Sensitivity

I've learned a lot about gender and "feminism" and consent and other branches of sexual ethics in the past year or two.  Maybe in a more focused entry, when I have the time to dig more thoroughly in myself and find the right wording, I will write about my beliefs.  But for now, I just want to write about something that happened earlier today.

I was at the campus bookstore, and saw a table full of Valentine's Day merchandise, mostly books, mostly red and pink and at least one with a blonde woman on the cover and something to the effect of "How to Pleasure Her".  Among the larger and more garish books, was a small, pocket-sized book, with a hard red cover with black text.  It was called "DON'TS FOR WIVES" (by Blanche Ebbutt) with the year 1913 at the bottom.

I had two reactions to this, in quick succession:

1. This sounds incredibly misogynistic and I am going to get offended!!!  
2. Okwait--why does it say 1913??  Ohhh, it's probably an ironic thing!  Someone must have found this publication and thought, "Wow, this is really ridiculous, I've got to show EVERYONE how ridiculous this is by re-publishing it!!"  

I read the preface (you can read it here).

Soo...  Marriage is by default difficult to maintain.  Marriage is the woman catering to the man.  Men are fickle and sane women can't understand men.  Oh, and men are unchangeable (women mush "reckon" with them).

Groaning, I read on...

The first DON'T was pretty ok:  "Don't think that there is any satisfactory substitute for love" (I've actually truncated this; Ebbutt continues, "between husband and wife.  Respect and esteem make a good foundation, but they won't do alone.")

But it turns out to be as dry as I expected.

Don't expect life to be all sunshine.  Besides, if there are no clouds, you will lose the opportunity of showing your husband what a good chum you can be. 

Because, the only reason anything should happen is for your husband's benefit.  Yup.

Then there are real gems, like this one:

Don't expect your husband to have all the feminine virtues as well as the masculine ones.  There would be nothing left for you if your other half were such a paragon.

By itself, the first half is pretty fair: "Don't expect someone to have qualities they don't have."  But there are presumptions behind these two sentences that just make me so angry sometimes!

(You can definitely argue that I am "reading too deep into this".  But if you argue with me, I probably won't argue back, because I don't like to argue over opinions and speculation about whether or not something is the case or isn't.)

1. You (and more importantly, everyone else) know what "masculine" and "feminine" are!  
2. "Masculine" is the opposite of "feminine".  
3. The purpose of the Wife is to service the Husband (it's not up to the husband to do anything if the wife is lacking in masculine virtues--but you can argue all you like that "maybe it's in the book Don'ts for Husbands" since this one is addressed to wives).
4. Someone who has both feminine and masculine virtues is perfect--and perfection doesn't exist, you silly goose (yes, I'm aware the literal interpretation should be "all the feminine and masculine virtues").
5. A Husband or Wife is a half-person, when you put the two together, they form a whole.  
6. A Wife's only purpose is to fill in her Husband's missing half (else there's nothing else for a wife to do).  

These presumptions make me angry because they're often simply not addressed.

I think this is why I like Math, by the way.  We state our axioms (axioms are ideas that are assumed to be true without proof--actually, they are typically impossible to prove, but that's a topic for another entry!).  For example, if we choose to agree with Euclid's parallel postulate (or any of its equivalent versions), then we get Eucliean Geometry.  If we choose to disagree, we enter Non-Euclidean Geometry (which encompasses hyperbolic and elliptic geometry).

The reason I don't like these presumptions is because they emphasise the differences between "men" and "women".  I think human beings have a lot in common.  (Whether that's more or less than what are different, is for another discussion).  I prefer to live in a culture that doesn't harp on dividing people into broad groups for, in my opinion, poorly-reasoned reasons.

(For example:  I kind of don't get gendered bathrooms.  Did someone think, "Men and women have differently externally shaped urinating apparati, so we should separate them"?  And if you give me the "safety" bullshit, I will call bullshit.  It is not in a "man"'s nature to assault a woman when left alone with her; that is a choice.  I don't actually know the history of the bathroom, so I can only speculate this reasoning.)  


...Argh, it's getting late.  One day, I will find time to address this more thoroughly and thoughtfully.


TL;DR:  Unstated and unaddressed presumptions about gender and gender roles lead to inequality and the division of humanity.  Also, misogyny often goes hand-in-hand with misandry (and vice-versa).  Also, I almost wish I didn't know so much about gender issues so I wouldn't get so...sensitive to it.  But it really is a subject that affects me very personally on an everyday basis.  And I'm sure it affects a lot of people more than they'd right now give it credit.