Comments on: Gender dimensions

By: Pelle Billing

Pelle Billing — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:41:39 +0000

@Durwin

Thanks
Your comments were stopped by the spam filter. I have no idea why but I’ve manually approved them now.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:35:30 +0000

I did, for about five years - secondary level. That ended about ten years ago when I found something that paid a salary I could live on. Before all that I was in the army on active duty for about 14 years, and since then I have been a reservist, and that is coming to an end. I was in the National Guard while I taught school. There were interesting parallels - teenagers respond a lot better to being treated like young adults rather than big, troublesome children. I was teaching French and Spanish at school during the week, and then during drills I was in a linguist battalion where I managed language maintenance and enhancement. The kids loved hearing that learning a language has more to do with drudgery and repetition than with brains; so if they were having a hard time, it was not because they were stupid.

By: unomi

unomi — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 07:26:49 +0000

@Jim

I am just finishing a military career of close to 30 years and that gives me some perspective on these issues.

I thought you said you worked in education?

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:00:20 +0000

Pelle, I hope you and your point of view becomes part of the national conversation. One of the great things about living in a nation of the size of Sweden is that you can participate and make a difference without having to reach 1.3 billion, or 1 billion or 0.3 billion people.

By: Pelle Billing

Pelle Billing — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:05:30 +0000

Jim,

I had one article published, working on a second one at the moment. First one was on Swedish feminism (what we call “state feminism” since it’s part of public policy) and the second one is about domestic violence.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:55:40 +0000

Gilesy,

“Fascinating, can’t wait to check a lot of that stuff out, that would be the posts on the ‘male sacrifice’ topic I assume. How did you learn about these cultures?”

I am interested in hisotry. I am just finishing a military career of close to 30 years and that gives me some perspective on these issues. During that career I saw women function as full citizens - combat service will come, if only in sgregated units initially.

I began looking at women’s role as inciters and enablers of violence and found that it was a feature and not a bug of these cultures. It was, and is, coded into the mythologies and ethical systems, it was and is built into the political structures. It is a survival mechanism and it often greatly advantages one group over its competitors.

It is systemic and no individual woman is to blame to participating in a system she didn’t construct, any more than a man is to eb blamed, as we have been blamed, for participating. A woman who benefits for men’s violence is as guilty as if she had committed the violence on her own, and in fact she is guilty also of a for of selfish cowardice as well. And anyone, woman or man, who defends it, or resists destroying its critical elements, or denies that women are complict in all this violence, is to blame.

Pelle, I did know that you wrote columns for newspapers.

By: Pelle Billing

Pelle Billing — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:08:46 +0000

@Gilesy
I’m happy that you take this stuff seriously and go deeper when it’s needed. I want to keep on improving my accuracy so I’m thrilled when I learn from your comments (and from other commenters, I have some kickass readers). My background is that I’m an M.D. and even though I don’t practise medicine anymore it’s easy for me to grasp the theoretical distinctions you are making.

As for the creation of patriarchy (women work in the home and men outside the home), have a look at my early posts (Culture Wars and Who Produces the Food).

@Jim
Thanks for the historical example. Very useful.

“The underlying mechanism is that women hold power because they form the continuity of society.”

A very good way of putting it.

By: Durwin Foster

Durwin Foster — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:29:14 +0000

Stopping by to say I love your blog, and read every post…

By: Durwin Foster

Durwin Foster — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:28:15 +0000

Wanted to say I love your blog, and I read every post…

By: Gilesy

Gilesy — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:37:57 +0000

Hi Jim,

Fascinating, can’t wait to check a lot of that stuff out, that would be the posts on the ‘male sacrifice’ topic I assume. How did you learn about these cultures?

Its a shame societies with exact 1st world role-reversals don’t seem to exist, means we can’t ethically test a series of specific innate-biological/social hypotheses