I think most of the time and discussion we had in class were about poor, rural and illiterate women. How's about middle-class, urban and highly educated women? Don't they have any problems? Do they live a better and happier life than those from the rural areas? Feminists fight for the emancipation of women, who emancipate themselves? Aren't we trying to change the world while failing to change our own destiny?
In my country, highly educated women are considered a threat to the harmony and socially defined power of men and women in the family. Women are now given more and more opportunities to be in an equal footing with men. The Gender Equity Law was approved in 2006 and a lot of progresses have been made in the field of gender and development since then. However, many people argue that the progresses are changing the social structure in such an unexpected way. For example, women who used to be taught to obey now can make her own decisions in every aspect of life. She can decide to get married or not. She can decide to become single mother. She can get out of the marriage she is not happy with. She can even sue her husband who treats her badly.
Highly educated women often feel hard to find partners of the same or higher status (educational, economical...). Many of my female friends are becoming more picky and demanding in selecting their partners. According to my culture, it is unacceptable for male partners to be in lower position than their counterparts. As a result, many women decide to be single after her 20s if they fail to find the "right" guy. When they decide to get married at her late 20s or early 30s, they find it hard to have baby naturally.
At the same time, old-aged (or aging) unmarried women suffer from social pressure, family pressure and peer pressure. When all your peers are married, why should you be a deviant? These women will cope with the dilemma of choices: remain single and continue suffer from judgement; OR quickly choose someone not for the sake of love but for being socially accepted. I see many women are struggling with this dilemma and many of them end up in the second option. Women can be very good at building their career but they often give up emancipating themselves from social and cultural norms.
So do you think these are all progresses? Should feminists be proud of the rights for women have been achieved? If underdevelopment is certainly problematic; whether overdevelopment is necessarily good? And is development equal to happiness?
Thanks for sharing Huyen! Your post raises important questions about feminism and the extent to which efforts to address gender inequality have really changed things. Remember, the early feminist movement was criticized for focusing on issues that were of importance to middle class Caucasian women who were trying to generalize those issues to other women. The focus on “poor, rural and illiterate women” is more evident at the intersection of gender and development. And while that focus on empowering the most vulnerable women in our society is commendable, your questions about the plight of middle class, urban, highly educated women are thought-provoking and salient.
ReplyDeleteHaving grown up in a family and community where we had many strong female role models, I have seen how such women are often treated. Many people, including other women, do not like to see strong women advancing. They think that such women are taking on the role of men. As a result, many people try to disrespect and denigrate them.
Finding a partner has also become an issue for educated Jamaican women. I think this has become a reality due to gender inequality too. I say this because in Jamaica, the majority of students at tertiary education institutions are females. In fact, for every 1 male, there are 3 or 4 females. The ratio is not as bad in high school, but girls outnumber boys there as well. This might be attributable to the fact that the majority of teachers are female, which is the opposite of previous decades when most teachers were men. While I do not think that the female teachers are intentionally favoring the female students, I do think there is a correlation between the lack of male teachers and the number of male students who matriculate to college. As a quote from the Miss Representation documentary says: “You can’t be what you can’t see.”
This should serve as a warning of the importance of equality. While we should be proud of what has been achieved concerning the rights of women, there is still room for improvement, especially as it concerns addressing gender relations and including men as gendered beings.