The GLICC Philosophy Blog entry 3, by Rico

英語哲学対話に参加している高校生のRicoが自身の気づきをブログで発信します。

From this session, we will spend a few weeks discussing feminism and learning about the viewpoints and ideas of bell hooks, a renowned author, social activist, and feminist.


Before actually getting into the readings, we had a starter session today, where we all came up with kanji characters containing the radicals “男 (man)” and “女 (woman).”

From the table, it is manifest that there are more kanji characters with the “女” radical than the ones with “男”, although the extent may not fully reflect the actual ratio between the radicals.

 

Based on this observation, we thought about this question:

What—if anything—do these characters tell us about men and women?

 
What we discussed this week:


There is one interpretation of the radical “女” that was brought up in our discussion: the radical does not actually represent “woman” but an image of a person kneeling down. This symbol may then have been related to “woman” because of the patriarchal structure in Asian societies like China and Japan. Women kneeling down shows that they are under or below men. In this sense, the radical may not represent the true nature of women, but reveal some aspects of the male-dominated history of culture in these countries. However, it is important to note that this is only one interpretation of the radical, and there may be more that were not discussed in the session.

 

As for the other radical “男”, it can be broken up into two parts, “田 (field)” and “力 (power)”. The radical may be thus associated with men because their bodies make them generally suited to strenuous work like farming. This may also be related to why men historically were often the ones that went to war—they were generally stronger than women. Again, this is simply an interpretation we made in class from our limited knowledge about kanji characters.

 

Aside from interpreting the radicals, we also looked at the individual kanji characters and their meanings to see if they told us anything about men and women. For example, “勇 (bravery)” may be related to men because they had to be brave to go to war and to support and protect their families. In this sense, men are expected to be strong. Moreover, “結婚 (marriage)” means “to be tied to a women”, which may objectify women as the phrasing emphasizes the idea of ownership. 

 

What is important to highlight here is that these ideas about men and women are the basis of the gender roles in our societies. Because men are expected to stay strong, men have to suppress their emotions that may make them appear weak. With their feelings suppressed and unrecognized, it may be difficult for men to understand or be aware of other people’s emotions. On the other hand, because no such norm exists for women, they are relatively freer to express their feelings. In this way, women tend to be regarded as emotional. However, it is also true that historically, women have had a limited ability to speak for themselves due to the notion that they were below men. Reading the room and behaving in a way not to undermine men may have made them more emotionally aware. As mothers, women were also expected to be empathetic to take care of their children. Nevertheless, in the class, we acknowledged the fact that these ideas that form gender roles are only generalizations. There can be emotionally intelligent men and bold women. Therefore, these ideas do not provide answers to what exactly a man or a woman is. 

 

That said, gender roles (and social roles in general) are still helpful in guiding people how they should behave in a particular context. The problem arises when such ideas mislead people into believing exaggerated notions or when they become useless in the context of their use. For instance, it would be wrong to distrust a male nursery teacher just because he is a man who should not be good at taking care of children. Similarly, it is also problematic to think that a female mathematician cannot be better than a male mathematician just because she is a woman who should not be an expert in this field. 

 

Compared to times in which the gender roles were constructed, society has drastically changed; younger generations of people in Japan and many developed countries have grown up with no experience of war, for example. Indeed, some ideas we have about gender roles are out of date. Not all men have to be strong—there are also strong women who could contribute to society. But the current issue is that many people still have certain opportunities taken away from them just because they are a specific gender. For example, some companies will not hire women for certain roles that they are qualified for and capable of doing.

 

Before ending the session, we tried to develop this last idea that companies will not hire women because they are women. It is biologically true that only women can give birth, and in this sense, pregnancy can be part of many women’s lives. Can companies reject female workers just because they can become pregnant? I thought that this was a complicated question. Not all women become pregnant, and they can be as capable as their male coworkers. At the same time, if it is a very small company struggling to find more employees, the loss of a worker for maternity leave may cost a lot on the company’s success. Furthermore, some roles at companies require the workers to be present and stable all the way through. This may be difficult for yet-to-be mothers whose lives and bodies are going through a significant change… 

 

The last question was quite difficult due to its complexity of the context, the stakeholders, and other factors. I could not decide on a particular stance in this issue, which is one thing that I love about philosophical discussions. Because we are dealing with questions that cannot be answered right away to begin with, many opinions and arguments are accepted. I hope that I can think more about gender roles and their influences on society as we explore bell hooks and feminism in the future sessions.