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The red pen of justice is wiggling, but I’ve run out of time. We’ll make do with this rage building infographic while I see if I can scrape some time together during the week to compose the piece that is swirling in my brain.
The binary view of gender is a regressive patriarchal notion that needs to be abolished and the sooner the better. The gender binary hurts women and men as people are shoehorned into roles that they are not suited for and then judged as being deficient by society according to these normative values. Gender, in fact, lies along a continuum rather than any artificial divide.
So, what explains actions like this?
“Today’s award for bigotry and intolerance goes to one Richard Floyd, a GOP State Rep. from Tennessee who has introduced legislation that would ban transgender individuals from using public restrooms and dressing rooms that are not designated for the gender listed on their birth certificates. What’s more, Rep. Floyd said in a recent interview that if he “was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there” (by which he means a transgender person), he would “stomp a mudhole” in that person.”
Ah, here is where what sociologists and psychologists talk about when they say that gender roles are enforced by society. Here we have a supposedly sane elected individual saying on public record that he would beat someone up if they dared use the bathroom that did not match the meat-parts they were born with.
It gets worse… Richard Floyd the lawmaker in question continues with this (emphasis mine):
“Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk. We cannot continue to let these people dominate how society acts and reacts.”
Respecting the gender your brain is programmed with is a perversion? Really? Dick, what makes you think that your conception of gender is the correct one? I mean, did someone make you president/godhead of the gender division institute and that your word IS the law? Oh wait, he is a white male and thus what he spake can only be considered “truth“.
Traditional conceptions of gender have a corrosive effect in our society with regards to tolerance and understanding people who are different than ourselves. Gender norms are in desperate need of a overhaul.
More than anything, this is just a post as to have another handy reference when it comes to arguing with MRA’s and other assorted people about ‘equality’ and ‘parity’ in the work environment. A big thanks to Sociological Images for compiling the information in the post titled “Explaining Gender Inequalities in Salary Expectations”.
The following chart featured at The Economist illustrates that women in Europe expect to earn significantly less than men after graduating from university. (Of course, women’s expectations are represented in pink, and men’s in blue.) According to the study, European women attending the most prestigious universities expect to earn an average of 21 per cent less than their male counterparts.
Given that women actually do earn an average of 17.5 per cent less than men in the European Union, this difference in salary expectations might not seem shocking. What’s interesting, though, is the accompanying text that attempts to explain these disparities:
Women and men seem to differ in workplace and career aspirations, which may explain why salary expectations differ. Men generally placed more importance on being a leader or manager than women (34% of men versus 22% of women), and want jobs with high levels of responsibility (25% v 17%). Women, however want to work for a company with high corporate social responsibility and ethical standards; men are more interested in prestige (31% v 24%).
By neglecting to address how our social environment can contribute to reported differences in career aspirations, statements like these risk reinforcing gender stereotypes and naturalizing salary inequalities. Can we really assume that gendered salary disparities are due to women’s innately lower inclination to pursue high-paying career paths?
Research says: no, we can’t. [Go to Sociological Images for the rest of the story].
I’ve had this post on the back burner for months, since a commenter at Shakesville (I think) said, you could never get away with restricting men’s access to Viagra the way state legislatures have restricted women’s access to abortion in America. And no, you couldn’t. But interestingly enough, it’s pretty easy to make a set of arguments for restricting access to Viagra, that are pretty similar to the arguments for restricting access to abortion. For the most part, all you have to do is search the text, and replace “woman” with “man”, “abortion” with “Viagra”, and “ends a human life” with “begins a human life”. (If pre-born human life is that important to you, you should take its creation as seriously as its destruction.) Then there are a few restrictions that claim they’re protecting women, and you just have to look at the flip-side: preventing men from hurting women. For some of the restrictions, I’ve invented an imaginary evil radical feminist anti-het-sex conspiracy to substitute for the Religious Right.
Every restriction on access to Viagra I propose below, is either a fact of life, or a legislated restriction, on abortion in at least one, and often many, American states. When the restrictions and their justifications are imposed on men, they look pretty radically man-hating (never mind that being unable to get a hardon is nowhere near as traumatic as going through childbirth against your will), but in their anti-abortion form, it’s not just fringe whackaloons making the arguments I’ll list, it’s people elected to public office. Read the rest of this entry »
I just keep posting about gender inequality, others say pfffff! what the heck I am talking about….
Until the idea that inequality exists and that it is a problem,then there really is not much to discuss now, is there?
Around Fathers’ Day, the heteronormative masculinity enforcing messages involved in the associated marketing push absolutely drive me up a wall. According to the marketing that bombards us, “Father” seems to be some kind of monolithic hive-minded creature that only likes and does certain Very Manly things, and should only want certain kinds of gifts, and should only do certain kinds of Fathers’ Day activities. And I get angry on behalf of my dad, because I feel like it’s wrong to burden and confine him, and all men for that matter, with the expectation that fathers have to be a mix of Tim the Tool Man, Homer Simpson, and a randomly selected epic role acted by Mel Gibson, or else they don’t count.
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