Project #1

Gender and Womens Lives

The Oppression of Women
by: Amber Stagg, Samantha Bondy & Dominique
Dumas

Thesis:
The gender and sex binary is a
socially constructed phenomenon
that results in the oppression of
Women; and therefore are treated
as others and being perceived less
than man.
In other words, women are just
beings without having a
connection to the rest of the world.

social construct:
the sex and gender binary system is a product of social relations. (Rubin, pg. 1)
one is not born, but rather one becomes a woman (De Beauvoir, pg. 84)
sexuality is a construct of male power (Mackinnon, pg.204)
where men are dominant and women are submissive
De Beauvoir hit it on the spot when she said the only way we can change being
oppressed is for women to change their being, stop being comfortable in the
submissive role and become a subject, transcend the oppression and become free
of men.

How has this happened?

Society has given women this sense of reality that men are above women and
all women should adhere to that.
In other words, women are just a branch off of men, not allowing women to be
their own entity.
man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him (De Beauvoir, pg.89)

Frye:
There are three necessary and sufficient conditions to oppression:
1.systematic and can only be seen from a macroscopic perspective
(looking at the bigger picture)
2.it targets members of a particular group (in this case, women)
3.contextual relations to barrier (all humans suffer from barriers so
therefore, we must ask who maintains that barrier?)

The Bird Cage:

each wire of the bird cage symbolizes an

obstacle or barrier placed on women by men. So
if we look at it from a microscopic level we dont
realize the oppression but if we look at it
macroscopically we can see the individual
barriers are working together to cage in women
and oppress them.

Door-Opening
its not oppression when a man opens a door for a woman but what is oppressing
about it is when men go out

of their way to open the door.

for example, let's say a man has his hands full of

groceries but still insists on opening the door, he is therefore
inconveniencing himself to go out of his way to oppress the
woman when in fact her hands are empty making her more
than capable of opening the door herself.

Othering:
Othering- any action by which an individual or group becomes
mentally classified in somebodys mind as not one of us. (De
Beauvoir, 90).
In other words, instead of seeing a woman as a human being, a person
with emotions, wants, needs, ideas, and personality, men see women as
less than human; not worthy of respect or dignity in order to dismiss
any feelings of guilt in oppressive behaviors.

Examples of Othering:

Bartky:
kinds of Psychological oppression:
1. stereotyping-prevents others from knowing me and my needs, contributes to
my internalizing and believing stereotypes, undermines self-actualization,
autonomy and agency.
2. cultural domination- women do not have their own culture, our culture is the
culture of men.
3. sexual objectification- women are looked at as a sexual object instead of a
person.

Fragmentation & Mystification

Fragmentation: the splitting of a whole person into parts of a person.
for example: you take one part of a person's identity (race, gender) and you allow
that aspect of the being to generalize the rest of the person.
we look at one aspect of someone and ignore the rest, such as looking solely at
someones gender for a job without knowing their credentials and automatically
thinking they dont qualify simply because shes a woman.
Mystification: the systematic obscuring of reality and agency
for example: boys will be boys
so lets say a boy is being rough with another boy, society thinks its normal but
on the other hand if you have girls being rough with one another that has to be
stopped because girls are supposed to be nice and nurturing.

effects of oppression on women.

we need all people, men AND women!

the tradition of holding women back needs to be changed!