![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the one hand vs. the other hand
Dec. 11th, 2009 12:22 amThe following might also be an interesting topic for my anthro final paper. (Oh god, I gotta choose a topic and send an outline to my prof before the week is out.)
The Sociological Images blog recently posted about the relativity of feminist liberation that touches on some of the problems with how feminism is discussed and articulated. The post is specifically about women-only taxi services that have begun popping up in Dubai, Mexico, Moscow, and, weirdly, the UK. In Manila, the MRT (our El/subway) has a women-only train car. I heard (...but can't find online confirmation) that it was women passengers themselves who requested this service because they kept getting groped on the train, especially during rush hour.
On the one hand, the pro-womanness of such a service is superficial. It's still demeaning, and it reinforces gender binaries and perpetuates an unjust system. Well, yes, ideally we would be living in a world where you don't need a women-only taxi service, but on the other hand I'm hesitant to sacrifice the security of these women for the sake of ideology. Just like you can't juxtapose one country's democracy wholesale on another country's, you can't juxtapose one country's feminism wholesale either. It has to grow organically from within (and also a little bit without). But to go back to the one hand, is more segregation really the way to promote this?
The problem with these services is that they're end-of-the-pipe solutions. They treat the symptoms of misogyny instead of the causes. They send a message to the men that they can continue to act like misogynists because we can always remove ourselves from the situation and it's our fault if we don't. But on the OTHER hand, sometimes when people talk about bringing some good ol' women's lib from countries where it's more commonplace to countries where it's less commonplace, it reminds me of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality of economic conservatism: "You don't need special treatment, you just need to be strong!" That's all well and good, but the bootstraps of women in, say, the USA are already pretty high up compared to the bootstraps of women in the Philippines. And these boots, they smell like White Woman's Burden. Equality among women != sameness among women.
I think women should be wary of insisting on solidarity based on what we are not i.e. men. We're not just not-men. However, sometimes the rhetoric of being not-men overpowers the diversity of women's situations around the world, reducing women in quote unquote less liberated countries to the subaltern of the subaltern. And yeah, that's one of the flaws of the women-only taxi service, in that it is totally based on being not-men. If the way women protect themselves in other countries is disagreeable to us, should we take their protection away because it's bad for their feminist agenda? For WHOSE feminist agenda? Can you use 'unfeminist' means like these taxis to further feminism? Or is that too much like fighting for peace and fucking for virginity?
And, I dunno, what if the woman trying to hail a women-only taxi is escorting her ailing grandfather or something?
The Huffington Post offers a stronger stance on why these women-only taxis are questionable indeed. Interestingly, the HuffPost article was written by a man, whereas the Sociological Images post was written by a woman. I have my reservations about these taxis, but I also have my reservations about dismissing the idea outright. At the very least, it provides a safe space. It reminds me of - and I wish I have the link - how some people were trying to make an organization/support group for Hispanic gays, and a non-Hispanic gay was like, "But what for? We're ALL gay!" But what he was really saying is "We're ALL not straight", which isn't the same thing.
The Sociological Images blog recently posted about the relativity of feminist liberation that touches on some of the problems with how feminism is discussed and articulated. The post is specifically about women-only taxi services that have begun popping up in Dubai, Mexico, Moscow, and, weirdly, the UK. In Manila, the MRT (our El/subway) has a women-only train car. I heard (...but can't find online confirmation) that it was women passengers themselves who requested this service because they kept getting groped on the train, especially during rush hour.
On the one hand, the pro-womanness of such a service is superficial. It's still demeaning, and it reinforces gender binaries and perpetuates an unjust system. Well, yes, ideally we would be living in a world where you don't need a women-only taxi service, but on the other hand I'm hesitant to sacrifice the security of these women for the sake of ideology. Just like you can't juxtapose one country's democracy wholesale on another country's, you can't juxtapose one country's feminism wholesale either. It has to grow organically from within (and also a little bit without). But to go back to the one hand, is more segregation really the way to promote this?
The problem with these services is that they're end-of-the-pipe solutions. They treat the symptoms of misogyny instead of the causes. They send a message to the men that they can continue to act like misogynists because we can always remove ourselves from the situation and it's our fault if we don't. But on the OTHER hand, sometimes when people talk about bringing some good ol' women's lib from countries where it's more commonplace to countries where it's less commonplace, it reminds me of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality of economic conservatism: "You don't need special treatment, you just need to be strong!" That's all well and good, but the bootstraps of women in, say, the USA are already pretty high up compared to the bootstraps of women in the Philippines. And these boots, they smell like White Woman's Burden. Equality among women != sameness among women.
I think women should be wary of insisting on solidarity based on what we are not i.e. men. We're not just not-men. However, sometimes the rhetoric of being not-men overpowers the diversity of women's situations around the world, reducing women in quote unquote less liberated countries to the subaltern of the subaltern. And yeah, that's one of the flaws of the women-only taxi service, in that it is totally based on being not-men. If the way women protect themselves in other countries is disagreeable to us, should we take their protection away because it's bad for their feminist agenda? For WHOSE feminist agenda? Can you use 'unfeminist' means like these taxis to further feminism? Or is that too much like fighting for peace and fucking for virginity?
And, I dunno, what if the woman trying to hail a women-only taxi is escorting her ailing grandfather or something?
The Huffington Post offers a stronger stance on why these women-only taxis are questionable indeed. Interestingly, the HuffPost article was written by a man, whereas the Sociological Images post was written by a woman. I have my reservations about these taxis, but I also have my reservations about dismissing the idea outright. At the very least, it provides a safe space. It reminds me of - and I wish I have the link - how some people were trying to make an organization/support group for Hispanic gays, and a non-Hispanic gay was like, "But what for? We're ALL gay!" But what he was really saying is "We're ALL not straight", which isn't the same thing.
