Question People equate certain qualities with femininity. E.g. soft, irrational, emotional. On the other hand, certain other qualities are equated with masculinity: e.g. hard, rational, analytical. Some feminists have said that this is an example of prejudice towards women: firstly, those qualities are largely viewed as negative, secondly, the 'male' qualities are held in higher esteem than the 'female' qualities. It seems to me that men can be just as emotional or irrational as women - but apart from this, is the connotation with those things an accident or is it purposeful and does it actually lead to prejudice? Some people also complain that words associated with blackness - darkness, black, etc, are used negatively and that is racist. Is that actually true or is it a stretch?

Accepted:
August 19, 2006

Comments

Masculinity and femininity have been associated with different properties at different times and in different cultures. Despite all this variation, however, that which is associated with masculinity is valued, and is often identified with the human, while that which is associated with the feminine is given lesser status and is often identified with the "other than" or "less than" human. These symbolic associations operate in many areas of inquiry, including in philosophy. As you note, these associations often don't reflect reality: men are indeed just as emotional as women and just as irrational! However, feminists think we should be worried about them for two reasons: First, they feed into the social construction of gender identity, so that they have psychological and social consequences for men and women who try to live up to the gender ideals they represent. Second, gender metaphors and associations can shape inquiry, making some questions seem pressing, hiding others from view, and bridging what would otherwise appear to be gaps in arguments. (For example, why did it take so long for there to be serious inquiry into the positive contributions that emotions make to our rationality? One possible answer is that emotion has been associated with the feminine and hence with the irrational.) The use of gender metaphors within an area of inquiry can have an ideological function; that is, it can give rise to theories that ratify current gender relations of dominance and subordination. (Sociobiology provides a much-discussed example of how this works.) For these reasons, I don't think we should think of them as "mere associations", or "mere metaphors." Metaphorical uses of "blackness" can play a similar role and so need to be treated with equal suspicion.