Masculine domination is so deeply ingrained in our unconscious that we hardly perceive all of its dimensions?

Question

This is one of the questions exposed by Pierre Bourdieu( 2001) in his book: "Masculine Domination".

More explanation about the book:

Bourdieu analyses masculine domination as a paradigmatic form of symbolic violence - the kind of gentle, invisible, pervasive violence which is exercised through cognition and misrecognition, knowledge and sentiment, often with the unwitting consent of the dominated. According to Bordieu, to understand this form of domination we must analyse both its invariant features and the historical work of dehistoricization through which social institutions - family, school, church, state - eternalize the arbitrary at the root of men's power. This analysis leads directly to the political question: can we neutralize the mechanisms through which history is continuously turned into nature, thereby freeing the forces of change and accelerating the incipient transformations of the relations between the sexes?

Has anyone read it?

Thoughts?

Fraxinux, I know you are always looking for new books, I don't know if you know this interesting site which offers great publications :-)

http://www.polity.co.uk/

Answer 1

The idea that men are the "stronger" sex is still with us and often does surface in some of our basic assumptions and behaviors. Even among people who don't consciously believe it. It's like air, you're so surrounded by it you just absorb it.

For instance, have you noticed that in Stockholm Syndrome cases the victim almost always seems to be a women or a child. Every so often you see cases in the newspaper or on TV where some perp will abduct somebody or somehow get a hold of somebody and that person will turn into their complete willing slave. They'll be so scared of them they'll go back to them even if the guy is in a hospital or regularly sends them out shopping and gives them every opportunity to escape. The victims are, as far as I can tell anecdotally, NEVER adult men. You see similar behavior in adult men but only with cults like Jonestown, not when it's just one person in control. I have a suspicion that it's because men are raised with a certain sense of self-sufficiency that often isn't imparted to women.

Hopefully these subterraenean assumptions will gradually fade away as more and more of our culture is shaped by generations that are born into a gender-equal society.

Answer 2

Wow what an interesting question.
Best I've seen on here since I joined.
Not read this but will now do so.
Thoughts-A true analyse of the nature of our social dynamics today.
This has certainly made me think.
Neutralisation is extremely difficult as it is part of our ingrained psyche.
Not certain how this can be achieved.
Certainly not in the immediate future; maybe within the next 20 years we may see and experience a shift in change.
Who can predict.
Well done for asking this question.

Answer 3

I haven't read it but it sounds rather interesting.So the basic premise is that through conditioning we have come to covertly manifest the masculine in life through institutions,workplace,schools,media and at a primary subconcious level we assert it's superiority over the feminine.I suppose it negate's any evolutionary idealogy about the sexes.If you take the masculine and feminine as purely abstract entities then one comes to the notion that the masculine is in fact elevated above the feminine in terms of what it represents ie.staunch individualism,independence,activity as opposed to passivity,courage etcetera.The main point that should be highlighted is that either sexes can acquire this abstract masculinity,it's just on a practical level and through social conditioning that women are oppressed from developing it.You might be interested in a book by otto weninger who wrote voluminously about the sexes in geschlecht and character about the sexes.Just type it into google!it's well worth it!good luck

Answer 4

Wow! So what you're saying is that everyone in Washington is Christian? Is that why you people are always complaining and harping on the fact that the Jews control the country; the media; Hollywood; the banks, etc.? This is not the Christian section, you bigot! And you couldn't pwn anyone if you stepped right in it! I also saw you on MSNBC the other evening and you just repeated the same bullshit nonsense that you always do. So now...are you going to be a baby and block me because I said things you don't like? @Frank Garrett: What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 8 Yep! That sounds like an atheist to me...(sarcasm - for those who take everything at face value)

Answer 5

Thoughts? Yes! Males dominate so much that when women set up a women's only gym its progressive, but if men do that it's sexist. There are majors in university called women's studies (once again, progressive), but yet no men's studies. Breast cancer research, funding (public and private), and advertising is huge, but prostrate cancer (which has a higher mortality rate than breast cancer) has less than half of the funding and exposure. Service clubs like the lions clubs have to be open to both sexes, but the lioness club is strictly women only. I don't know how to react. There has been a lot of concessions made, and I agree we have a long way to go in certain areas, but there is a lot of women domination as well, so please consider the "other side of the record" when discussing these ideas.

Answer 6

I have not read that particular work, but I know EXACTLY what you're talking about...Perception of {ReALity] is subjective and is structured around a male dominant language and conglomerate of M.D. cultures...

The problem is, would female dominance be any better?

I know that what your suggesting is total equality, but I doubt that is even a possibility...Men and women are DIFFERENT and one of us being more APPARENTLY submissive makes life easier for both sexes...Do women REALLY want to compete directly with men physically and mentally? We're massive and bone headed (generally,) we sometimes mass double what an average female does, and we are convinced of the impregnability of our imaginary logic...But on the upside, we're strong enough to do heavy lifting and egotistical enough to be easily manipulated by a certain smaller more cunning gender....I can't help but think the old system was more about oppressing PEOPLE (arbitrary assignment of role,) than singling women out. I think men accept the inevitability of their lot in life better because they seem to have an advantage...But if you look closely, you'll see almost every man of power is the puppet of a woman.

Answer 7

I think women have already found an unknown chemical placed into the drinking water that turns men into hermaphrodites. We're already seeing many men get "Man Boob's" and the fertility problem is showing up in our culture. So all we have to do is keep taking birth control pills and peeing into toilets. If we continue doing this, then everyone will be feminine. Unless the men get wise and put in reverse osmosis filters into the water.

"BOULDER, Colo. (National Catholic Register) – When EPA-funded scientists at the University of Colorado studied fish in a pristine mountain stream known as Boulder Creek two years ago, they were shocked. Randomly netting 123 trout and other fish downstream from the city’s sewer plant, they found that 101 were female, 12 were male and 10 were strange “intersex” fish with male and female features.

Woodling, University of Colorado physiology professor David Norris, and their EPA-study team were among the first scientists in the country to learn that a slurry of hormones, antibiotics, caffeine and steroids is coursing down the nation’s waterways, threatening fish and contaminating drinking water. "

Answer 8

Sounds like an excuse to start at the point of "male domination" then look for subtle ways that it "could" be being perpetuated. In other words make wild judgements based on relatively little information that the world is male dominated.

I could do exactly the same thing to prove the world is female dominated and will do just that if you start spouting garbage from a misandric book like this.

Answer 9

Ok