[PEN-L:11380] Re: Male Chauvanist Mathematics

["James Michael Craven" <CRAVJM@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In a message dated 97-07-21 15:10:46 EDT, Wojtek writes:

>However, Stephen Jay Gould has another explanation: one-dimensional models
>are much more useful in ranking people into classes and hierarchies than
>multi-dimensional ones.  If A scores higher on a single measure of
>intelligence, efficiency or what not than B, there is no question that A
>ranks above B.  If, on the other hand, A scores higher than B on measure p,
>but lower than B on measure q, then ranking becomes blurred, if at all
>possible.
>
>Is this a typical "male thing" to do, as Maggie C. & some feminists suggest?
>While it is a well known fact that males are more likely than females to
>form hierarchical relations with others, that seems to be an effect of
>social interaction rather than testosterone.
I think "maleness" and "femaleness" are both ALMOST completely socially
determined.  While hormones may drive us all to a certain extent, I think our
behavior is taught us from the cradle and our tendencies to rank are learned
skills.  Since we are separated by gender right from the beginning, I think
women and men learn different ways to relate to their own gender and the
opposite gender (using polarizing language here for the moment).

> When females enter the
>positions of power previously reserved for men only, their behaviour tends
>to resemble that of their male colleagues.
AAAAhhhhhh, one of my favorite questions.  Why do women emulate male behavior
when they achieve powerful positions?  Simply because the male form of
leadership is the one we all learn--which is why I think testosterone and
estrogen have less to do with all these things than learned skills.  Several
branches of the social sciences have found that leaders promote others who
are mirrors of themselves.  It only makes sense that in a world where most
leaders are men, that those men promote those few women who display facility
with male interaction techniques.  Further, I think that exercise of power
may lead to abuse regardless of the gender, race, or sexual preference of the
power wielder.  Further still, since there are few women in leadership
positions, very few of us have a range of experience with women leaders.  For
example, most people by middle age have worked for a range of male
bosses--and can point to some they could stand and some they couldn't.  Women
bosses are so rare, the tendency is to point to their ability or disability
in their position as a direct result of gender.  If there were more women in
powerful positons, there would probably be less of a tendency to blame/credit
all their behavior on their sex.  Finally, as a society, it is o.k. for men
to be agressive but agressive women receive all kinds of negative
descriptions--women leaders are no exception.

maggie coleman mscoleman@xxxxxxx

Response (Jim C)

Maybe, just maybe, this discussion needs to be widened and deepened.
Plato once noted that "those who seek power are invariably the least
fit to wield it." No doubt the positions of power under capitalism--
and other systems--are largely dominated by males. No doubt those
males prefer others from the same gender with similar proclivities and
world views around them. No doubt those in power view women as
inherently ill-equipped to assume/exercise power. But it goes further
than that.

Capitalism as a system and those who hold/exercise various forms of
power, demand, for their continual expanded reproduction, hierarchies,
depreciation/degradation of the real producers, commodification of
every aspect of life and very narrow/restricted pathways and criteria
for accession to effective power of the few over the many. Certain
core imperatives of "success" and acquisition of power are present
and well-understood. For example in academia, "success" and
promotions are based on publish-or-perish ("Acceptable" topics in
"acceptable" media funded by "acceptable" sources) being on the
"right" committees, being close to the real "powers-that-be" etc.
(competence and commitment in teaching is way down on the list of
criteria for "success"). Promotions mean more exposure leading to
more name recognition leading to more preferred access to preferred
grants etc leading to more promotions... In the news media, preferred
access (maintained by not asking nasty questions or dealing with
nasty topics) leads to "scoops" which lead to increased exposure
which leads to greater name recognition which leads to even more
preferred access leading to even bigger "scoops"...

The imperatives of "success" and "survival" are well understood by
those who choose to play the game and remain "respectable"--male or
female. This is why the few females who occupy positions of power in
academia, media, politics etc are typically every bit as predatory,
vicious, cunning, narcissistic, abusive, machiavellian, duplicitious,
arrogant and megalomanical as their male "colleagues"). Real "women's
liberation" can never mean, or be attained through, having an equal
opportunity to become an oppressor.

On the other hand, looking at the totality, there are in addition to
females being exploited by males, there are females being exploited
by other females and many many males being also viciously exploited
by the few males in dominant positions--aided and abbetted by the few
females who are wannabes or even with some power of their own. Among
those males viciously exploited (and of course noting that they may
well be practicing some forms of exploitation of the females in their
lives) are males of all colors, religions, ethnicity, sexual
preference etc.

Of course within any social class or strata typically women are far
more oppressed than the males. But when we compare for example, the
forms and levels of oppression typically faced by a white, female,
tenured academic at a leading university with the forms and levels of
oppression faced by a typical American Indian male on a Reservation
or a typical Chicano migrant farm worker or a typical ghettoized
African--American male or a typical White sharecropper, the
differences in forms and levels of oppression are like night and day.
That is why this crude (some of it petit-bourgeois in my
opinion) feminism which sees oppression only in gender terms, which
speaks of "male" logic versus "female" logic, or, which speaks of
"typical" female characteristics (e.g. intuition, nurturing,
cooperation) versus "typical" male characteristics (competition,
mathematical formalism etc) is simply not only off the mark, but also
highly destructive and diversionary from the real forms,
levels sources, causes, mechanisms and consequences of oppression.

                                  Jim Craven

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