Talk me out of being uncomfortable with "sex stereotyping" protections in Feminist Amendments to Equality Act

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[–]Silverhatband[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

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posted by MelMarieCurebee in WomensLiberation

Back when I heard about the Feminist Amendments to the Equality Act, I thought the overall idea was perfect - provide an alternative to the Equality Act that is more progressive, actually protects women, and use that as something to advocate to our senators and representatives in Congress (in the US) instead of merely opposing the Equality Act.

But it's been months since I heard about it and I'm still reluctant to encourage specific people to sign onto it, and every time I explore why that is I come back to the fact that I am ambivalent about protecting people from "sex stereotyping" - ambivalent because I've been the victim of sex stereotyping, and I'd love protection from that, but at the same time I fear what trans activists/men will do with this term. It came to a head when I was reading the following quote from this recent post to Ovarit.

"Up until now, it has been uncontroversial that we exclude all males, including all the innocent ones and the majority of reasonable people, on the basis that we want to exclude a few malfeasant people. That has been perfectly well understood that it was never a character reference. It was never supposed to say that all males were bad because they clearly are not."

Sex stereotyping is defined in the Feminist Amendments as:

the expectation that individuals will manifest behaviors, dress, appearance, grooming, etc. traditionally associated with their sex and refrain from exhibiting those associated with the other sex. and has the caveat that:

At the same time, the Feminist Amendments provide that sex stereotyping discrimination does not include merely recognizing or referring to the sex of an individual. This is essential to allow for meaningful protection against sex discrimination.

Laws have a habit of working their way into lay public consciousness, and I worry that in lay hands, we're still going to see a lot of trans women claiming it's discrimination to keep them away from women's awards and competitions and stuff. I'm not trying to give up on the idea of getting protection from sex stereotyping for myself and other women just to keep it from men and trans women specifically, but I am worried about things like online moderators saying I was "sex stereotyping" when I tell a guy that (despite them being trans), they're behaving just like every other guy I've come across online.

Is this not a risk? Is it "worth it" for the benefit we get from "sex stereotyping" protections? Do other people share my concerns and fears? Does anybody else have a better idea for how to clarify (whether in the law or for the general public) the difference between the bad kind of sex stereotyping and the kind that is necessary for women to describe the nature of social dynamics?

Using the trick I often do to evaluate things, and swapping in race for sex, I imagine that prohibitions against "race stereotyping" would never be considered, and would possibly have less-than-helpful consequences if they were. Race stereotyping is considered racism. Race stereotyping (like with "black" names being selected out in job applications) is usually subtle and hard to prove. And the flip side is that claims to social differences between whites, blacks, and other groups would be subjected to "racial stereotyping" claims. ("All Lives Matter"/"Not All Men" evoke the idea of anti-stereotyping attitudes and beliefs run amok). Should we just stick to the parallel goals of the Civil Rights movement and just call it sexism and leave it there? I know sexism is a poorly understood term, that it's dulled through misuse and necessary overuse, and doesn't carry the bite of "racism" in people's minds, but isn't that what we're actually worried about? The power dynamics that make the stereotyping oppressive, not the fact of stereotyping? (Again, not trying to make it so trans women can get kicked out of jobs because they defy masculine stereotypes, but rather that perhaps we should just call that "sexism", since a powerful party is discriminating against somebody on the basis of their sex, just like the rulings on same-sex marriage came through as discriminatory on the basis of sex).

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The poster quotes this passage apparently made by someone else on Ovarit:

"Up until now, it has been uncontroversial that we exclude all males, including all the innocent ones and the majority of reasonable people, on the basis that we want to exclude a few malfeasant people. That has been perfectly well understood that it was never a character reference. It was never supposed to say that all males were bad because they clearly are not."

I don't think the premise of this statement is necessarily correct. Most sex segregation in the US originated coz most/all of the world outside the home was the domain of males only. Most of the "built environment" was originally set up to accommodate males and male needs only; providing loos and provisions for female people simply didn't occur to most male designers, planners and builders. Moreover, many institutions - such as schools, universities, clubs, saloons, workplaces - expressly excluded females.

Accommodations like ladies loos were add-ons that came relatively recently in human history as women fought for the chance to lead lives that weren't confined to to the domestic sphere or the farm. The main reason ladies loos and similar spaces such as female-only train cars and waiting rooms were made single-sex wasn't as simple as protecting females from "a few male malfeasant people" who might commit rape or other sexual assault. The main reason was propriety. Males were excluded because it was taken as a given that nearly all boys and men are heterosexual, and as such they have a sexual interest in the bodies of girls and women.

