In her research, Andrea Cornwall points out that even though GAD claims to talk about gender in general, it mainly focuses on women and how they are oppressed. At the same time, it demonizes men. This creates an imbalance since, it has already proven that the problem is not “male versus female”; the problem lies in unequal power dynamics. She also points out that GAD emerged only because many of projects under WID failed, and people realized that it’s the institutionalized male privilege or patriarchy, or simply, the system that is at fault; not the biological male or female. Furthermore, she mentions that the current practices within GAD has some limitations.
At
the start of 1980s, the idealization of the Universal Woman made even the
mainstream feminists uncomfortable and created a power disequilibrium among the
western perception of womanhood and other forms of womanhood, namely, black,
lesbian, working class etc.
Even
though feminist practice has gone through significant changes and complex analysis,
Cornwall points out two major concepts that played a very important role in
understanding the differences and similarities between men and women.
These
are:
- Discourse Analysis: study of interactions
- Deconstruction: To break down something only to re-examine it from a different perspective
Even
though much of the knowledge about gender today is common sense according to
her, it was not always the case. She also points out that whatever we perceive as
“men” or “women” are not absolute values and it alters through time and place. These
values or definitions are highly dependent on context.
Cornwall
goes on to identify the limitation old feminists have had. According to them,
men were the problem. But Cornwall states that such mindset demonized men, each
of whom had unique personalities and they could not accept such alienation. She
mentions the work of Connell, Carrigan and Lee who conducted a research on masculinity
and stated that men are also socially discriminated to acquire the dominant
position, which they term as hegemonic masculinity. Yet, men who refuse to
conform to this idea do not get support from GAD as well.
Keeping
that in mind, Cornwall shows three ways on how to practice these new ideas.
- Acknowledging the challenges men face for being men
- Creating a safe space for those men who do not conform to sexist masculine ideas
- Letting these men feel empowered in a renewed healthy and non-violent fashion
All
in all, Cornwall aims to include men and give them their due rights and
positions within the GAD discourse. She calls for making a change together by
both men and women, instead of victimizing one group while demonizing the
other.
No comments:
Post a Comment