sexism and division of labor

[lupinesque]

Judy wrote:

> However, I see gender-based divisions of labor as pretty much 
> irrelevant to sexism. To show what I mean, here is an example 
taken 
> from another story marketed to children, Disney's Jungle Book 
movie. 
> Mowgli sees a girl of his own age getting water from a stream. The 
> girl sings, "Father's in the forest hunting, mother's cooking in 
the 
> home, I must go to fetch the water, 'till the day that I am 
grown.... 
> When I'm grown... I will have a handsome husband, and a daughter of 
> my own; I'll send her to fetch the water; I'll be cooking in the 
> home." (This is from memory, so it may not be exact.) My sister 
> felt this scene was quite sexist, and worried that it set a bad 
> example for her children. I didn't see this as sexist at all, 
which 
> upset her. My feeling was "Why is dividing labor on the basis of 
> gender sexist *per se*?" 

Well, it's not, *per se.* In my household, I do the dishes and my dh 
pays the bills. We've decided the division of labor based on how 
much each of us likes those particular chores. (If only traditional 
gender division were the *rule,* I could prevail upon him to do all 
the snow-shoveling . . . wouldn't that be great?) The problem with 
portrayals like The Jungle Book's (Kipling again!) only kicks in 
because they are so much the norm and we so seldom see the opposite. 

Why does this matter? Because it is terribly restrictive to girls 
whose talents lie in "masculine" directions and boys whose talents 
lie in "feminine" ones. Before 30 years ago, as I don't have to tell 
you, girls had very few choices without really rocking the boat; 
before 100 years ago they had even fewer choices without breaking the 
law. Every man reading this who loves taking care of his children, 
and every woman who loves . . . well, gosh, almost every job I can 
think of--any female lawyers on this list? ministers? college 
professors? journalists? business owners? electricians? managers? 
doctors?--should shudder at the prospect.  Too bad, folks:  you might 
be really good at it, it might be the work you love, it might be the 
best work available in your community, but you can't do it, at least 
not without an enormous extra burden of difficulty that is not laid 
on people of the other sex.  I'll never forget surveying my high 
school teachers about why they went into teaching--over half the 
women said "my choices were teaching, nursing, or secretarial work."

Again, it's a big-picture thing . . . of course any given woman can 
stay home and cook and raise the kids. It's a wonderful, happy free 
choice, when it is a free choice. But seeing the possibilities of 
other choices is important. A society that dictates who can do what 
job lacks freedom in an essential way.  I agree with you that 
division of labor is only a piece of the issue, but it is far from 
irrelevant. 

> I feel that "equal opportunity" in the workplace is neither 
necessary 
> nor sufficient for a non-sexist society.

As a woman in an overwhelmingly male-dominated field (and, as I wrote 
above, many of them are), I can't see it this way. My passion is to 
be a minister. If I had been born 40 years earlier, I would have had 
a very hard time fulfilling that passion. If I'd been born 80 years 
earlier, I still would have been ordained but only if I were about 50 
times more persistent than my male colleagues. (I'm proud and happy 
to say that I never had to give it a thought, as the ministry in my 
tradition is now 50/50--not surprisingly. So many of us are so good 
at it that it really makes me sad to think of how many women, and 
congregations, missed out on the opportunity all these decades.  I'm 
unspeakably grateful to the women who blazed the trail, and the men 
who got the heck out of their way or even helped.)

So I am delighted that the Irish Chasers are female because if every 
Quidditch player we ever encountered were male, it would suggest that 
women aren't allowed to play, or are unfairly passed over, or aren't 
very good at it. (The first two would be cases of the WW's sexism, 
not JKR's.)

> So, the female chasers may serve as evidence that women can have a 
> variety of jobs in the Wizarding World, but I don't see that as 
> relevant to sexism. I'd define a non-sexist society as one where 
the 
> needs and desires of both genders are given equal weight. 

Such as the desire to be Chaser on a professional Quidditch team?

Amy Z