Why are we so slow to change? One of the earliest cultures to adopt hierarchical social stratification was the late Vedic civilization; this stratification was maintained until about a century ago. Social thoughts have always necessarily been placed in their historical context because a thought never really arrives in complete independence. Reactionary or not, a thought is a product of the historical patterns of thinking which precede it. Such is the nature of social progress: we are taught to copy the most recent past and either make improvements upon aspects of social architectures or, more drastically, dismantle them. In the context of the caste system, dismantlement took over 2,000 years.
The interpretation of the word "improvement" in the paragraph above proves to be a little subjective, so I will define it in this post to mean movement towards full psychological autonomy. So again, if we're constantly trying to improve, why are we so slow to change? Well, simply put, because improvement is at odds with the "copy" phenomenon earlier described. Improvement (or dismantlement) is an active phenomenon, where copying is a passive one; social norms are learned by just existing in a society. This passive process is a necessary component of structural functionalism. In other words, ideological conservatism is a property through which a society defines itself.
But a society doesn't actively try to create or define itself; it is an emergent property from a dynamic system of individuals. So what motivates individuals to promote ideological conservatism? Honestly, I don't know if I can elucidate a good answer to this question. But I think it can be given that people like people with similar opinions as them and view their and others' behaviors as relative to a normativity, an averaging. If opinions fluctuate relative to normativity and are hereditary, then it's no wonder why change is so slow.
Every generation, we inherit our notions of normativity and maybe budge our "average" ever so slightly in a fight against ideological conservatism. But is ideological conservatism necessarily always something to fight against? Not quite. If the existing ideology leaves no room for improvement, as earlier defined, then there exists no force for it to fight against. Now, let's specifically hone in on the topic of sexism, where current social ideology clearly has plenty of room for improvement as illuminated in our readings.
Without discussing the topics of oppression or (dis)advantage, I've talked a little bit about why I think structural components are maintained systemically through not a subset of society but rather society in its entirety. Now I would like to briefly speak about power and the two main subsets of the population before I pose a broad question. The process of empowerment to a group necessarily categorizes it in opposition to the unempowered or the groups where the powerful has dominion or advantage over. However, as discussed here and in-class, all members in a power relation have influence in maintaining it. What's taken me back through personal experience and discussion in class is how much women, the oppressed, unknowingly act as their own oppressors in every day life. But clearly, the unempowered sex, women, have a clear incentive for breaking this power relation, this conserved social ideology: they are no longer subjugated and can expand their psychological autonomy. Thus, to break women from directly or indirectly promoting this ideological conservatism, I believe women need to be educated on these matters at a young age, so they may be able to defend themselves from passively acquiring this ideology and maintaining it in the future. Education is the key for women. And it's also important for men too. But I don't think it's enough for men. When one has power, especially with disregard to locality or temporality, over half of the population, that's a lot of power to give up. Assuming acknowledgement of one's power, the easiest way to defend it is to claim that it's intrinsic by relying on anecdotes, biology, anthropological history, etc... Easiest perhaps is to use observations of the modern day that have associative properties with phenomena emergent from power relations. However, this is fallacious thinking because critiquing a system requires looking at it from outside the system. Using evidence that is emergent of or within the system to justify the system itself is self-validating logic. Regardless, a man will try to defend his power unless he has a good enough incentive to give it up. Morality seems to work as an incentive for some but not most. So the overall question which I'm stuck on is this: how do we incentivize oppressors with power (read: men) to dismantle the very structures which validate their power in the context of change being slow?
Aditya,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think your point about education is very powerful. It is equally important for all people, albeit for different reasons. In answer to the question of how we get males, white males more specifically, to give up their power, I would suggest consciousness raising like our homework assignment to make a list of white privilege and male privilege. Those in power must first understand how almost everything is a function of their privilege and then they can start to learn how this is a detriment to every other subgroup.
