Hello all! Nicole here.

            So all of this week’s discussion has me thinking… With the insight into what being a transsexual must be like and with this week’s reading on oppression, I feel like something obvious that hasn’t really been said in class needs to be said: it feels more like transsexuals are the oppressed sex than women.  Furthermore, going off of the video from today, it’s much worse for them because it takes a lot more to say something about it.  Last night’s reading talked about how the unsubmissive woman is called “man-hater” and otherwise unpleasantly labeled, but the defiant woman can also be respected. If a transsexual spoke out

1.     S/he’d be revealing a significant secret in his/her life.

2.     S/he’d be opening up h/herself up to a lot of criticism from a vast majority that does not know what living as a transsexual means.

3.     Furthermore they have to put up with a lot more in the way of surgeries and trying to fit in or be something they are not.

This brings me to another point, though.  Perhaps it’s because I am alive during the 3rd wave of feminism but I do not feel particularly oppressed by the males in my life or by society in general.  But I digress, for we had this discussion in class just earlier today.   

Anyway, I somehow feel like all of this categorization of men (males) and women (females) is not really something that “oppressors” do on purpose.  As a society--and especially a western society in which, according to Richard Nisbett, people analyze and categorize the information they intake—we tend to generalize and categorize. (to see more on Nisbett’s cultural and social psychological study see: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/4331)   As a side note and personal opinion, the idea that masculinity is what it is right now seems to be more the fault of our natural tendencies.  Just a few evenings ago I recall that several of the girls on my floor were taunting one of my guy friends about his apparent lack of masculinity (because he has good hygiene, likes to neatly fold his clothes, etc.).  These girls are just as guilty as other guys, in this case, of making the generalizations about manhood, etc. mentioned in the Kimmel article and judging my friend based on that.  I would even argue that in this case and cases like this one, men really are oppressed—in this case by the standards set by society.  My argument is that they are limited in their behaviors and cannot necessarily be called the oppressors as individuals (at least, certainly guys like my friends shouldn’t be included in the list of oppressors).  Thus they are also oppressed. 

I don’t know.  Personally I feel less limited than I think they do because it is more socially acceptable for women to do most (what could be called “male”) activities than it is for men to partake in a gender a-typical behavior.

Sorry for such a long blog post, guys. Guess I got carried away there.

~Signing off 




Leave a Reply.