Reference: Bondi, L. (1992).
Gender and dichotomy. Progress in Human
Geography, 16(1), 98-104.
Bondi’s rather short article presents an
argument for a more serious consideration of the implications of gender in the
study of human geography. She begins by noting the lack of female geographers
in the academic sphere, which I of course noticed in my own university
experience and could not help but comment on! Most relevantly though, she
briefly discusses the problems with using binaries (which she refers to as
“dichotomies” and “dualisms”) of the private and public sphere in particular to
explore gender (with women of course being studied predominantly in the context
of the private sphere and men being studied in the context of the public
sphere). In this vein she also takes note of some of the contradictions that
these binaries produce, and argues for the study of gender outside of these restrictive
and stereotypical contexts.
“During the 1980s, the longstanding failure of
geography departments to appoint women to permanent positions, or to promote
those few who were appointed, seemed to be recognized as an issue, and even as
a source of embarrassment, in many quarters of the largely male academic
hierarchy” (98)
Even today, the majority of professors in the
geography department (I’m using Brock University as an example here, but I’m
sure this applies to most other universities as well) are male. When I look
back on my education in human geography, I become more and more aware of the
exclusion of women in the geography classes taught by men. I won’t mention any
names here, but I felt like the majority of what I learned by these male
professors came from the male perspective and focused on the plights of men,
such as those of the proletariat male, immigrant male, and other issues
surrounding class and capitalism that almost seemed to pretend as though women
weren’t in the picture at all. How is it possible in human geography courses
about things like culture, and history, and rural and urban environments, only
half of humanity is worth mentioning? It wasn’t until Federici’s book that I
discovered that women had a much more profound impact on the rise of capitalism
than I have been trained to believe.
“Feminist geographers have long argued that
associations between women/the home/consumption/the private sphere on the one
hand, and between men/work/production/the public sphere on the other hand, are
ideological constructs rather than empirical descriptions” (99)
I would definitely agree with this statement.
By thinking about the oppression of women in the context of the home and the
private sphere, problems with imagining the world through dichotomies (or
binaries, as I would refer to them) is only perpetuated. In order to truly
comprehend how gender functions in space, we need to step outside of the
private sphere when we study femininity and outside of the public sphere when
we study masculinity and explore how these genders function in all spaces.
“Pratt and Hanson interpret wage-earning and
childrearing practices in terms of household coping strategies; in so doing
they reject the notion that ’household relationships ... belong to a private
sphere’ (Pratt and Hanson, 1991: 53), and imply that domestic arrangements and
unpaid domestic labour should be understood in relation to a broader system of
economic production. In this way both the presumed correspondences between
dichotomies and the mutually exclusive oppositions themselves are brought into
question” (99)
This example further explains the problems that
arise when binaries are treated as polar opposites that do not intersect. Even
though housework is not paid labour (unless of course you work as part of a
maid service that visits other people’s homes), this does not mean that it does
not have an impact on the economy. Although housework does not have the direct
impact that actual wage labour has, one of the reasons why women have been
assigned to do the housework is to free up the time that men have to go to work
and make money to provide for the family (of course this does not explain why
women in particular do housework and men seek wage labour, but the division of
these responsibilities does make sense). In saying this I’m not trying to argue
in favour of this kind of household dynamic, I am merely agreeing that domestic
labour does have an impact on the economy and that it should not be considered
solely in the context of the “private sphere.”
“However, like notions of public and private,
the dichotomy conceals a masculine norm: the question implicit in the opposition
between equality and difference is whether women are the same as or different
from men. But for feminists, this
formulation is itself symptomatic of gender inequality” (101)
This quotation addresses how men are commonly
oriented as the staple to which women are constantly the victims of comparison.
When men and women are compared, off the top of my head I think about debates concerning strength; “women are not as strong as men.” This example in particular
has almost become a given in our society, to the point where both males and
females have accepted the stereotype. But when are men ever compared to women
in ways that give women the upper hand and does not position women in a
negative light? For example, saying men are not as emotional as women is not all-around
positive. Are there any examples of these stereotypical comparisons where a
large majority of both males and females agree? For example, would both genders
agree that women are more caring than men to the magnitude that both genders
often agree that “women are not as strong as men”? In sum: I want to know if it
is possible to compare men to women in a way that will give women the upper
hand while also offering an example of a comparison that a large fraction of
both genders accept (for example, I’ve heard women jokingly say that “girls are
smarter than boys” but of course, a statement like this would be strongly
refuted by men). Does any of this make sense, or am I just rambling?
No comments:
Post a Comment