Short Post 2/7

2/7/11

Oppression
I was following Frye’s argument fine through most of this piece until I got to the third page where she starts talking about how men hold doors open for women as a symbol of oppression. She says “[m]en will impose themselves awkwardly and jostle everyone in order to get to the door first.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen. And if so, that is definitely a rare occurrence, not the norm. Of all the men I know, young and old, I don’t think many of them would make such an awkward situation just to open the door first. Usually, men open the door for women in a very nice way because it is considered polite. I understand that she is saying men do this because it used to be understood that women were incapable of doing things for themselves, but now I think this tradition is out of respect for women. I think of it more as men taking care of women because they can, not because women need the men to take care of them.
Next she complains that men help with trivial things like holding doors open, but they don’t help with “typing a report at 4:00a.m.” Why would a woman need a man’s help doing her own work? That doesn’t make sense. Then she says, “there is nothing but advice that women should stay indoors after dark, be chaperoned by a man, or when it comes down to it, ‘lie back and enjoy it.’” I know this was written in 1983, but I’ve never heard of women being told to do these things in the last 60 or 70 years (that’s just my approximation). Frye is over-analyzing this whole issue. She is taking something small and making it into a huge implication of male oppression of women as if they are servants or insignificant beings.

Gokova’s short writing was very inspiring, especially because it was written by a man. I agree with all of his ideals and I think his organization sounds really successful. I’m actually surprised that I never heard of anything like this before. Perhaps if there was more awareness in the United States that groups like this exist, men here would we more observant of gender issues just by knowing that they exist and people are working to change them.