As a class, boys over a certain age and men, even the nice and polite ones, really, really like to look at girls and women, particularly when we are in states of undress. Once they hit puberty, the majority of boys and men find that, no matter how much they might try, when they are in close proximity to girls and women, they can't stop themselves from looking at us and having "untoward" thoughts.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, prevailing standards of decency meant it was widely accepted that that girls and women should be allowed to attend to intimate bodily needs without being subjected to "the male gaze." This was partly to safeguard girls' and women's privacy and dignity. But it was also largely about protecting males from being distracted by female bodies and bodily functions, and from being tempted into perhaps behaving badly. It wasn't that a small number of men were seen as malfeasant, it was that all men were seen as weak and very vulnerable to sexual enticement.

In fact, I think the desire to protect boys and men from being sexually distracted and tempted into sexual thoughts and behaviors probably played a bigger role than a desire to protect girls and women from sexual predation and assault by "a few malfeasant" men. When everyone lived on farms, boys and men were constantly reminded of sex as they went about their workdays - coz agriculture and animal "husbandry" are all about sex: seeds, eggs, milk, germination, mating, breeding, foaling, suckling and so on.

But as the economy became increasingly industrialized and the world became more urbanized, growing masses of males took up a wide variety of other types of pursuits and jobs and spent their days in places (factories, mines, offices, banks, exchanges, laboratories, schools, universities, libraries, clinics) where they were not reminded constantly of sex - and where thoughts about sex would have been deemed highly inappropriate as well as wasteful. In the new world where the goal of life increasingly became making money, men had to keep their eyes on the prize so to speak - and the prize was a paycheck or profits. In such a situation, it just wouldn't do if every time a fella needed to take a leak, he found himself in close quarters with female people in states of undress attending to their bodily needs.

Also, my sense is that during the Victorian era, it was not widely assumed that girls and women were at risk of sexual predation and assault only from a few malfeasant men. On the contrary, it seems to have been widely assumed that any man, even the decent and proper ones, could be induced into committing sexual assault if prompted by the right stimuli. And the right stimuli was simply close proximity in a private setting to a smaller, weaker female person who just by having a clearly female body that caught a man's eye could easily cause him to fall prey to her charms and reveal his baser, more beastly nature by turning into a bodice-ripper. Or at least that's the impression I get from reading history as well as a lot of 19th century literature.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I know sexism is a poorly understood term, that it's dulled through misuse and necessary overuse, and doesn't carry the bite of "racism" in people's minds, but isn't that what we're actually worried about? The power dynamics that make the stereotyping oppressive, not the fact of stereotyping?

Sorry, I disagree. I think "the fact of sex stereotyping" is harmful to both sexes, albeit often in different ways and to different extents. If feminists want girls and women not to be subjected to sex stereotyping, we've got to be equally adamant in opposing the imposition of sex stereotypes on boys and men as well.

As for this idea that it's the "power dynamics" behind or associated with sex stereotyping and other forms of prejudice animus against groups that makes them "oppressive," damaging and morally objectionable - not the stereotyping, prejudice and animus themselves - the fact is that there are different kinds of "power" - and "power dynamics" operate across all sorts of axes, often in combination.

People who make the argument that stereotyping and prejudice are only objectionable and harmful when combined with a power advantage often overlook the complexities and contradictions that come into play in individual situations of stereotyping and prejudice - which is what originally was meant by "intersectionality."

People who take this view often overlook one of the most basic and centrally-important power imbalances of all: the one between big people and little people, adults and children.

One of the reasons stereotyping and prejudice are so engrained and harmful is that a lot of stereotyping and prejudice is heaped on us all when we are very young by adults and older kids who wield enormous authority and power over the less developed, less clued-in and basically defenseless much smaller people.

Sometimes the stereotypes and prejudice that children are exposed to during their most impressionable years come from adults or older kids of different sexes, races, religions and so on - such as a female teacher scolding a little boy for being a sissy; adults or older kids of one race or ethnicity using slurs about a particular race or ethnicity in earshot of little kids of that race or ethnicity ("chinks," "hymies," "spics," "coons," "wops," "Paddys," "towel heads" and so on); a minister or imam preaching that everyone of other religions are damned to burn in hell; or much-admired men who produce and make music with lyrics that debase girls and women and characterize us all as hoes, sluts, gold-diggers and trash. Sometimes these sorts of harmful stereotypes are heaped on children not by individuals, but by powerful faceless collective forces such as advertising and entertainment media, and the manufacturers of children's toys, games, clothing, bicycles, sports gear, etc.

But just as often, the people who are most effective at filling the heads of defenseless children with stereotypes and prejudices that can do lifelong harm to those children are the children's own parents, grandparents, older siblings, aunts, uncles, etc. Some of the most racist, self-hating ideas that people from disadvantaged racial and ethnic minority groups acquire in their formative years are taught to them by their own families. Often the racist, self-hating beliefs kids pick up from their families are the most damaging of all coz they have been accompanied by all sorts of physical abuse. These harmful ideas have been literally beaten into kids by persons of their own race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion etc who supposedly love and care for the kids.

