Our Shared Shelf discussion

Hi!
I started questioning gender-based assumptions (to report Emma Watson's words) when:

1.in a TV programme a man said: "Men never cries"
2.a grandfather of my friend, when we were going to volleyball training, said: "I'm sure (reported to the driver who had done a wrong manoeuvre) this is a women" as if women don't know how to drive!
3.my parents worked for an association and every end of year, to thank them for their work, it gave them a books gift card. But this year just my mother worked for this association. At the end of the season, (for the first time in five and more years), a bouquet of flowers is arrived, instead of the books gift card.
4.an evening I and my family were at a friend's home and at the end of the dinner, men had gotten up from their chairs and they went out on the balcony chatting, a bootle of wine in hand. Women also had gotten up from their chairs, but to clear the table!!!

And what about you?

I see that everyday in others' behaviour and in mine, because let's be honest I grew up in a system/society based on patriarchy (even if there are some level of intensity) so to some extent I have "patriarch" behaviour that I try to fight whenever I am aware of them.

1. I second you about "men never cry." it's a stupid and shackling vision of the majority of people both men and women. It is even primal but we all contribute to that at different level. I am aware it is important to remind men (women and every gender) that crying is perfectly ok and that nobody should judge us for doing so (or pity us "poor him/her/and so on..."

2. Sometimes, I hear such sentence as well but not only about driving. Sometimes it's not gender-based but ethnicity/culture-based... I remember a friend (he is vietnamese) saying "that driver is definitly asian (meaning south east asian)" because the person was driving poorly.

3. That is so true about flower and that's a shame... I mean, I love flower and I'd like to be offered flower sometimes. I guess, bouquet have specific underlying meanings but whenever gift or anything else is attributed to one gender only then that's sad.

4. I don't see that now, when lunch or dinner is over everyone take parts in cleaning the dishes. However, once a colleague (a woman) told me as I was about to start cleaning the plates "let me do it, that's a woman job." I know she was "joking" but I did not think it was fun at all.

Even if I see some of those behaviour, my close environment (family, close friends) does not do that and whenever one of us does it others call out the person. For example, 2 weeks ago I visited my grand mother at the hospital and she told us she joked said a joke to a nurse, she explained it to us (it was about the colour yellow and asian people because she lives in a borought where there is a important asian culture). My mother told her it was inappropriate, she did not get it so I took time that even if she was not rascit that specific behaviour was rascit, anyway I took time (about 10 min) to kindly explain why it was bad and she understood. This example is about rascism but it is the same for every discrimination.

Glad you created that thread, I'll probably be quiet and read what people answer to built it up.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It's really sad, all of this...

In India, we have a very popular saying, 'mard ko kabhi dard nahi hota' . It is mostly expected that if you are a man then you need to possess some supreme skill of never experiencing pain. Preferential treatment for boy child is the norm, in every possible way. This is observed in every single household.
In such society, you question these assumptions every single day from the day you are old enough to understand what's going on around you. But the thing is, gender based assumptions are SANSKARS. You are expected to follow the duty or errands you are assigned and never to question the authority of men. And the sadder part is, older women themselves inculcate these values in the younger ones.
PS: A thing that some of you might not know, calling your husband by his first name is disrespectful and thus not allowed. And it is still frowned upon in most parts.

So true Neha. And I saw such situations myself where my own parents tend to give more weight to the words of my younger brothers(9yrs younger to me) than mine and they treat them differently. Boys can do whatever they want; it is not disrespectful if they don't follow the rules. But the same does not apply to girls. Girls have to follow rules, be obidient to elders, take into account everyone's opinion and if what we want is not what everyone accepts, we have to give up on our dreams. I myself had to face so much resistance to do my Masters. They consider it waste and unnecessary for a girl to study so much.

Hello!

Interesting answers. Actually, it totally makes sense many women follow patriarchy values, it is like every oppressing system there is some kind of hierarchy where every single person has power over other people. That power brings confort and privilege and the system successfully make you think that it benefits you. That is the reason why many women are "patriarchs" as well as many men or at least back this system up or have patriarch behaviour.

