On Thu, 2 Nov 2000 kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca wrote:
> Is sexism wrong? Not according to sexists! The point, then, is a
> political one - to facilitate understanding of an apparent paradox
> which, without a doubt, has a violent impact on women. The explanation
> you are looking for is a banal and politically neutral interpretation,
> simple (which is why positivism is politically impotent). The analytic
> point to be made here is progressive: to change this reality - the
> 'truth' (in the emphatic sense of the term) of the explanation is not
> so much to be found in its non-contingent validity as it is its
> political affect (which can only be determined retrospectively...
> again, which does not admit of a strict truth or falsehood).
>
> ken
>
I still don't get how reducing a complex social process (e.g., the status of women in our society) to a result of individual psychological processes serves any useful purpose. The only thing this psychological analysis does is turn our attention away from the concrete social relations that produce the inequalities that women face in our society. Even if "displacement" occurs, specific social arrangements (e.g., the nuclear famiy, systematic wage advantages for men, rape, a political system dominated by men) must exist for that displacement to have any real political effect. Without the social mechanisms to produce inequality, inequality could not exist, regardless of psychological processes.
Miles