Historical Influence

While Beauvoir only mentions it in passing during the excerpt of her text that is in the Lemert reading, I think it is key to highlight the historical-religious influence of the image of 'woman' and how paramount it really is. For instance, the Genesis story of Adam and Eve is not in itself explicitly discriminatory, but rather the implications and interpretations. The woman is crafted from the rib of the man – a fragment of the whole; designed as a companion. Eve, tempting the otherwise innocent Adam with the apple, is also essentially portrayed as guilty of colluding with the devil himself and causing man's fall from holiness. While the contribution to the perceived identity of woman is not significantly major, its influence is still noteworthy and in part responsible. (Along the same vein, academics also posit that the Jews were persecuted in part because of their killing of the Christ figure, but to further explore this topic would be tangential.) In effect, the mythos of popular or dominant conceptions has an effect on the perception of woman as 'other' that Beauvoir only briefly highlights in the excerpt.

Are there any other stories from other religions (though Christianity/Catholicism is most likely predominant in Western society) that could influence the image of woman in such a way?

This may not be a religious influence on the image of women in society, but I do know historically the culture in China (dating back as late as the 1500's) also promoted women as being an 'other' to men. The Chinese folk stories from the early modern period (for example writers such as P'u Sung-Ling: a short story writer in 17th century China) described women's jobs to be predominantly focused in raising successful heirs/sons in the family. The focus on male prosperity--and the exclusion of female prosperity--from the folk stories paints a picture of Chinese values in that time period. I think religion plays a great deal in influencing gendered imagery, however I wanted to also add that culture also plays a large role in influencing a societies perception on the matter!

• also I could not recall a different religious story that specifically segregated men and women*

I agree that culture plays an important role in segregation of men and women, especially Asian countries such as China. However, I think overall there is a tendency in any culture to emphasize women's role as reproduction of next generation, so I don't think that's merely a problem for Eastern cultures. I think the gender roles have huge impact in "othering" female, cause women are usually been portrayed as "weak" "soft" "need-saving" or even "not as worthy as male". These particular gender roles put women in the "others" position.

I think it is interesting how in the above discussion you both used the word "historical". While it is important to acknowledge and understand the historical-religious influences on the images of women, I think we also need to understand that Beauvoir is suggesting that the woman's identity and perpetual subordination is void of any historical consequences.

With historical events like the Adam and Eve temptation scenario, something happened. Beauvoir makes a few comparisons--first about the Jewish Diaspora, then about proletarian minorities, then about women. It is with this last comparison where she explains how women are subordinated not because of some event, but because of their physiological structure. If I understand the Lemert passage correctly, women's subordination did not happen as a consequence but it's always been there as such. It has always been there and it will always be there.

I find this point troubling to grasp. How can Women's subordination be just so? Beauvoir seems to touch on points of biological determinism/social darwinism to put them in the Other position.

I agree Barbara, that Beauvoir brings up the story of Adam and Eve as part of her explanation why women are not subordinated due to some specific event, rather than offering religious tales as historical justification for women's situation. However, although Beauvoir does seem to touch on points of biological determinism/social Darwinism I interpreted this (perhaps incorrectly) as her critically evaluating arguments that dominate in society in attempts to justify women's subordination. I feel that Beauvoir was touching on these arguments to show the reader that such explanations are inadequate, that a woman's subordination is not intrinsically linked to her biological state, although this is what we may have been led to believe. Ultimately what I derived from Beauvoir's piece was that women must contest their subordination, that they must align themselves with each other and posit themselves as subjects, effectively turning men into the "other".

I agree with the points that both of you have made. From my interpretation of of Beauvoir, she consistently stresses the need to realize that no event created this subordination. She does state "If woman discovers herself as inessential and never turns into the essential, it is because she does not bring about the transformation herself." (Page 270). Through this quote, I believe Beauvoir is emphasizing that women must take on the problem of subordination and change it themselves. Like Madeleine stated, women need to work together to overcome this. I do not think Beauvoir is trying to say that nothing will ever change, but that we should look at these historical cases for motivation to change and to learn from them.

