Because... (revised)

Recently our university was the site of a series of classroom interruptions in which female students came, uninvited, into classes and read the following statement:

Because woman’s work is never done
and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or
repetitious and we’re the first to get fired
and what we look like is more important
than what we do and if we get raped it’s
our fault and if we get beaten we must have
provoked it and if we raise our voices we’re
nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we’re
nymphos and if we don’t were frigid and if
we love women it’s because we can’t get a
‘real’ man and if we ask our doctor too many
questions we’re neurotic and/or pushy and
if we expect childcare we’re selfish and if we
stand up for our rights we’re aggressive and
‘unfeminine’ and if we don’t we’re typical
weak females and if we want to get married
we’re out to trap a man and if we don’t we’re
unnatural and because we still can’t get an
adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk
on the moon and if we can’t cope or don’t
want a pregnancy we’re made to feel
guilty about abortion and ... for lots and lots
of other reasons we are part of the
women’s liberation movement.

This manifesto has been around for many years and it always annoys me. Not because I am anti-feminist; just the opposite. I am pro-feminist, but statements like this, simple-minded as they are, do a grave injustice to those who really want to ameliorate the place of women in the western world.

I was going to look at this line by line, but I can only take so much at once, so let's look at just a few particularly interesting passages.

“Because woman’s work is never done,
and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or
repetitious”

Well, I suspect that most people, men and women, feel that their work is never done, is underpaid, boring and so on. Unpaid work in the house is an interesting issue, but hardly a woman's issue; studies show that men actually do as much housework as women although it is not always the same tasks (men tend to mow the lawn, shovel snow, maintain the home and so on). That women are underpaid is a serious issue but one that is far more complex than this document allows. For instance, some studies have shown that the difference in pay between men and women is largely a function of education. That is, women who are as well educated as their male counterparts get paid just as well. Aha, but then why are women not as well educated. Good question. Social prejudice? Legitimate choices on the part of women who pursue childbearing instead of education? Or is the latter another kind of systematic discrimination? These are serious questions and they are done no service by the kind of absurd over-simplification of the manifesto quoted above.

“we’re the first to get fired and what
we look like is more important
than what we do”

That men were sometimes kept on in times of financial trouble on the ground that they had families to support may have been true at one time, but such action would hardly hold up in court today. That women are principally judged by their looks may be true in a few fields of endeavour (acting, modelling), I can see no indication that it is widely the case.

“and if we get raped it’s our fault
and if we get beaten we must have
provoked it”

Sadly, it is true that there are those who may try to discount some cases of rape on the absurd grounds that the woman somehow "provoked" it -- and such dismissals are rightly criticized. But the blanket statement that implies that all rapes are blamed on the woman is a needlessly inflammatory overstatement. If this were true, rape would not even be a crime. Of course, many rape cases turn on the difficult question of consent, and to be sure, many guiltless women have had to endure humiliating questions for the sake of guilty men. But what is the alternative, the presumption of guilt in rape cases? Here again, the simplistic treatment of complex isssues is unworthy of scholars.

“and if we raise our voices we’re nagging bitches
and if we enjoy sex we’re nymphos”

I have never heard anyone define “nagging” as speaking with a raised voice. I have never heard anyone define “nympho” as a woman who enjoys sex.

“if we expect childcare we’re selfish”

Apparently the women who were reading this statement last week entirely missed the last election campaign, where every major party was promoting increased funding for childcare as a key part of their platform! Now, as to whether the public should pay for childcare is an issue for another day.

“and because we still can’t get an adequate safe
contraceptive but men can walk on the moon”

Safe contraception? When was this thing written? Probably around the time of the first moon landing. Women have come a long way since then, largely through the work of brave women who fought for them.

Those women deserve better than this.