More about sexism and division of labor

[judyserenity]

I wrote:
>> I see gender-based divisions of labor as pretty much 
>> irrelevant to sexism. <<

And Amy replied:
> it is terribly restrictive to girls 
> whose talents lie in "masculine" directions and boys whose talents 
> lie in "feminine" ones.

I definitely agree that rigid gender roles can make a lot of people
unhappy, and I consider it a problem. I just don't consider it
*sexism*, because it doesn't necessarily impact one gender more than
the other.  I was thinking of discussing this in my last post, but I
was afraid I had already gone on at too much length. 

Suppose that, in the Wizarding World (WW for short), only men could be
athletes, and only women could be musicians.  (In fact, the only
professional musicians I can remember being mentioned are females,
Celestina Warbuck and the Weird Sisters.)  Would this make people less
happy than if both genders could choice these roles?  Yes -- there
would be a lot of frustrated female athletes and male musicians, not
to mention that audiences would be deprived of watching and hearing
these people perform.  So, it would be a bad policy.

But, would it make the WW sexist?  I'd say no, because it wouldn't
favor one gender over the other, assuming that being an athlete or
being a musician were equally well paid, etc. It would just be a
stupid way of assigning jobs to people. There have been plenty of bad
systems of assigning jobs in the past; some of the communist societies
had remarkably dumb systems.  It's a problem that some societies have,
whether they are sexist or not. 

I just looked up sexism in a dictionary, and it was defined as 1)
discriminating in favor of members of one sex; or 2) assuming that a
person's abilities and social functions are determined by his or her
sex.  (Well, actually this was the definition of sexist; sexism wasn't
listed separately.)  In other words, it lists two different
definitions. I prefer the first one, which defines sexist as the
mistreatment of one sex relative to the other.  The second definition
refers specifically to the gender division of labor (and other
behaviors), which seems to be the other definition that people are
adopting here. 

Maybe the right question  is *why* do I prefer definition #1 to
definition #2? Well, I feel a definition of sexism should: 1) help
feminists (who I'd say can be either male or female) decide where to
focus their efforts in helping women; 2) help people tell if the
treatment of women in a particular society is improving or not; and 3)
help people develop hypotheses of why some societies treat women
better than other societies do. (Clearly, I'm more focused on the
problem of anti-female sexist societies than anti-male sexist
societies. I think societies where men are treated worse than women
might exist, but I don't think any of the large human societies
currently have that problem.) 

I'd actually say that my preferred definition of "sexism" parallels
the way the term racism is used, while the "gender division of labor"
definition of sexism does not. When people talk about racism (at least
in Western societies), they are almost always referring to racial 
minorities being treated worse than the White majority.  If there is a
claim that whites are being treated worse (as is often made in debates
over affirmative action), this is given a different name, such as
"reverse discrimination."  In other words, the very term "racism"
implies that some races are treated worse than others, not just that
each race is treated differently.  

If we use the term "sexism" to refer to any case where men and women
are expected to act differently, then what term will we use to refer
to women being treated worse than men are?  If there is no term that
specifically refers to mistreatment of women, then won't that problem
become invisible?

It would be interesting to see if there is correlation between which
definition of sexism a person adheres to, and whether that person
believes mistreatment of women is a serious problem.  I suspect that
there is; I can say right off the bat that radical feminists almost
never define sexism as referring primarily to a gender division of
labor.

I want to point out another reason why I am unhappy with a focus on
women achieving in traditionally male roles.  What does this say about
the importance of traditionally female roles?  If there is a parallel
emphasis on how great it is for men to take on traditionally female
roles, fine.  But, that is almost never the case.  Women who take on
traditionally male occupations are lauded; men who take on
traditionally female occupations are (at best) ignored.  Perhaps the
intended message is "People of either gender can take on any role,"
but the message people may perceive is "Traditionally male occupations
are important; traditionally female occupations are unimportant."  If
men and women still largely occupy different roles (which is the case
in the US), then the net effect may be a reduction in the respect
women receive.  I think one can easily make this criticism of JKR's
work.  Yes, she has made sure to point out that women can be Quidditch
players and that there have been Headmistresses of Hogwarts and female
Ministers of Magic in the past.  But, when it comes to showing (human)
men in traditionally female roles such as primary caregiver,
secretary, nurse, food preparer, etc., she just doesn't do it

 I said:
>> I'd define a non-sexist society as one where the needs and desires
of both genders are given equal weight. <<

And Amy asked:
> Such as the desire to be Chaser on a professional Quidditch team?<

If men are allowed to do anything they want, while women are
restricted to a limited number of occupations, then, yes, that is
sexist and the N.O.W. (National Organization for Witches) should do
something about it. (I actually doubt that there are any societies in
which women are excluded from some professions, while all professions
are open to men. It just doesn't seem to work that way.)  However, if
women are being kept off of Quidditch teams while men are being denied
the chance to be musicians, then I'd say N.O.W. should skip that
issue, and focus on cases where women are being mistreated. 

Moving from Hogwarts back to the real world, I'd say that fixing the
gender-based division of labor is a good cause, but it's not something
that I think women's organizations should be expected to do.  Women's
organizations have their hands full with domestic violence, the
feminization of poverty, female infanticide in Asia, genital
mutilation in Africa, and far too many other problems.  They just
don't have the resources to also tackle problems where men and women
are impacted equally.  In other words, if both men and women are being
limited, why should fixing the problem be considered women's
responsibility?  

By the way, Porphyria's post 41345 and Deb's post 41346 (on the main
list) express a lot of what I was trying to say in my last post. In
particular, they explain what sort of female characters I'd like to
see in JKR's books, and why I don't think a "head count" of women in
jobs such as Quidditch player or Minister of Magic is important.  (I
hope this sort of cross-list reference is considered OK.) 

-- Judy