fElisabeth has 14 post(s)

I found Frederici’s “The Caliban and the Witch” fascinating for not only debunking the standard Marxist understanding of the transition to capitalism, but also for explaining the impact the elite and primitive accumulation on women and society as a whole. Frederici’s analysis explains that subjugating women was not simply a byproduct or collateral damage of a progression towards capitalism – but a necessity. While Marx made it clear that moving towards capitalism would, in a way, dehumanize the individual by putting focus and priority on work, he neglects to look at the specific victims of this and the impact that would have on society as a whole. Frederici makes it clear that certain demographics (women and minorities) suffered in worse conditions and were taken advantage of more than the average member of the proletariat.  Frederici’s claim is that women were considered the Caliban (from Shakespeare’s The Tempest) and witches.

In the Middle Ages, women were able to be somewhat self-sufficient in terms of wages and working conditions. But the dominant classes in society tried to maintain their dominance by subjugating women and essentially pushing them out of the labor market (Frederici sites witch-hunts as an almost manipulative move by the dominating powers to remove women from the work force or make them less desirable workers). While reading this, I found it shocking to think that hierarchal forces in society could create a conspiracy-like narrative that would force women to remain unpaid laborers in the home. It is devastating to see how removal of communal property and land impacted people’s ability to access work and food – ultimately forcing the working class to depend on the elite for working wages and food.

I have always wondered why it was so accepted that women should be housewives and assumed it was a product of motherhood. Frederici shows that witch-hunts, unfair imprisonment, social rejection for not having children or speaking out against sexual violence, the progression of the slave trade and more – were facilitated so that the elite could retain power. I understand why Frederici is against globalism and how skewed the potential benefits of a capitalist economic system really are. Those who have the means to accumulate property and assets can progress at the expense of the individuals beneath them.

Kessler’s “The Medical Construction of Gender” explores the way physicians handle cases of intersexuality with infants. Intersexuality is when an infant doesn’t have an identifiable gender (i.e. the genitals of the newborn don’t fit the defined characteristics of a boy or girl). Kessler interviewed six medical experts – a clinical geneticist, three endocrinologists, one psychoendrocrinologist and one urologist. Research indicates that hermaphrodites are rare – it is more common that the infant has ovaries or testes but the genitals are ambiguous. Attitudes towards intersex are influenced by advancement in surgery, modern feminism, and new attention focused on the psychology of a “gendered identity”. Because gendered identity is so important, it is thought that assigning a gender to an infant with ambiguous genitals must be done as fast as possible so the child can properly grow into a male or female gender.

In 1955, John Money, J.G. Hampson and J.L Hampson (later developed in 1972 by Money and Anke A. Ernhardt) argued that gender identity is changeable in the first few years of development (from 18 months to a few years old) – this way the proper genitals, information and hormones can be administered to the child and it wouldn’t retain the potential trauma of undergoing surgery.

Some physicians argue that it is necessary to assign a gender early because parents need to know how to deal with their child (assuming it is difficult to parent a child without an assigned gender). If gender is not properly announced, it can be difficult for the parents to understand how to proceed (i.e. how to name and begin to raise their child as a boy or a girl). If physicians aren’t careful about how they speak to the parents and the patients, they can misconstrue the perception of gender. This can result in physicians lying to patients due to their bias about what they think would be good or bad for the parents or patient. Kessler concludes that it is important to understand the concept of what is natural – sometimes surgery is performed in an attempt to return the body to what it is supposed to be (i.e. a gendered male or female). It is argued that these physicians perpetuate male or female gendered identities, creating anxiety for the patient and parents involved rather than a proper understanding of the child’s condition.