I agree with your point Vanessa because I think Beauvoir is trying to show that women cannot change how they are labelled as the "Other" if they do not actively seek to redefine and reconstruct this definition themselves. In this sense, it must be women to change how women are perceived and not men or else there will be little improvements. Furthermore, women in contemporary times are clearly more assertive and vocal about their rights and opinions than previous generations but more is still needed to reach true equality between the sexes. Women need to show that they are "humans" first and "females" second; everyone is human at the end of the day and thus, no one should not be judged or discriminated on the basis of biological differences. This idea is illustrated with the Women's March on Washington 2017 wherein women's rights were framed as human rights.

Jaden, you raised a very good question, thank you. When we think of western society, we automatically think that we are in so many ways equal and well adapted to new ideas because in western societies, we are more leaning towards becoming modern and accepting change rather than declining it. I am sure that there are other stories from other religions such as Christianity/Catholicism but these stories are becoming historical and something that is no longer perceived in our society. But one thing that I wanted to bring up was to talk about how women are perceived in other religions, such as the Islamic religion. In Islam, from history until today, women are still seen as the "other" and are viewed very differently with men. From the beginning of Islam, women were identified as something that a man can own for their pleasure. I believe that the role of women is not improving in the religion of Islam as the way it is in our western society. Although this idea of women being the "other" still exists in our contemporary society, I believe that it is declining and much faster than women in the Middle East.

I agree Ashti, the idea of women being considered as 'other' is certainly declining in contemporary times. In my opinion, western culture is taking the right steps to eventually reaching a gender equal society, compared to other cultures of course. I found it very interesting during Kerry's lecture when she noted the majority of the population are females. It made me wonder how its possible to have the quantitatively dominated gender also be the recessed gender. I internally compared this notion to our capitalist society because the majority of workers in the economy are categorized proletariat but also considered 'others' to the powerful Bourgeoisie. Perhaps what Madeleine discussed is the only way to see societal equality, rebellion from the workers to make capitalist's 'others' and also from women to make men considered the 'other.'

In terms of historical influence on gender inequality, I believe, Western industrialization may have partially impacted on constructing such a culture of female subordination and male superiority. Transformation into capitalistic society brought out exclusive number of men and gave them opportunity to earn money that further help taking higher position in capitalism. On the other hand, female counterparts were perceived to be supporter of male and required to stay home cooking, cleaning and raising children, which their economic power was completely removed in the first place. The fundamental structure of capitalism that privileged dominantly male over female could have given more strength to the notion of women as the other. Another supporting evidence would be that the Indigenous society, before westernized, exhibited equality of power between different genders (in some tribes, women are more powerful than men). Indigenous women got subordinated and lost their authority like women in western industrialized world, according to the article I studied in other sociology class.

I think that in contemporary society, although I do agree with everyone about the fact that women being the ‘other’ is declining I also think that men still monopolise most important posts like in the economic sphere and politics. Also, education may have an important factor to why women are still represented as the ‘other’ in relation to men because we learn that in the past all history has been made by men and this is taught to repeatedly to younger generations. Therefore, although women have started to take participation in the work force etc., it is ingrained in our minds that we still live in a world that belongs to men and they will always be one step ahead.

Hi Aram, what you mentioned about women's role in the process of industrialization make me recall another aspect of female work in industries. In the third world or global south, the globalization brings many factories to those states. Especially garment industries, and women became the dominant power in this industry because they are considered as patient, and gentle on handcraft. So there is a feminization in modern industries. However, I still agree on Beauvoir's argument that women are the "other" because women under globalization still earned less than man, the value of their labor forces got treat differently.

Another example of Western industrialization and gender inequality that is apparent in the workforce is the type of jobs. Women are given lower level positions, with limited mobility and lower pay, illustrating the fact that they are treated as an ‘other’. The types of jobs that are considered more ‘feminine’ are pink collared jobs such as are teachers, secretaries, nurses, and flight attendants. On the other hand, men dominate in blue collared jobs such as CEOS, skilled trades, carpenter, construction, or electrician. As well, women are disproportionally subjects of physical and verbal sexual assaults and cat calling in the workplace. They are treated as objects because they are seen as the ‘other’ and less of a human being with equal rights. The media plays a significant role in portraying women as sexualized objects for the gratification of men, and to value women based on their bodies rather than who they are.

