From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Separate but Equal?
Date: 7 Jan 93 17:46:01
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
	<1992Dec11.162142.3874@panix.com>
	<MUFFY.92Dec16103405@remarque.berkeley.edu>
	<1992Dec18.023648.11887@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: jk@panix.com's message of Fri, 18 Dec 1992 02:36:48 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.023648.11887@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>(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.

Actually, no, I mean *all* of your suppositions.  In fact, in my next
paragraph, I thought I made that clear:

>>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.

Right.

Basically, my position is this:

1. We do not know if there are innate differences between men and women
   or not.
2. Given that, we do not actually know which roles they would be
   innately better at filling.
3. Besides that, there is sufficient individual variation that not all
   men or all women would be good at the same roles.
4. However, it is true that certain roles must be fulfilled for our
   society to function in the way we wish it to function.  (Children are
   cared for, etc.)
5. Therefore, it seems to make more sense to simply say that the roles
   must be filled than to say that they must be filled by a person of a
   particular sex, who may or may not be inherently (or otherwise)
   suited for the role.

>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,

Ah, but I am *not* entertaining that supposition.  Given that, I'd
appreciate it if you'd address my points without that supposition.

>One issue this discussion raises is whether, if separate roles for the
>sexes were replaced by a single role applicable to everyone,

This is not at all what I am suggesting.  I believe that there are
*many* roles possible.  In fact, most "roles" that exist now are made up
of many other roles.  For example, the role of "mother" might include
cooking, child care, scheduling, laundry, education, shopping, etc.  My
idea is to simply say, for example, *someone* has to cook (or otherwise
provide food), and leave it to the people involved to decide who does
that.  There would be a universal *set* of roles, but no universal role. 

>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. 

Yes.

>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.

Yes.

>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.

Well, you're completely ignoring social pressure here.  Currently (to
way oversimplify it), there is social pressure on women to be "good
mothers/caregivers" and on men to be "good providers."  If society
changed so that the pressure was on both parents to be "good parents,"
where the role of "parent" encompassed both the caregiving and providing
functions, and those functions were divided up as desired, then we would
have a similar situation to what we have now.

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy                      | ~Never had a lot of faith in human beings/
muffy@mica.berkeley.edu            |  but sometimes we manage to shine/like a
"amorous inclinations"? Aha! I'm   |  light on a hill beaming out to space/from
not "not straight," I'm *inclined*.|  somewhere hard to find~ - Bruce Cockburn
Newsgroups: alt.feminism