Norms of self-expression and gender essentialism
I take liberal feminist education to share some core features of mainstream liberal education, with a central emphasis on a broad education that fosters freedom by developing autonomy. In doing so, the feminist variant would pay particular attention to encouraging the growth of autonomy among girls, and their capacity to choose roles and lifestyles rather than being forced to accept traditionally defined ones. (p.73)
Extract from Enslin, Penny (2003)."Liberal feminism, diversity and education", in Theory and Research in Education 1 (1): pp.73-87.
On Tuesday Karen Bradley, from Western Washington University came to do a talk entitled “Cultural and Structural Factors Affecting the Incorporation of Women into Systems of Higher Education”.
One of the things she was looking at is vertical and horizontal segregation: vertical segregation refers to the fact that women are confined to low-paying jobs, and horizontal segregation refers to the fact that they're limited to certain fields of work. One of the things that's fascinating about these two aspects of gender segregation is that the rationale of gender equality seems to have helped reduce vertical segregation, but not horizontal segregation, so that the male/female ratio at university for example is very unequal in fields of study that are traditionally gendered: engineeing, computer science (in favor of males), education, nursing (in favor of females).
One of the explanations she mentioned for this phenomenon is that our belief in gender egalitarianism has not been accompanied with a real challenge to gender essentialism: that is, the belief that men are 'naturally' one way and women 'naturally' another way. One reason for the fact that increase in gender egalitarianism in the general population doesn't mean an increase in gender essentialism is that legislating equality affects vertical rather than horizontal segregation.
Her main thesis was interesting - and provocative. She argued that norms of self-expression and the rationale of choice that are so popular (especially in North American cultures) legitimize our indulgence in gender-stereotyping.
So for example, our focus on the individual means that if a girl decides she wants to be a nurse and doesn't like math, rather than challenging that, we focus on the idea that she's making that choice for herself and that as an individual, she has the right to do that. Consequently we tend to disregard economic outcomes and the influence of gendered cultural ideas... Bradley argued this is all the more true since we allow teens to make choices for themselves at school at a moment in their life where they are the most sensitive to pressures of gendered expectations and most likely to make choices based on deeply-held cultural beliefs of gender essentialism.
In short, the valuation of choice and individualism in our society would be the very tool that allows for the perpetuation of gender essentialist beliefs, as they become concealed behind arguments of self-expression.
Now, I don't know if I agree completely with this idea, but it certainly resonates with what I know and what we have witnessed over the past few decades. It certainly makes sense in the context of heterosexism resonating so easily with a large percentage of the population, because heterosexist is rooted in gender essentialism. Anyway. I just wanted to relate the argument (not as well as she made it but hopefully fairly clearly) as food for thought.
It also really challenges liberal feminism as defined by that quote at the beginning of the post, since then emphasis on autonomy, unless it is actively accompanied by challenges to gender essentialist beliefs, would simply work to reinforce gender stereotypes in the framework of our society, rather than help liberate women.
Oh, and before I forget again: the grad advisor for our department, Gerry, is a browncoat! :D I was so happy to find out. On Thursday he briefly sat down next to me during the UGF and at one point turned to me and said "shiny!" with a knowing grin on his face. Just awesome.
Extract from Enslin, Penny (2003)."Liberal feminism, diversity and education", in Theory and Research in Education 1 (1): pp.73-87.
On Tuesday Karen Bradley, from Western Washington University came to do a talk entitled “Cultural and Structural Factors Affecting the Incorporation of Women into Systems of Higher Education”.
One of the things she was looking at is vertical and horizontal segregation: vertical segregation refers to the fact that women are confined to low-paying jobs, and horizontal segregation refers to the fact that they're limited to certain fields of work. One of the things that's fascinating about these two aspects of gender segregation is that the rationale of gender equality seems to have helped reduce vertical segregation, but not horizontal segregation, so that the male/female ratio at university for example is very unequal in fields of study that are traditionally gendered: engineeing, computer science (in favor of males), education, nursing (in favor of females).
One of the explanations she mentioned for this phenomenon is that our belief in gender egalitarianism has not been accompanied with a real challenge to gender essentialism: that is, the belief that men are 'naturally' one way and women 'naturally' another way. One reason for the fact that increase in gender egalitarianism in the general population doesn't mean an increase in gender essentialism is that legislating equality affects vertical rather than horizontal segregation.
Her main thesis was interesting - and provocative. She argued that norms of self-expression and the rationale of choice that are so popular (especially in North American cultures) legitimize our indulgence in gender-stereotyping.
So for example, our focus on the individual means that if a girl decides she wants to be a nurse and doesn't like math, rather than challenging that, we focus on the idea that she's making that choice for herself and that as an individual, she has the right to do that. Consequently we tend to disregard economic outcomes and the influence of gendered cultural ideas... Bradley argued this is all the more true since we allow teens to make choices for themselves at school at a moment in their life where they are the most sensitive to pressures of gendered expectations and most likely to make choices based on deeply-held cultural beliefs of gender essentialism.
In short, the valuation of choice and individualism in our society would be the very tool that allows for the perpetuation of gender essentialist beliefs, as they become concealed behind arguments of self-expression.
Now, I don't know if I agree completely with this idea, but it certainly resonates with what I know and what we have witnessed over the past few decades. It certainly makes sense in the context of heterosexism resonating so easily with a large percentage of the population, because heterosexist is rooted in gender essentialism. Anyway. I just wanted to relate the argument (not as well as she made it but hopefully fairly clearly) as food for thought.
It also really challenges liberal feminism as defined by that quote at the beginning of the post, since then emphasis on autonomy, unless it is actively accompanied by challenges to gender essentialist beliefs, would simply work to reinforce gender stereotypes in the framework of our society, rather than help liberate women.
Oh, and before I forget again: the grad advisor for our department, Gerry, is a browncoat! :D I was so happy to find out. On Thursday he briefly sat down next to me during the UGF and at one point turned to me and said "shiny!" with a knowing grin on his face. Just awesome.