I don't buy the idea that when women and girls are sexist towards men and boys, it doesn't really count coz females in general don't have power over males. I also don't buy the idea that members of racial and ethnic groups with histories of oppression and minority status can't really be racist, coz racial animus and prejudice only qualifies as "real racism" when it comes from the people with the most or a great deal of power in any given society.

People who are raised from early childhood to have healthy self-esteem, a respect for their own sex, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality etc, and a realistic view of the world and the variety of people in it, tend to react with a good measure of resilience to the sexist, racist, ethnic and other forms of stereotyping, slurs, animus, prejudice that they might encounter later in life. Yes, being treated as second-class and subjected to stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination in adolescence and adulthood is disturbing - and it can knock even resilient people off their feet.

Still, I believe that what primes adolescents and adults to be most vulnerable to and deeply injured by the stereotyping, prejudice and animus they experience in adolescence and adulthood are the psychic wounds inflicted in childhood. People raised from early childhood to have self-esteem tend not to be utterly destroyed by such experiences, coz they have a healthy core sense of self, self-worth and perspective that will help them weather the slings and arrows they encounter later in life. The people who are most vulnerable to being utterly destroyed by sexism, racism and other forms of prejudice in adolescence and adulthood are those who first internalized negative ideas about their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, class, disabilities, etc very early in life as children - and who learnt those negative ideas at the knees - and often the hitting, punching, beating hands - of the adults who raised them and supposedly loved them with all their hearts.

[–]Silverhatband[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

:) I had a visceral reaction to this post. Glad I brought it here, for discussion. (I am Not the Ovarit poster.)

(My own preference is EA defeat, not amendments. Gender Identity is too nebulous to be enshrined into law, IMO.)

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Laws have a habit of working their way into lay public consciousness, and I worry that in lay hands, we're still going to see a lot of trans women claiming it's discrimination to keep them away from women's awards and competitions and stuff. I'm not trying to give up on the idea of getting protection from sex stereotyping for myself and other women just to keep it from men and trans women specifically, but I am worried about things like online moderators saying I was "sex stereotyping" when I tell a guy that (despite them being trans), they're behaving just like every other guy I've come across online.

I get the overall concern, and I myself have lots of fears about the EA even if amended. But I think too many spheres are being jumbled up in this post.

As I understand it, the EA will amend existing federal laws pertaining to discrimination in workplaces, in housing, in federally-funded educational institutions, in government funded, regulated and run services and programs, and in public accommodations and services. But the EA won't necessarily affect "women's awards and competitions and stuff" or at least not all of them, coz many are private and/or religious and not funded or regulated by the federal government.

Nor will the EA determine - or necessarily worsen for women - the rules that online platforms and individual subs/forums on them can set, or what individuals are allowed say to one another or about one another or someone else either online or in private communications. Most social media platforms already have extremely draconian rules in place meant to silence, punish and exclude women and others who don't ascribe to today's prevailing orthodoxies.

Also, even the most woke members of the Democratic Party know that the First Amendment of the US constitution means the federal government can't put in place laws restricting speech except in the most limited circumstances that have already been delineated by the courts.

The poster notes that

Sex stereotyping is defined in the Feminist Amendments as:

the expectation that individuals will manifest behaviors, dress, appearance, grooming, etc. traditionally associated with their sex and refrain from exhibiting those associated with the other sex. and has the caveat that:

At the same time, the Feminist Amendments provide that sex stereotyping discrimination does not include merely recognizing or referring to the sex of an individual. This is essential to allow for meaningful protection against sex discrimination.

Which leads her say

I am worried about things like online moderators saying I was "sex stereotyping" when I tell a guy that (despite them being trans), they're behaving just like every other guy I've come across online.

I certainly understand this poster's concerns because it seems nowadays any excuse will be seized upon and weaponized to squelch the speech of women and men who oppose trans ideology and identity politics generally. But it also seems to me that there is a world of difference between committing the forms of discrimination that would be prohibited by the EA against people based on the expectation that they conform to sex stereotypes, and observing that someone's words and behavior are totally consistent with the sex stereotypes associated with his (or her) sex.

Telling someone his behavior is "stereotypically male" is one thing. But it's entirely different to firing a guy from a job, denying him housing, barring him from certain fields of study, saying he can't use the ladies loos and change rooms or participate in girls and women's scholastic sports because he fails to live up to the expectation he behave, look, dress, etc in ways that are NOT "stereotypically male."

In fact, these two situations sound like polar opposite to me. In the first, a male is being called out for acting in accordance with male sex stereotypes. In the second a male is being discriminated against for not acting in accordance with male sex stereotypes.

But perhaps I misunderstand. If anyone can provide clarification, I'd much appreciate it.

[–]grixit 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Did you get my pm?