From The Archive: Feminine Mystique

From The Archive is a special Friday feature. It features posts from my earlier (now-deleted) blog: Stuff & Nonsense and a few items from previous versions of A Tangled Rope that I feel deserve reprinting here, mainly as a way of archiving them. The dates are only approximate, I’m afraid, and there is a possibility that some links may no longer work (although, I will try to remember to test the links before republishing the piece).

Feminine Mystique - 04/04/05

New States(wo)man cover story.

This bit:

Whenever there is any announcement concerning the family, a woman is fielded; it would be unthinkable to have a minister for women who was actually a man. This is rooted in the idea that matters of policy concerning women can be addressed only by people who have a born understanding of what it is to be a woman. But what issues are actually specific to women?

Seems to be at odds with this bit:

If Westminster is overwhelmingly male, that is a problem, because it is bald under-representation, and nothing to do with men caterwauling at one another.

If there is nothing unique or 'special' about a women's point of view - and to me it seems 'sexist' to say that there is - then why is 'representation' necessary?

As a househusband of around twenty-years standing, it never occurred to me to worry about the under-representation of fathers at the playgroups and nurseries I took our children to, neither did I worry that the lack of males made the places 'over-feminine.'

If - as the sensible of us know - there are no really important differences between the sexes apart from the difference itself, then why does the over-preponderance of one in one particular place matter?

If a male MP - for example - dismisses something as 'only a women's matter' then that is because he is stupid, not because he is male (just because the two are, so often, linked doesn't make stupidity an exclusively male trait either). As we have seen women MPs are no better or worse than males.

All of which means that this comparable numbers between the sexes shibboleth is - like having the 'correct racial mix' in places of employment, etc - is all about perception - how it looks to outsiders - rather than of intrinsic worth.

True equality between the sexes, races, shoe-sizes, hair-colours and each and every one of the real and perceived differences between people will only come about when such juggling of numbers to achieve some - entirely aesthetic - 'balance' is seen for the tokenistic nonsense it is.