From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: Separate but Equal?
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 02:36:48 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences

The following is a very long response to muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu
(Muffy Barkocy), who writes:

>In article <1992Dec11.162142.3874@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>
>>1.  Suppose there really are innate differences between men and women,
>>so that most men are now and always will be better suited for the
>>traditional male role and most women for the traditional female role.
>>Now suppose a society abolished the traditional female role and
>>provided that the functions formerly performed by wives and mothers
>>would be carried out by functionally rational hierarchical
>>organizations of the sort men tend to act through.
>
>Why suppose all this, though?  

I assume from what you say next that you are referring to my second
supposition and we can continue to entertain the first for purposes of
this discussion.

>Why not just say that *someone* has to perform those roles, and not
>specify whether it is a man or a woman.  If it is then the case that
>women are actually happier in these roles, they would be free to take
>them.  However, if they are *not* actually happier in the roles, they
>would not.  If the roles were then not being filled because NO ONE
>wanted them, then there would have to be some incentives given by the
>society for the roles, which would be quite interesting.

By "not specify whether it is a man or a woman" I assume you mean there
would be no general expectation that women would follow their
traditional roles, and that women's upbringing and education would have
no more tendency to fit them for childcare than for computer
programming.

It seems to me that such a situation would arise only if women generally
had no more innate predilection for childcare and other traditionally
feminine things than men, or if women were trained out of their innate
predilections.  The former possibility contradicts the supposition we
are entertaining, and the latter would be unfair unless men were
similarly trained out of their innate tendencies, and not unfair but
destructive otherwise.  (Remember that the point at issue was whether it
was possible for a society in which there were no sex roles to treat
women badly as women, and I said it could happen if the differences
between men and women are what they have traditionally been considered
to be.)

One issue this discussion raises is whether, if separate roles for the
sexes were replaced by a single role applicable to everyone, the
universally-applicable role would look more like the traditional male or
the traditional female role.  It seems to me that the universal role
would be like the traditional male role in emphasizing impersonal
functional rationality rather than close and enduring relations with
other people, but it would lack the feature (the obligation to support a
family) that gave the traditional male role its point by connecting it
to something worth caring about.  If so, the adoption of a single role
for both sexes would disadvantage women (assuming the traditional female
role is in fact more woman-friendly) without doing much for men.

The following line of thought suggests that the universally-applicable
role would be as I have described it:

If childcare and the other functional components of the traditional
female role are to be treated as discrete things that anyone can either
undertake or leave alone in the same way that anyone can either
undertake computer programming or leave it alone, there has to be some
way to make sure that these functions get carried out reliably and well.

You and I agree, I think, that whatever innate inclinations people may
have with respect to childcare are not sufficiently strong, definite and
uniform to ensure by themselves that children will be well cared for. 
Specific social arrangements are also necessary.  You in effect suggest
that the arrangements should be the same as for computer programming --
a combination of the pleasure that particular individuals take in
carrying out the function and external incentives as needed.

Such arrangements -- which aim to achieve an overall social end by
providing appropriate incentives to a large number of individuals, each
of whom is pursuing the ends he has independently chosen -- require some
sort of coordinating mechanism to make sure that the incentives are
sufficient to bring about the desired social end.  In the absence of
socially-recognized roles that people are born into, the obvious
mechanisms are the market and the state.

The market and the state, though, both tend to act through impersonal
and functionally rational organizations.  When it is the market or the
state that do something, what generally happens is that a commercial
enterprise or a government bureaucracy hires employees to do it.  (There
are good reason why that is what happens, but 120 lines or so is
probably enough for one posting.)  So if separate sex roles were
abolished it seems that the single role that would exist would be the
role of functioning efficiently within such organizations.

>>2.  Suppose most men and most women would be happiest in a society
>>that had appropriately-defined sex roles, but some would not.
>
>I see a lot of men on here saying they are unhappy and a lot of women on
>here saying they are unhappy.  While what you suggest is a possibility,
>it does not seem to be the case in what I have seen of our society.

People are always unhappy, and sometimes they blame their unhappiness on
the right things and sometimes they don't.  A lot of people are unhappy
because they feel they can't find someone of the opposite sex whom they
feel they can trust and rely on.  Others are unhappy because they feel
they've been cheated on, lied to or betrayed.  Others are unhappy
because their parents were unhappy or didn't care about them.  Others
are resentful because they think men have it tough and women have it
easy, or the reverse.

To me, it's not far-fetched to think that all these problems could be
mitigated if there were a general understanding of what men should do
and what women should do in their dealings with each other and with
their children, and if that understanding were of a nature that promoted
stable connections between the sexes.  I don't think "I pursue what I
find I happen to like and you pursue what you find you happen to like,
and if our wants coincide for a while it's nice" will do the trick,
though.  The only thing I can think of that might work is
generally-accepted sex roles.  They don't solve all problems, but it
seems to me they can prevent more than they cause.
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Rem tene; verba sequentur."  (Cato)