Why Are Women Oppressed

882019 Why Are Women Oppressed

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwhy-are-women-oppressed 126

Lea Perez Marasigan

Instructor Sociology

UPLB



1 Historical explanations for the origins

of patriarchybull 11 Lerner

bull 12 Eisler

bull 13 Mies

bull 14 Ofreneo et al (synthesis)

2 Evolution of patriarchy in thePhilippine context



Unrecorded past (all events of the past as recollected byhuman beings vs history (recorded and interpreted past)

Women have been central not marginal to the making of society and building of civilization women have also shared

with men in preserving collective memory

Preserving collective memory oral tradition kept alive inpoem and myth which both women and men created andpreserved in folklore art and ritual

History making = historical creation which dates from theinvention of writing in ancient Mesopotamia until recentlyhistorians have been men and what they have recorded is

what men have done and experienced and found significant



Women have been kept from contributing to history making ieordering and interpretation of the past of human kind which isessential to the creation and perpetuation of civilization

Women are majority yet structured into social institutions asthough a minority

Women have made history but are kept from knowing theirhistory and from interpreting history systematically excludedfrom the enterprise of creating symbol systems philosophiesscience law women are educationally deprived AND excludedfrom theory formation

Contradiction between women‟s actual historical experience andtheir exclusion from interpreting that experience has caused themto struggle against their condition



Men and women are biologically different but the values andimplications based on that difference are the result of CULTURE

Patriarchy as a system is HISTORICAL It has a beginning inhistory therefore it can be ended in historical process

Subordination of women antedated Western civilization (when written historical record began)

The period of the establishment of patriarchy was not one bdquoevent‟but a process developing over a period of nearly 2500 years(approx 3100 to 600 BC)

Process was manifested in changes in kinship organization andeconomic relations in the establishment of religious and statebureaucracies and in the shift in cosmogonies expressing theascendancy of male god figures



1) Is female subordination universal

2) Was there ever an alternative model of

society

3) How when why did female

subordination come into existence



Using a RELIGIOUS FRAMEWORK Womenrsquossubordination is universal God-given or natural

hence immutable

Women are subordinate to men because they were so created by God sexual division of laborbased on biological differences is functional and

just

Men have greater physical strength and as suchbecome the hunters and providers of food fortheir tribes and are more highly valued



TRADITIONALIST VIEW (using aSCIENTIFIC FRAMEWORK)

Charles Darwin ldquoSurvival of the fittestrdquo

Sigmund Freud ldquoAnatomy is destinyrdquo theldquonormalrdquo human is male while the female isa deviant human being lacking a penis

whose entire psychological structure iscentered on the struggle to compensate forthis deficiency




E O Wilson‟s sociobiology humanbehaviors which are bdquoadaptive‟ for groupsurvival become encoded in genes and theyinclude complex traits as altruism loyalty

and maternalism groups practising a sex-based division of labor have anbdquoevolutionary advantage‟



Frederick Engels there existed classless communist societies prior to the

formation of private property

development of animal husbandry led to surpluses which

were appropriated by men and became private property

Monogamous family (Men wanted to secure privateproperty for themselves and their heirs so they started tocontrol women‟s sexuality through the requirement of prenuptial chastity sexual double standard in marriage to

assure themselves of legitimacy of their children)

With the development of the state monogamous familybecame the patriarchal family in which the wife‟s

housework became a bdquoprivate service‟





Built upon the acceptance of biological sex differences as a

given sexual division of labor built upon these biologicaldifferences is inevitable

Bachofen women in primitive society developed culturethere was a stage of matriarchy which led society out of barbarism ascendancy of patriarchy as a triumph of

superior religious and political thought and organization butadvocated the incorporation of the bdquofeminine principle‟ of nurturance and altruism in modern society influencedEngels and several others

19th century American and British feminists women are

more altruistic than men because of their maternal instinctsand more bdquovirtuous‟ because of their weaker sex drives it is women‟s mission to rescue society from destructivenesscompetition and violence created by men

Stanton woman as the bdquomother of the republic‟



Strauss The bdquoexchange of women‟ in which women are turned into

a commodity marked the beginning of women‟s subordinationthis reinforces a sexual division of labor which institutes maledominance

Ortner female subordination is universal in every known society women are identified as being closer to nature than to culturesince every culture devalues nature as it strives to rise above itthrough mastery women become symbolic of an inferiorintermediate order of being

Maternalists asserted that there had been an alternative model of human social organization before patriarchy but this was based onevidence that was a combination of archaeology myth religion

and artifacts of dubious meaning held together by speculation

Evidence supported matrilocality and matriliny NOT matriarchy Itis NOT possible to show a connection between kinship structureand the social position of women (eg in most matrilinealsocieties it is a male relative usually the women‟s brother oruncle who controls economic and family decision)



There is no anthropological evidence to support theuniversality of prehistoric matriarchy

Vague definition A society where women dominateover men Any kind of societal arrangement in which

women hold power over any aspect of public life Any society in which women have high status

