As I watch all the misogynistic programming on the television, in which the skinheaded, bling-bling flaunting pimps hold bikini-clad women by the midriffs, in which the camera angles pan slowly over the women as dismembered parts – cleavage here, butt here, legs there – I recoil.
Women are, to them, pretty objects, mindless and without wills of their own. They serve roughly the same purpose as those gaudy dollar signs around their necks: they hang on the guys, glisten in the sun and act as trophies, tangible reminders of the monetary prosperity of the owner. The only difference is they can shake on their own.
I was reading Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States, and the chapter about women’s history; I have mixed reactions. He seems to exaggerate the situation; he looks at the women’s situations from the lens of a 21st century feminist, with all her expectations and centuries of progress, rather than viewing the situation as a woman at the time might. The result – a scathing feminist criticism of the constitution when in actuality, the newborn America's women's rights agenda was no worse than what had been going on in the entire world. Women’s rights hadn’t been awakened in ANY part of the world at the time. Those are unrealistic and historically hypercritical demands. Many women at the time were content in their roles as homemaker, likely as happy or happier than today’s “liberated” American woman.
But I think twice about this assumption. Just because we’re happy with the status quo doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be critical of it. Maybe we were only happy in those specific roles of homemaker because we didn’t think we could or should aspire to anything greater. We’ve been conditioned to believe this – perhaps from outsiders who really just want to keep us downtrodden for the sake of preserving their own power and keeping women into the luscious, lust-quenching category of “object.”
I think of how this applies to the psychology of hegemony and the mentality of poverty. Outsiders think that the poor could overcome their situation with sufficient cleverness, by taking advantage of educational opportunities, by organizing into labor unions. In reality, the poor have lived so long in poverty that they simply don’t believe any of that is really possible.
I have an analogy from my own life. As a kid, I always wanted to be a doctor. When I got into high school and took sciences and math classes, I did quite well – not incredible, but quite well, especially in biology. But there was always this subconscious idea imposed from the outside that I couldn’t be a doctor – I just wasn’t smart enough in those particular subjects, no women I knew personally had ever achieved this goal, and women in general are not wired for such subjects as science and math. I cowered because I didn’t know how to achieve this goal and there was no support structure to lead my along in this dream and help me overcome my fear of failure.
Right now, some of my friends who were in those classes with me are working on their pre-med degrees. Yes, it’s completely possible. But I was a casualty of a defeatist mentality. And for the poor, it’s just the same. Technically, it’s possible for many to get out of their situation. But it would require immense self-confidence, immense effort and encouragement to surmount the psychological barriers that subjugate them.
There’s such power in someone encouraging you and believing in you. There’s such a dearth of people like that. I’m not sure how we could ever bottle that up, mass produce it, institutionalize it and harness it as a tool to fight poverty, racism, sexism. This lack of confidence, this mental subjugation, is just as strong as any economic oppression.
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