It was the same for Slavery, the masters gave power to some slaves in addition of some consideration (sometime false sometime true). Therefore they ruled over other slaves etc... because in their smaller system they were the one with privileges, the one in charge etc...

The ultimate goal being to climb up the different levels of the society to be in the top positions (usually depicted as status of wealth, fame and power, yes Emma Watson (just like all of us) contribute to it because of the images we all create, we must be honest we that), but to do that one needs to accept the system and to behave as the system expect us to behave that's how Slavery or Patriarchy made/makes victims oppressors as well. It's quite vicious because many humans want consideration, want to belong to a group but it implies to become like the group to be accepted by it, that how smart those systems are, they take good people who refuse them and little by little they transform them whenever they don't fight (because they are often isolated).

The best move for Patriarchy would be to make gender and sex equality among the Patriarchs and I hope this day will never happen!

It's taken a long time for me to see the multiple layers to this question for me as a man.

First, I had to become aware that I disliked trends in the behavior of boys around me: bullying, an addiction to competition, and proving oneself through physical activities, such as sports. Second, I needed to see an absence of those trends in the behavior of my sister and her friends: less physical competition, a greater emphasis on relationships. At that point, however, I still saw each gender's behaviors as fixed: "boys will be boys", etc. But the differences did make me curious enough about gender to take a Women's Studies class. From that I began to see the systemic nature of these differences, their arbitrariness, and the resulting inequity and harm. And only after many more years of being on the look-out for such inequities would I get to the point of actually identifying as a feminist.

So for me it wasn't one moment; it was a very long slow process--which continues.

-- Peter

Perhaps the experience that's stuck the most with me was in elementary school. I didn't have the best time. I was frequently bullied by the boys, and the girls I'd meet were far nicer. So I'd hang out with them and the bullies would call me a girl for hanging out with them. I also didn't understand why boys would find girls "icky" and all that stuff. None of that made sense to me since I knew that as we'd get older, we'd end up being attracted and having relationships with them. Now it's funny to me that men can be emasculated by other men for "not having enough women."

interesting to me how many men have commented on this thread. so very glad to see it.

i was raised in a then 'traditional' home - dad went out to work, mom stayed home and tended the house/kids. that was my message from the get-go, but for some reason, it didn't fit me.

i broke the tradition of living at home until being married, then moving in w/ your spouse when i moved across country to the beaches of so. calif., hung out w/ the unicorns we'd only heard about in the midwest (surfers), and witnessed what equality looked like.

i was alive when the women's movement first began, and was appalled at the whole 'burning bras' dictum that i'd heard. yet, a year later, it was natural to be without. a boyfriend once told me that he didn't want to answer my questions about syncromesh in a car's transmission (it was brand new back then) cuz he didn't like talking about that stuff w/ girls. it stunk to me then, and when i'd met him later in life, he stunk to me also.

so, i think i had eschewed the whole girls can't do the same as boys thing (except that we couldn't write our names in the snow while peeing, unless we could run really, really fast!) naturally. my younger bro told me that i was where he'd heard about the concept of equality, so he grew up w/ it.

i just haven't had the experience so many people have had, but i'm terribly sad that it continues, and has been devastating for so many. here's to continuing awareness and breaking thru these shackles.

When I was 8 years oold Batman was the hottest tv show in my age group. It was rumored that there was To be a new female character. When it turned out to. Be Batgirl instead if natinstead of Bat Woman I wasdisappointed and offended.

I didn't question the assumptions, I just considered myself to be "not like other girls" :/
At the age of 20 I became passionate about menstrual cups, and soon the community i'm in introduced a rule about using gender-neutral language to be inclusive for trans cuppers (so trans men or those outside the binary). As a non-native speaker I first found "they" really weird, but this was life-changing for me. I learned not to think of myself as subhuman (of course I never knew I did!). I truly accepted that gender doesn't matter, or at least it shouldn't.