I think the biggest problem with "incentivizing" men to be more aware of their privileges is the word "incentivizing." It sounds as though some magical bribe will suddenly make men start caring and take notice of the oppression around them. And what incentive would be great enough to make men want to give up their power? What population of men actually want to give up that power? I think if people answered honestly, very few men would be ok with the loss of their privilege. For example, there are tons of incredibly wealthy people who claim to be Christians. There are also tons of quotes you could pull from the Bible that tell the wealthy to give their worldly possessions to the homeless and destitute, and live a poor yet wholesome life dedicated to others. If these millionaire Christians wanted to live by the Word, they would probably recognize that this was the right thing to do, yet how many millionaires do you see actually doing this?
ReplyDeleteEven if men recognize the injustice, that doesn't mean that they want to forfeit having power in society.
Emi, I'm sure we'll get into this tomorrow during our discussion of privilege, but I think your last point is so key to answering the questions that Aditya raises.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of privileged, wealthy men who understand, at least to some certain extent, the significance of the space they occupy in our society. However, there is no tangible incentive for these people to subvert their own privilege in favor of aiding marginalized groups. The only incentive would of course, being making our society a more equal and just, but I feel, in my admittedly cynical heart, that there is no way this promise of making the world better, or any other conceivable promise, could cause the people who occupy the most power sectors of society to give that up. This of course makes it impossible to realistically even begin to dismantle these structures. I know that's not an optimistic answer, but it just doesn't seem that there's any actual solution at this point.
Although I strongly believe the only way that men will give up their privilege is if they feel a moral obligation to do so, one potential way of approaching the problem is to figure out ways in which to show men that the system we are all living in is failing everyone, in a way. While surely, men are still not being oppressed, and are still vastly more privileged than women, the rigid structures that they are so eager to keep in place restrict their possibilities as well. The same invisible social rule that sanctions women for dating men who are shorter than they are, sanctions men from dating women who are taller. Though seemingly trite, this standard limits men in their choices as well as women. While reiterating, this is NOT oppression, it is an example of the patriarchal structure working out poorly for everyone.
ReplyDeleteAditya,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your reflections!
When we discuss change, there seems to be an incredible amount of pessimism. However, I would assert that since we create these social structures that oppress different groups, we can create new, more equitable ones as well.
I would emphasize that there is a lot of work to be done! For instance, it seems to me that the socialization of masculinity entails an objectification and subordination of women. One can observe this in how female bodies become a tool to achieve masculinity in such concepts as "The Champion's Belt," where a man 'wins the prize' if he is the first among a group of male peers to have a threesome. The average person will find this humorous and think critical analysis of this joke's relation to oppressing women to be extraordinarily sensitive. These mechanisms are imbedded, invisible, and require a conscious effort to fight for many people, especially white males who have been socialized blind. ("The first task for all of us is to unlearn - Gloria Steinem).
However, anecdotally, my experiences indicate that in one-on-one situations or small group settings, men are more likely to talk about women respectfully and are more receptive to ideas of male privilege. Furthermore, as Annika suggested, many men feel that masculinity is very fragile, and I think that education of how gender norms relate to that as well as reinforce power structures would help. I think that a general sense of justice and respect for humanity constitutes a motivation compelling people to work for change. What is required is understanding that certain, normative behaviors obstruct respect and justice.
It is crucial that everyone (especially white men, since privilege seems less apparent from our daily experiences) to understand this. I would insist that classes like Feminist Theory or Sociology should be a requirement in public high schools and public universities to force individuals to wrestle with these ideas.
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ReplyDeleteI'm with Annika here. A common protest against feminism is "Well, men have problems too!" If there was an understanding that men are more often expected to pay for dinner because of archaic ideas of chivalry, or are less likely to get custody of their kids in a divorce because women are thought to be better caretakers, and that these causes were caused by the same system that oppresses women, more men might understand that it is a flawed and undesirable system. (I recognize this still falls under the category of education and doesn't provide an alternative or additional solution.) Unfortunately, there are many posts and videos from women explaining this issue, and their target audiences, MRAs, remain deaf to their reasoning.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that has made me think about my white privilege and that something needs to be done about it is my education. However, on top of education not getting through to everyone, there doesn't seem to be a good way to shirk your privilege. I can't go up to store employees and ask them to follow me around. I can't ask someone to shoot me in the head when I ask them for help because my car has broken down. Even if a man came to understand his male privilege and wanted to do something about it, there isn't really an instruction manual for how to proceed.