Do I ever think about anything else?

[judecorp]

So I was wondering this morning about the dominant culture, the dominant paradigm, The Man, what have you. I was in my Clinical Practice With Adolescents class and we were watching some educational program (which was actually rather good) called "Tough Guise," which was basically about how we socialize boys and men to associate masculinity with violence and aggression. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of "what you can do about it" information, which made it a rather depressing watch.

I don't usually like things like this. I tend to cringe away from anything that tries to offer "ways that males and females are different" because it makes me nervous... nervous that someone will be 'legitimizing' lack of equality. But since this one focused entirely on socialization, well, that's different. Of /course/ males and females are socialized differently in our society. That's one of the things I have a problem with.

So I got to thinking about the dominant paradigm. It occurred to me that the dominant paradigm is so rarely challenged because it is, for all intents and purposes, covert or invisible when issues that buck the dominant paradigm come up.

When one thinks of "race issues," one thinks of African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latinos/Latinas, Chicanos/Chicanas, etc. When one thinks of "gender issues," one usually thinks of wimmin's issues (and maybe transgender and intersex issues). And when one thinks of "sexual orientation issues," one thinks of GLBTIQQT-S and whatever other initials one can think of at the time. WHERE IS THE DOMINANT PARADIGM IN ANY OF THIS? We think of these "issues" and the dominant paradigm can continue to exist unexamined and unchanged because it doesn't directly come up.

Race issues include Caucasians. Gender issues include men. Sexual orientation issues include heterosexuality. But these things are not usually thought of when we think of "issues."

This is a serious problem, I think, and a major oversight. I will think more on this after I have Chipotle with Coworker Velma. I am so hungry that my lack of blood sugar is giving me major headaches and shakes. Whee!

Comments

[noog.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to argue semantics. The issue is not how I structured a sentence. It's about more than that.

[saldemonium.livejournal.com]

No, it's not about how you structured a sentence. It's about what you said, which could be taken in the light that I pointed out. When one is striving for change, what they say, is often far more important then what they mean. After all, people hear/see what you say, they can't read your mind, to see what you really mean.

The issue, seems to have become, can women be sexist. Yes, they can be. Can blacks be racist. Yes, they can be. If I sat here, and said, I hate the Japanese, because they have slanted eyes, that would make me a racist, regardless of any institutional power I may or may not hold against the Japanese. Really, to say that someone can not be racist, or sexist, because they lack power? Anyone can be racist, or sexist, be virtue of their viewpoints.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

If I sat here, and said, I hate the Japanese, because they have slanted eyes, that would make me a racist, regardless of any institutional power I may or may not hold against the Japanese. Really, to say that someone can not be racist, or sexist, because they lack power? Anyone can be racist, or sexist, be virtue of their viewpoints.

It depends on how you define the terms "racism" and/or "sexism." I would argue that the non-dominant races cannot be racist, and the non-dominant sex cannot be sexist.

But of course, I was already lambasted by thespian for this because she doesn't agree with it, and that's fine. I can be lambasted by other people, too. That doesn't make me believe it.

And because a /dictionary/ of all things says it's so... gah. Who writes the damned dictionary?

This (http://www.floridacdc.org/roundtable/docs/undoing.htm) has a neat little thinger, in the beginning, about the definition of racism. Racism = Race Prejudice + POWER. Anything else is just plain prejudice. (Which is /wrong/, and /absolutely wrong/. Of course.)

[gmalivuk.livejournal.com]

And because a /dictionary/ of all things says it's so... gah. Who writes the damned dictionary?

In practice, the people who actually put together earlier dictionaries were mostly men. However, the point of any good dictionary is to reflect the *actual* prevailing usage of a word. If your definition of sexism is different from that prevailing usage, then you have to make it understood that you're using it differently. The first usage of the word "sexism" in a printed English work (or at least the earliest quote that the OED has) is "Sexism is judging people by their sex where sex doesn't matter." This says nothing about whether the person doing the judging has power over the person being judged.

However, certain words have always had different meanings among certain groups. According to noog, in an argument she and I had about this same subject quite some time ago, feminist academia interprets the word "sexism" with the added bit about being practiced by a group with the institutional power to opress the other gender. As I have never personally taken a feminist studies course, and she's majoring in that (or something along those lines), I'll take her word for it.

On the other hand, since not everyone here is familiar with the usage of the word "sexism" among feminist academics, I think it would help if people simply started out by stating the definitions they're using. That way, everyone would have realized awhile ago that the only thing that's being argued about is the definition of a word, and not an actual state of affairs in the world.

[gmalivuk.livejournal.com]

I have since finished reading this argument, and noticed that, at the very end, someone on each side finally *did* give the definitions of 'sexism' that were being used, so there's probably no need for you to reply to my above comment.

[yarnaddict.livejournal.com]

Up above, you wrote: You twist my words around when you say that I blame men for being abused.

So, I think it is about the way you worded a sentence, because you worded your sentence such that it can easily be read to imply that you believe men who are abused are somehow being punished for failing to live up to societal expectations in a society they themselves (they being 'men' in general) created and perpetuate.

[noog.livejournal.com]

Really, this is ridiculous. Arguing about the structure of a sentence does nothing constructive; it simply detracts from the main argument. I clarified my meaning; what more do you want?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

what more do you want?

You, me, Zuzu (http://www.livejournal.com/users/zuzubailey76), and Library Mom (http://www.livejournal.com/users/redthread)'s kitchen table.

[noog.livejournal.com]

You That can be done...