In Marilyn Frye’s article she explores the idea of oppression and how it is conveyed in our society. She begins by stating that “it is a fundamental claim of feminism that women are oppressed” and that many people believe that men are oppressed as a result of this supposed oppression of women. Frye details in the second paragraph how the word “oppression” has lost all value and meaning in our society and how if one were to ever deny that someone was “oppressed” people would think they were implying that “they never suffer and have no feelings”. This is obviously not true. The basis for the rest of her argument begins to form when she says, “Something pressed is something caught between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that jointly they restrain, restrict or prevent the thing’s motion or mobility”. She notes that one of the primary features experience by those who are oppressed is that their options have been severely reduced and that each option exposes them to penalty and/or deprivation. Her first two examples are that one is required to be smiling and cheerful while being oppressed and the fact that women is criticized and objectified for both being and not being sexually active in today’s society. She continues on to discuss how women are caught between a myriad of factors that all tie together in one way or another to prohibit all of the supposedly available options they have. Frye notes that the “experience of oppressed people is that the living of one’s life is confined and shaped by forces and barriers which are not accidental or occasional”. She supports this claim with the example of a birdcage. Individually, any one factor may not seem to restrict a woman drastically, but the combination of all the other factors does—too look at everything macroscopically instead of microscopically. For example, the tradition of the man opening a door for a woman does not seem like a huge deal. Frye argues it is when we take a step back and look at what this action really means and what it implies (when we look at it in a macroscopic way) that we notice how restrictive this is.
Jonah Gokova’s piece describes how men need to be equal participants in the fight for a “gender-sensitive society” (Gokova 422). He begins by introducing the thought that gender issues are not only important for women but men also. He states that men have done little to help women gain the equality he has been fighting for over the years and that all gender issues require participation from both sexes. Men have largely allowed themselves to ignore many issues when, in reality, it is their responsibility to end these very same problems. Gokova notes that, upon an inspection of the traditional male role, “men have been living a myth that needs to be challenged” (Gokova 421). Men need to fully realize how much our patriarchal society is hurting them and how they will benefit just as much as women from creating this “gender-sensitive society”. The myth of male superiority has resulted in unnecessary stress on men as it restricts their creativeness, restricts their emotions, etc. He also notes correctly that this talk of gender inequality does not only apply to heterosexual people—it needs to also apply equally to gay men and lesbian women. Gokova remarks that a new definition of manhood is emerging (423) and that it needs to be challenged while cooperating with women to help them in fighting the gender inequality that women experience. He concludes with, “Our vision for the creation of a society established on gender justice requires the involvement of every man and woman” (Gokova 423).
Johnson begins with the claim that if we have any hope of clearing up the confusion in our society on gender roles and what “patriarchy” means, we need to “realize that we’re stuck in a model of social life that views everything as beginning and ending with individuals”. He notes that when we think of society only in terms of individuals we are trapped in the idea of thinking that these bad things happen only because the people in our society are bad, not the structure of society itself. Additionally, we cannot simply blame “the system” for all of our problems because this does not allow us to understand what our problems might mean. Johnson argues “we cannot understand the world and our lives in it without looking at the dynamic relationship between individual people and social systems”. This relationship, he argues, has two parts: “As we participate in social systems, we are shaped by socialization and by paths of least resistance” and we, as individuals, “make social systems happen” as well. This idea of the “path of least resistance” is dangerous to society, and especially a patriarchal society. The reason we have had a patriarchal society for so long is because men are often persuaded by the path of least resistance, which is to simply go along with the traditional gender roles and not fight for gender equality. Johnson begins a new part titled “The System”. He defines a system as “any collection of interrelated parts or elements that we can think of as a whole”. One important thing to note about any social system, including patriarchy, is that it is something that people participate in: “It’s an arrangement of shared understandings that connect people to on other and something larger than themselves”. To further prove this point he uses the game of Monopoly, a capitalist society, and soldiers as examples. He notes that in all three of these examples the participants might not fully realize how each system works, and therefore not much can be done to improve these systems. Perhaps the reason not all the participants realize how each system works is because we are still using the individualistic model (and we are still using the individualistic model because it is the path of least resistance). It is important, Johnson argues, to find a “clear sense of what patriarchy is and what it’s got to do with us” in order to find a way out of it. In the next section Johnson describes what patriarchy is, in the attempt that understanding what it truly is will ultimately help us identify the aspects of the system that are problematic. He notes the defining elements of a patriarchy are it “male-dominated, male-identified, male-centered, and control-obsessed character”. Johnson explains various ways in which this male-oriented society is present today and why the various ways a patriarchal society are critical to understand. Next Johnson explores the idea of how patriarchy shapes us and how we, in turn, play a hand in shaping it. He notes that each and every one of us occupies many different social positions and we use these social positions as a way to construct who we are and who other people are as well. Johnson says, “We can think of a society as a network of interconnected systems within systems, each made up of social positions and their relations to one another.” He continues on to note how patriarchy only exists through people’s lives and says, “We’re involved in patriarchy and its consequences because we occupy social positions in it, which is all it takes”. Johnson concludes this chapter with the example of male violence towards women. He points out that while all men who act in a violent way towards women should be punished appropriately, “violence against women is also a pattern of behavior that reflects the oppressive patriarchal relationships that exit between men and women as dominate and subordinate groups in society as a whole”. His concluding statement is, “The choice is how to participate in this system differently so that we can help to change not only ourselves, but the world that shapes our lives and is, in turn, shaped by them”.
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