Until this week, I had begun to feel slightly confused as to what to do in terms of righting the wrongs that are present in our society. After reading both Johnson and Frye’s articles this week, I have begun to gain a better idea of what exactly these problems are, how women and men are both a part of them, and where we go from here.
Johnson elaborates on this idea of redirecting our blame for women’s position in society. The question of who is to blame is at the core of this issue. Many women find it easiest to blame men as the cause of this patriarchal system. Others blame “the system”. What really is this “system”? In order to blame the problems on the system don’t we need to understand it and know how we are involved in it? According to Johnson, “the system serves as a vague, unarticulated, catch-all, a dumping ground for social problems, a scapegoat that can never be held to account, and that, for all the power we think it has, can’t talk back or actually doanything.” It is terribly easy to blame everything on the system but Johnson makes a critical point: we are all involved in the system and we all participate in it, man or woman, whether we do so willingly or not, so therefore we are the orchestrators of the system. The system is larger than all of us, but it does not control us, although most of us are a part of it without even realizing. We all have the power to stand up to the system in order to break it down. This is where Johnson concludes that we can no longer take the paths of least resistance; we must begin to make different choices about how we participate in this system that we call life or else we will all continue to breathe the misogynistic air that pervades this world and orchestrates each and every one of us.
I find Johnson’s article to be intriguing but I think that many of the conclusions made about what to do next are a bit idealistic and easier said than done. First of all, not everyone is strong enough to step off the path of least resistance. It is comfortable to stay on the path and continue to make the wrong choices. Until all of society decides to make this revolutionary change to wholeheartedly jump off “the path”, we will forever be stuck in “the system”.
In Marilyn Frye’s article, “Oppression”, she discusses how the definition of oppression entails that those who are oppressed often are required to simply accept this as fact and not fight it. Clearly, the system will never be overturned if we do that. Frye goes on to discuss how women are “Molded. Immobilized. Reduced”, and that they are pressured in all different forms and in all facets of life. Women can never win and they are not allowed to be at either extreme of anything, such as sexuality. If women are heterosexual but non-active, they are prudes, and if they are heterosexual and active, they are sluts. This can translate to the way women dress as well; whatever happened to self-expression by means of fashion? Are women exempt from this?
I will say that I thought that Frye’s ideas were extremely eye-opening in that I never truly thought about male gestures such as door-opening as a form of oppression. I’m not sure that I necessarily buy that whole aspect of her argument though, it may be a bit of a stretch to say that it is a depiction of women’s incapability. But, I will say that Frye’s idea of looking at things with a macroscopic eye is important because I do believe that we all are constantly fooled by many different aspects of our society that create the façade that they are something else. For example, last week I began to realize that many of the magazine covers and advertisements make it seem that they are seeking women’s empowerment when really they are simply reinforcing the patriarchal ideals that women are inferior to men. Another problem that I have with Frye’s article is that she refuses to acknowledge that men too can and are marginalized if they differ from the mainstream stereotype of being a man. It is surely an issue that I believe needs to be acknowledged because although not all men may admit to ever feeling oppressed, there are surely scenarios where this occurs.
This is a really nice set of posts. You've all done a good job of pointing out some of the useful ideas presented in each article, and also identifying those that are less useful in each argument. You're right: the Frye article can read as extreme, and it can also seem a bit hypocritical when juxtaposed with Johnson. Further, I think your assessment that Frye (and feminists) should pick their battles is sound advice: the door opening complaint is meant as a quick example, but takes over the essay and likely obscures some of her most effective and important points.
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