AFTER working at a national bagel chain restaurant for two years while in high school, my girlfriend received a lower hourly wage than newly hired males. Her experience is not an aberration. According to the U.S. Census, women make only 77 percent of the wages that men receive for the same work. Nor is discrimination limited to pay. Last year, Morgan Stanley paid $54 million to settle a case in which female employees accused the company of not only paying women less, but also of denying them promotions and excluding them by making business deals in environments like strip clubs that are offensive to female employees. My grandmother experienced the same type of discrimination while working for Bell Telephone over thirty years ago.
Yet women suffer from not only blatant economic discrimination, but also subtler forms of oppression. Director of the Studies in Women and Gender program Farzaneh Milani says the "subtlest forms of misogyny are the most pervasive. They are so common, so rampant, so established that we neither see them nor question them. We take them for granted. We perceive them as 'natural.'"We as conscientious feminists have the responsibility not only to radically improve our economic system but also to practice a daily feminist ethic in order to combat misogynistic socialization.
These desensitized forms of daily misogyny, according to Milani, include "blanket generalizations degrading women, rationalizations of unwarranted antagonism, double standards reinforcing male dominance, 'scientific' theories supporting sex discrimination, sexist jokes, and implicit acceptance of gender inequity." Third-year student and AWAKE President Jill Raney has noticed that females are socialized to "inflect statements like questions" and otherwise express themselves with less assurance than males. Speech patterns that do not project confidence reinforce the idea that females' ideas have less merit. Similarly, girls receive less attention from teachers and encounter gender stereotypes that discourage them from pursuing rigorous study in fields of math and science, according to the American Association of University Women. Teachers thus inadvertently tell girls that their thoughts and opinions are not as valuable as boys'. It will take extensive teacher training (that does not exist currently) to correct this bias.
Another common misogynistic assumption is that women, unlike men, do not have a sense of direction. Our culture has traditionally encouraged men to drive and women to ride; it should not surprise anyone that we produce women who are not adept at finding their own way in a car.To blame the effects of socialization on biology is at best unperceptive and at worst malicious.
Consumer culture likewise reinforces the patriarchal assumption of female inferiority. Fashion magazines tell girls and women that their sense of worth should come from male approval, and that males will only approve of anorexic females with painted faces and outfits that never get worn twice.Clearly, the editors of those magazines do not hate women, and do not consciously create an eating disorder that kills between five and ten percent of its victims, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Rather, the "free market" requires a consumer culture that socializes its members to consume unnecessarily, and even to the detriment of their own well-being. This is not a matter of assigning blame to a clearly identified, individual villain.
Similarly, we as citizens do not act out of conscious malice when we do not listen to the opinions of women, or when we demand that our peers meet the standards manufactured by the clothing and cosmetics industries. We are all products of our capitalistic culture, and it is difficult for us to overcome not only a tradition of patriarchy but also a tradition of consumerism that complements the more direct and obvious forms of misogyny. Yet if we value the individuals around us of any gender, then we have a responsibility to consciously live a feminist ethic on a daily basis, for that level of commitment is necessary, along with a radical change of our economic system, if we are to overcome pervasive cultural influences that we have absorbed from the moment we entered the marketplace.
Practicing daily feminism is an achievable goal. It requires sensitivity to the words and body language of others. It requires attentive listening. It requires shutting one's mouth sometimes so others can speak as well. It requires consideration of the roots of our gendered behavior. More generally, Prof. Milani says that we can create a society that honors our common humanity "by speaking out for justice, by questioning conventional knowledge, by revising methods of inquiry, by challenging conventional academic structures and curriculum, by supporting programs and projects that advance gender equity and by refusing to remain an uninvolved citizen of the university community."
Patriarchy runs on inertia. It persists in a society where our daily exchange of ideas as well as goods and services bolsters gender discrimination. The market never closes. Thus we must remain awake as well, and consciously act out a daily feminist ethic.
Zack Fields' column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at zfields@cavalierdaily.com
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