This week we invited our friend Sascha Cohen, who has a degree in gender studies and is getting her PhD in American History, to come into the hatch and discuss feminism. What is feminism? How have views about it changed? Find out the answers to all this and much more at earwolf.com
Dear David:
A friendly reminder that more women die in childbirth than men in wars. This has always been true and is even true today, thus the oft repeated argument that gender inequity is tempered by men doing the risky jobs is false. All over the world and throughout history, women risk their lives basically everytime they have sex. Respect that.
Also, women artists have always existed, despite severe restrictions on their liberty. Art expressed in textiles and pottery is still art. It has never been about a lack of creativity, but a lack of recognition. Lastly, the “power” of being sexually attractive to men doesn’t feel like power at all to most women. If you can imagine bigger, stronger people wanting to have sex with you everywhere you go, you will start to see the fallacy of this line of thought.
Ah, Ellen has already made the main points I wanted to make. Thank you, Ellen!
Yes, sex is a risky business for women. Even if, in the past, women didn’t die, they could expect a baby ever year or two for all of their reproductive lives. Between pregnancy, nursing and child-care, not to mention in most cases running households and doing things to earn money (the notion that women only began working for money in the 20th century is completely false) well, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Don’t believe me? I have two active kids under 6 who you can borrow for a day… They’d *love* to help you with the podcast.
I think the 21st century is going to see an explosion of women’s creativity and self-expression because for the first time in history we (err, those of us who are lucky enough to live in developed countries, anyway) have access to birth control, are highly educated and society has begun producing a safety net and a *context* for women who are smart and creative. For some really interesting and funny perspectives on feminism, go read the new book from Caitlin Moran called “How to Be a Woman”. Funny, funny and SMART!
Love the podcast, hate the idea that David is sitting in the hatch thinking women aren’t capable of being as creative as men…
I wrote a comment last night, but I think I deleted it (hopefully, I did and not doing 2 comments). I guess I just wanted to say 2 things, really.
1. Historically jewelry is the form in which women could personally carry wealth. Legally, women couldn’t hold a bank account without a male signature until quite recently and women often couldn’t legally earn or inherit money (for a variety of reasons), so it makes sense that jewelry is a traditional way for women to display wealth or importance (men have other equally frivolous ways to do this). Contemporary, educated women like Sascha have other ways to do this now, too. Liking shiny objects isn’t in women’s physical make up, that’s nuts 🙂
2. I don’t know if David was being a devil’s advocate, or stating his own opinions (either way, I’m not personally fussed what he thinks of women, but most of what he asked I was raising at least one eyebrow like, “what?”), but I think that was the premise and I just don’t really enjoy listening to devil’s advocate arguments about feminism for this reason: discussions about feminism almost always boil down to a question of whether women haven’t historically achieved as much as men because they are held back by society, or they are actually inferior to men. It’s a defensive position for women. The standards of achievement are male (not, say, historically who’s held the most hands of sick children in the middle of the night, or who made the comfy-iest quilt by hand, etc.) since we don’t value what women have traditionally done and still don’t. Just ask someone what a housewife/homemaker does and watch them roll their eyes. It’s personal to me in a way that it’s not personal to men, since we tend to assume men as fully human and not wannabees, trying to be as strong and powerful as some other group. So when men play the devil’s advocate, I always feel like they take advantage of that distance between themselves and the argument to be cool while I have to stop myself from getting a bit red in the face. I would never play devil’s advocate about a racial issue or gay rights issue because I’m white and straight, so even when I feel very indignant on behalf of some other group, I get that it doesn’t have the power over me that it has over them, and it would not be cool to pose hypothetical questions to any minority about being inferior, fairly stereotyped or other stuff that I have more social (emotional?) protection from.
I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to say to devil’s advocates (who in my experience have always been male and caucasian, but maybe that’s just a coincidence and I’ve got it all wrong). However, I couldn’t tell, and maybe these opinions are his opinions, in which case, fair enough, and we’ll agree to disagree sort of thing. I’d always rather hear people contributing their real questions rather than hypotheticals.
If you ever re-discuss feminism, please invite Kathleen Hanna. That would be fun! Sascha was great, but I’d love to hear a tough lady in the room. I’m gonna go find some Le Tigre… love to everyone in the hatch. xx
I love David, and he is always sincere and misunderstood.
Feminism is a great topic that usually ignites a visceral reaction.
Again, I love David.
And Tig.
And Kyle.