In “Skeletons in the Closet,” Schiebinger describes the history of the comparative study of the male and female anatomy through the late 17^th and 18^th century. Schiebinger explains that the initial understanding of male and female anatomies was not necessarily sexualized – although women were underrepresented when compared to men. The female anatomy was neither depicted nor studied to the extent of the male anatomy. It wasn’t until the late 1700s that social and political pressure to equalize men and women pushed anatomists to further analyze the female anatomy in an attempt to subjugate women to men. Many representations of women (incorrectly) depicted the female form with a smaller skull and a larger pelvis when compared to men. Schienbinger discusses the difference in Soemmerring and d’Arconville’s depiction of women – ironically, Soemmerring’s accurate illustration of the female anatomy were attacked as incorrect and wrongly idealized while d’Arconville’s incorrectly manipulated depiction were accepted. D’Arconville’s images of women were accepted because they were in line with the cultural understanding of women at the time. The smaller brain and larger pelvis was in accordance with society’s conception that women were inferior to men intellectually and were best confined to the home. Their large pelvis validated the notion that a woman’s purpose was for child bearing and maintaining the home.

Schienbinger’s essay acts to analyze the motivation behind the critical approach to the way women’s body was examined (or lacking proper examination) throughout the late 17^th and 18^th century. Was there a real desire to properly understand women on a scientific level, or were the dominant members of society looking for a “scientific” excuse to keep women out of power? Developing a scientific reasoning for a woman’s lack of intellectual capabilities could act as a viable justification to keep women confined to the home and removed from political conversations and government.

The desire to justify the male bias of female inferiority existed before the strive to further examine the female anatomy. Schienbinger notes that, even the earliest philosophers such as Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen depicted the nature of women in a way that justified their inferior social status. The smaller skull size gave further justification to the notion that women were somehow incapable of the intellectual aptitude of men – which enabled men’s sense of moral authority over women.  Although these observations were inaccurate, they were so widely accepted (based on a gendered, non-scientific bias) that the presumed differences between men and women enabled thinking that women evolved at a lower stage then men (even though there is no scientific evidence for this). The discrepancy in the cranium and pelvis were enough to suggest women did not mature or develop the way the white male did, granting women the classification as “primitive” beings.

The bias to divide human beings by race and sex extended through the 19^th century to black individuals as well. The white male was used as the standard for excellence, and blacks were largely ignored and lacked the necessary voice to contest their lack of recognition in science and medicine. Because of this, men were given the social and scientific justification to dominate society while blacks and women were left inferior and lower social standing. Unfortunately, this bias has had a negative impact of the social standing of women and minorities that has effected them well into the 20^th century.

Schiebinger, L. (1986). Skeletons in the Closet. 42-82.

Angela Davis explores the women’s rights movement in chapter 3 of Women, Race & Class, “Class and Race in the Early Women’s Rights Campaign”. I found the way Davis connected white women and women of color under the oppression of male supremacy while exposing the flaws in the cohesion of the women’s rights movement to be very insightful and offer a deeper perspective on the standard understanding of the first women’s rights movement. Davis begins discussing the flaws with the “radical men” at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London as the initial spark that led to the famous convention at Seneca Falls. A convention that was supposed to represent freedom of oppression from the dominant male hegemony ironically excluded women from participation. Women began working towards equality long before the Anti-Slavery Convention and Seneca Falls. There was a significant class division amongst women – in the late 1700s/early 1800s, women were the majority workers in textile mills yet still legally the property of their husbands or fathers (the same way slaves were the legal property of their owners). These working women were not entitled to their wages, still had to defer rights to men and weren’t included in the social movement of elite women. The culmination of events brought attention to the fact women and African Americans were suppressed and suffered in similar ways at the hands of the white men controlling and limiting their rights. Women, slaves and working class individuals joining forces to fight oppression was a hugely powerful component to the success of the women’s right movement and progression towards equality. Although it was difficult for some elite women to relate to lower class individuals (and especially slaves) their joined suffering created power in numbers that allowed for a more active push towards equal rights, the right to vote, education, power over wages, worker’s rights and so much more.

I think this is something that we still see today, especially with the modern political climate. It’s almost as if some women don’t see how they are oppressed in society. It is difficult to connect to and empower other oppressed women if you are unable to see the oppression that you exist under. I think about women who support Trump and don’t understand how some of the things he has said or some of his appointees could potentially pose a threat to women’s rights and the rights of minorities (including LGBT individuals). It makes me think of the elite women who initially saw themselves as separate from working class women. I wonder if these women don’t want to relate to feminists the same way women of the gilded cage didn’t want to relate to textile workers. History has shown that there is power in numbers and when minorities and oppresses demographics join forces, change is more effective.