attitudes that seem to still prevail in some circles.

The war on women far transcends Republican attempts to control their bodies (and minds). Why do men have such attitudes toward women? Although this is far too complicated a matter to discuss in an inconsequential blog like this, I believe it has to do basically with men’s fear of women, of women’s sexuality, and of their power, the power to come between even fathers and sons, and to potentially control men of all kinds. Read W. Somerset Maugham's powerful short story, “Rain,” for an example.
Lynn Lavner


   

2 comments:

Michael Kalus said...

A few notes.


"One only has to consider the history of women’s rights in the Western World,"

I think you are looking at this a bit wrong.


First, when you speak of the "Western World" you look at this from an Anglosphere standpoint, that is, mostly the UK and the US. Women had much different legal standing on the continent for example.

Second, the differences in rights were mostly between classes, not genders. The vast majority of men and women had no rights, or if they had them they couldn't get them. HIstoric accounts from that period, by and large, were already written by the privileged because they were the ones who could read and write. The wast majority though were just scraping by, both men and women.

Men in the UK didn't really get the vote much earlier than women and really only got it because they bled for it on battlefields and trenches.

"You have all no doubt seen cartoons depicting a cave man with a club on his shoulder dragging a woman by her hair into his cave. Such cartoons can be very funny, but are also apparently not terribly incorrect. "

What about the cartoons of the women waiting at home on her husband with the rolling pin or frying pan? Shall we take them also closer to reality and if so, how does it jive with the cave man and the club?

My reading, and pretty much every body else I know (and most are not from North America or the UK), see it more as a commentary of the guy having to get the girl. That is also not that far off, from before we developed speech and writing to the present, it's always the male who engage in conquest to get the girl. The idea to say: "It would be so much easier if…" is funny in that context.

"the breaking scandal in the military where rape and sexual assaults have reached epidemic proportions."

I think there is something else going on here. The US Military (and I am sure others as well) after WWII realized that humans didn't really like to kill other humans. That's not really good if you want to win a war, so militaries have devised training to break that inhibition down. Is it really surprising that other inhibitors go as well if you wholesale try to change a core behaviour?

"But where in history or ethnography have males not been in control."

Power is probably the better word here and as you are aware there is both soft power and hard power. History is full of women who whispered into the guys ear and got their way. From the famous Borgias to direct control like Queen Elizabeth etc. The history books are also full of women who had power as a standing for either their husbands or sons (until they became old enough). Women always had power, but they wielded it more indirectly. Men on the other hand always had to reassert their power by force (or die trying).

TBC

Michael Kalus said...

Part 2:

"Domestic assaults are so common in the United States that communities have had to create safe homes for battered spouses and children."

Are you referring here to men and women or to women? In the context of the rest of the post I presume women. In that case, if you look at Domestic Violence statistics, for example StatsCan, it seems to be a 50/50 split. This is quite evident in Lesbian relationships where domestic violence is quite common. So it's not really a male domain.

"flattering attitudes that seem to still prevail in some circles."

In "some circles" you will find similarly attitudes towards male. So pointing at outliers to represent a whole misrepresents things a bit and does both men and women a disservice.

"I believe it has to do basically with men’s fear of women, of women’s sexuality, and of their power, the power to come between even fathers and sons, and to potentially control men of all kinds. "

If that really is the case I would say this is a North American culture problem. I grew up on the continent and these kinds of attitude I have neither been taught nor been seen.

I do think there is a problem with American culture and "manliness", in the sense that America is a country that always loved the idea of self-sufficiency and, in no small part, the "might makes right" attitude. The idea that strength is all that counts and anybody who can't measure up is a failure.

This doesn't only affect women. There is a general anti-intellectual bias in American culture and it dates far far back. The idea of "Joe Sixpack" comes to mind, the way politicians try to be the guy who drives the truck and not the one who sits in an office thinking about a complex world.

Having said all that, I am not saying that the Republicans aren't stuck somewhere in 1850 with their attitude, but I think this isn't a gender or "war on women" issue. Rather, it has to do with how the country sees itself and what it values. The Republican party just carries it more on their sleeve than the rest of the country.

If you want to make things better, please don't engage in another aspect that causes division. By my observation the relationship between men and women has already been poisoned by ideas like "Patriarchy" etc. That lately there seems to be a backlash against 3rd Wave Feminism and their behaviour should be worrisome because these kinds of backlashes don't tend to be fully rational or come to an end once equilibrium has been achieved, if anything they overshoot and could make things much worse for both.