An astute friend alerted me to a recent New York Times ’science’ article about the supposed continuation of ‘the’ gender gap ‘even’ in industrialized, gender-liberated societies.
It’s interesting how such articles, often stuck in science sections but occasionally appearing in more specifically human interest sections, must keep reappearing to reassure us that women are still women and men are still men, and keep reminding us just how wrong those silly feminists are who try to free the world from gender and gender bias. The death of feminism is just drawn on and on and on.
I think here’s the premise of the studies the article covers: ‘primitive’ tribal cultures treat women poorly, make them do back-breaking labor, and only allow men into key decision-making roles; on the other hand, ‘advanced,’ ‘civilized’ cultures (like ours, New Yorkers might say) have welcomed women into equal roles with men, allowing women equal space in various fields of labor and in decision-making powers. But, surprise!, in the more industrialized societies, women still think more womanly (cooperative, nurturing, emotionally responsive, etc.) and men still think more manly (competitive, reckless, emotionally vacuous, etc.). In the tribal societies, women and men are actually MORE alike psychologically than in the industrialized societies! Wow!
Okay, so this view is particularly paternalistic toward non-Western societies and cultures, and completely overlooks subcultures within Western countries, assuming a monolithic culture. It treats non-Western social organization as comparable to malnutrition, a stunting of human potential. It also assumes a linear trend, from prehistoric, ancient humanity and its rigid gender differences, progressing on to its remaining vestiges in tribal communities, and then evolving further into (Western, capitalist) industrial societies. Which is pure hooey.
And of course this article assumes two genders. It assumes that the similarities among persons who have cunts or cocks are greater than the similarities among and between persons with diverse genitalia. It assumes that there is no middle ground ‘between’ genders, and that such categories are useful and valid. It also assumes heterosexuality, that men want to stick with women ‘on the savanna’ and vice versa.
And of course this article presumes middle-class and luxury-class lifestyles for persons of various (‘both’) genders, i.e. that women stayed at home until our grandparents’ generation and then went into the outside workforce. Working class women have always worked outside the home, yet this article flattens all women into one category with one experience of work. It would be strengthened by a serious class analysis, observing gender roles and actual measurable disparities among genders in different major class groupings. It might ask, do working class families in the US and other industrialized nations exhibit similar patterns to families in non-industrialized nations?
But if it did that, it might start to get at the real crux of the matter, which this article wants to tidily ignore. And it wouldn’t be so surprised at these findings. And it wouldn’t allow this simplistic binary to guide popular thinking on gender issues. For example, in response to the ’shocking’ idea that non-Western societies sometimes have greater equality and similarity in personality between men and women, the article has this to say:
For evolutionary psychologists, the bad news is that the size of the gender gap in personality varies among cultures. For social-role psychologists, the bad news is that the variation is going in the wrong direction. It looks as if personality differences between men and women are smaller in traditional cultures like India’s or Zimbabwe’s than in the Netherlands or the United States.
And those are the only two analyses explored. Wow. What depth.
This article misses the whole point that the uber-competitive hyper-male and the hyper-docile sub-woman are tools of the violent capitalist machine that runs the West (well, runs the world but has met its ultimate expression in the West). These extreme gender differences are the theatrical roles we are schooled in, yes, from our childhoods, in order to do our small parts to sustain the capitalist behemoth. And capitalist patriarchy has sprung back in the face of reduced visible barriers between genders, emphasizing subtler gender distinctions that take on greater significance when other barriers are gone.
The article assumes that equality in the marketplace and capitalist workforce is true gender equality. It is, only so far as it is equal-opportunity human captivity to Mammon.
But still, part of this captivity requires reinforcement of artificial identities, in order to divide people from each other and to distract us from rising up against the evil system that is our true enemy.
One of the problems with this article’s reporting of these studies about gendered competitiveness is that it accepts that gender difference is most natural – humanity’s primordial tendency. In this view, Western feminism has in some ways blocked the expression of this natural personality difference between genders in its attempt to regain our natural socio-political equality. One of the scientists quoted admits that extreme patriarchal capitalism is a perversion of the more egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies, which had less concentration of power in the hands of a few men. But he still has to cling to the idea that women and men must, just MUST still be different:
“Humanity’s jaunt into monotheism, agriculturally based economies and the monopolization of power and resources by a few men was ‘unnatural’ in many ways,” Dr. Schmitt says, alluding to evidence that hunter-gatherers were relatively egalitarian. “In some ways modern progressive cultures are returning us psychologically to our hunter-gatherer roots,” he argues. “That means high sociopolitical gender equality over all, but with men and women expressing predisposed interests in different domains. Removing the stresses of traditional agricultural societies could allow men’s, and to a lesser extent women’s, more ‘natural’ personality traits to emerge.”
Now, this sounds good. We of the dominant class in the US are certainly are not living the most natural lifestyles we could be, in any sense of the word. But why must we retain the idea that women and men will express ‘predisposed’ differences in terms of interests or personalities? That makes little sense.
“Things could get confusing if the personality gap widens further as the sexes become equal,” the article bemoans. Confusing! Yikes! Run to the hills – confusion! We humans can’t handle that – we must have crystal clarity in all things, especially regarding (artificially-constructed political) identity!
Yet I must wonder whether any of us busy living our lives would ever notice these supposed magnifications of the personality gender gap if articles such as this didn’t waste our time reminding us of them? Isn’t this just subtle justification for preventing gender equality – a sort of, “Well, look, you uppity feminists, just look at how UNperfect the world is now that you finally got what you asked for! We told you so!” (even if it takes regular newspaper articles to remind us how unperfect this new world is)? Isn’t this justification for elite men not putting in the effort to be nicer, more cooperative, more emotionally open, and therefore ‘feminine’ (as the studies define it) or ‘human’ (as the rest of us might define it)? Are there really no other, bigger problems rooted in disparity between those of the dominant gender and the rest of us in this society these folks could be studying?