This might not be a religious story, but when we bring in Weber's examination of Protestant ethics and the role in which a "calling" had within society, we get a better sense of how women could've been influenced to take on a subordinate/ "other" role. The whole idea of a "calling" was that each individual had an a specific role in which they dedicated their entire lives to, in the belief that it was for god and their own morality. This is only an assumption, but there is a possibility that while the "calling" of men resulted in them working outside of the home, the "calling" of women resulted in them taking on a subordinate/"other" role such as staying at home or anything else that would be most beneficial to men. For example, we have continuously heard and history has shown that many people believe that the role or "calling" of the men is to be the breadwinner, while the role of the women is to be the caretaker. Just like how Weber concluded that these Protestant ideologies resulted in the priming of society to become capitalistic, it could have also primed society to believe in this subject/object role between men and women. In essence, this religious concept of a "calling" could have resulted in this subordinate/ "other" role in which de Beauvoir has extensively documented.

In addition to the so called "calling" Weber's theory on legitimate domination also helps to explain this. Weber talks about how over time, continued domination of men over women create social norms that form the structures in society. These social norms lead to inequality as well as the view that men should work while women should stay at home. As well as this, the group that is in power will want to remain in power and keep the existing social structures. The men will want to maintain their privilege in a capitalistic society and deny others from joining the group of power. This will lead to continued inequality and the "other-ing" of women.

I appreciate the fact that we are taking time to consider the historical religious influences that may have played a large role in shaping the roles of women. I especially appreciate the fact that we are discussing about different possibilities that may result to the subordination of women from different parts of the world. There's a theory that Vietnam had once been a matriarchy. It can be evident in the ways in which the mother tends to be the most respected figure of the household, and how the wife tends to be the most feared. However, when Chinese imperialism took place, Confucianism, a form of Chinese philosophy, became the main philosophy for living in Vietnam. I was shocked to read that there was a section that outlined that a woman's "3 submissions"... that a woman is to serve, first her father, then her husband, and then her eldest son. It can be confusing to see how this idea mixes with the previous examples I provided. However, I have witnessed both ideas take place simultaneously. In one instance, a woman can be seen scolding her husband without an issue, however, she is still expected to serve her husband a hot meal at the end of the day. Because of the strong presence of Confucianism, these regulated ideas of submissions have been taken for granted and integral to how many Vietnamese households perceive and understand the world.

In my opinion, I feel like despite the deities' gender in mythological stories, many important religious leaders are still male. This may contribute to the conception of women as "other". In one of the Chinese creation myth, the deity that created the world was a female, and she was considered the mother goddess. However looking at the historical settings of China, it was a very male dominant society in many aspects such as religion, economy and more. Therefore I think although religion does play an important role in how people view their surroundings, it does not influence the image of women that greatly.

I do not know to what extent religion has affected the "other-ing" of women in Japan as a whole but, I've heard that in Japanese religion like Shinto and Buddhism, women were seen as polluted things. They were considered unclean and thus were banned to enter sacred places like the shrine, mountains and ritual places. This still exists till today and it is why the monks that work at shrines are still male dominated. However, as a whole society, I believe that we do not see much gender equality formed through these religions as much as it does in Christianity/ Catholicism.

In response to Jaden’s question “Are there any other stories from other religions (though Christianity/Catholicism is most likely predominant in Western society) that could influence the image of woman in such a way?”, Buddhism is male-dominated and women are certainly portrayed as the “other”. For example, when males present food or clothing offerings, they can hand it directly to the monk. Whereas for women, they are required to place the items on the monk’s offering cloth to avoid direct physical contact. Women are not allowed to have physical contact with monks, as this is seen as crossing the boundaries of Buddhism, a male-dominated sphere.