Lerner if matriarchy is the mirror image of patriarchy then no matriarchal society ever existedthere have been and are societies in which womenshare power with men where women in groups haveconsiderable power to influence or check the powerof men there is archaeological evidence forexistence of societies in Neolithic and Bronze ages in which women were held in high esteem



Search for social origins of unequal and hierarchicalrelationships in society and asymmetric division of laborbetween in men and women is part of the political strategyof women‟s emancipation

Biological determinism is the most deep rooted obstacle tothe analysis of the cause of women‟s oppression andexploitation

The unequal hierarchical and exploitative relationshipbetween men and women is in fact caused by social ie

historical factors

Concepts of nature labor sexual division of labor familyand productivity are all ldquoinfectedrdquo by biologicaldeterminism



Women‟s object-relation to nature womencan experience their whole body asproductive not only their hands or their

heads do not simply breed children likecows but appropriated their own generativeand productive forces

Men‟s object-relation to nature male bodilyproductivity cannot appear as such wo themediation of external means of tools



Myth of bdquoman the hunter‟

Women‟s tools vs men‟s tools

Women invented the first tools(digging stick hoe)

Men developed specialized hunting tools ndash specifically geared at destroying life not a means of production but destruction

By observing the behavior of animals menpastoralists discovered their own generativefunctions (started to see women as breeders of children rather than producers or gatherers)



Man the hunter under feudalism and capitalism fullpotential of the predatory mode based onpatriarchal division of labor could only be realizedunder feudalism and capitalism

Older modes of production were replaced bybdquotransformed‟ modes of production (relationsremained the same only forms of dominance andappropriation changed)

Assymetric division of labor by sex once establishedby means of violence were upheld by institutionslike the patriarchal family and the state and bypowerful ideological systems (religions lawmedicine)



Man the hunter under feudalism and capitalism fullpotential of the predatory mode based on patriarchaldivision of labor could only be realized underfeudalism and capitalism

Older modes of production were replaced bybdquotransformed‟ modes of production (relations remainedthe same only forms of dominance and appropriationchanged)

Assymetric division of labor by sex once establishedby means of violence were upheld by institutions likethe patriarchal family and the state and by powerfulideological systems (religions law medicine)



The woman as the ldquoqueen of the homerdquo

Actualization of motherhood being

the pursekeeper and primarily

confined to domestic sphere (ie

childrearing domestic chores) The growing trend of

ldquo housewifezationrdquo --- the housewife

stripping her of developing her

other potentials outside of the

domestic sphere

The reproductive sphere as unpaid

unrecognized labor and regarded

as menial



Men as the ldquo provider of the family rdquo

His final say is soughtin most important

decisions of thefamily membersHe basically operates

on the productive

sphere--- which isoutside of the homeusually paid and hardlabor



Within the wage laborforce the sexual division of labor is almost striking asthe sexual division of laborbetween the home andoutside work

The availability of the largebdquoreserve armyrdquo of laborprepared to work forrelatively low wages and

with relatively few fringebenefits is obviouslyadvantageous to capital

Women usually constitutesthis bdquoreserve army‟ and women‟s work acquiresspecifically femininecharacter

gender short filmsBridemp4



Women‟s lowages used to be justified on thegrounds that aman was workingto support hisfamily while a woman was working merelyfor bdquopin money‟

bull They are alienated simply as genderless workers and

are forced to exploit not only their physical strength and

skill or their intellectual capacities they are also forced

to exploit their sexuality and their emotion



There were spheres where women exercised autonomy andothers where men‟s dominance was already in place

Productive sphere women were workers in their own rightsand were not dependent on men for their own survival had

control over their labor and the fruits of their labor sharedmany productive tasks with men although men did notuniformly share women‟s household work

Women were prominent in cosmological system as religiousintermediaries but not as deities

Political options not freely open to women politicalpositions not available to them or theirs only on condition of absence of male heirs



Women were used to pay debts of the household also theobject of traffic in marriage

Women‟s sexuality was regulated to some extent marital

infidelity was a more serious offence for women

Practices of concubinage and polygyny indicated a mergingof social and sexual hierarchy evident in separation of concubines (lower ranked women) from wives as men areable to appropriate the labor of women

Men had sexual and social privileges women exercisedautonomy in production and in ritual domains

No extensive social apparatus to regulate the activities of women and men



Lerner G (1986) The Creation of Patriarchy Chapters 1-3Oxford University Press

Pineda-Ofreneo R Apuan VN and Claudio SE (1997) Module 5 WD 210 Feminist Theories and Movements Quezon

City

Eisler R (1988) The Chalice and the Blade San FranciscoHarper and Row

Mies M (1986) Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale

London Zed Press

Eviota E (1993) Political Economy of Gender London ZedPress



1 Historical explanations for the origins

of patriarchybull 11 Lerner

bull 12 Eisler

bull 13 Mies

bull 14 Ofreneo et al (synthesis)

2 Evolution of patriarchy in thePhilippine context


























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Why Are Women Oppressed

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