Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:41:24 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Fight Moral/Economic Pressures on Women to Sex


Jerry write:
>Yoshie has changed the title of this thread. OK. *How* does one fight
>moral/economic pressures on women to sex select? To simply say we should
>fight without a discussion of how that fight should be waged is, to put it
>mildly, an ineffective strategy.

I changed the title because I thought by now both you and I agree that in a
country where sexist sex selection is a big problem, individual women's
agency in terms of making real choices about which gender they prefer is so
limited that it doesn't make sense to ask them as individuals to do
something about it. So it follows that this got to be a matter of a
principled collective struggle of a mass movement. I don't know enough
about ideological or material terrains in China, India, etc. so I don't
pretend that anything I say from now on has any real practical
applicability; it is for people who know those countries better than I do
to judge what is most likely to work.

That said, since you seem to demand that I make more specific suggestions,
I tentatively offer the following.

1) It seems to me that in some countries' cases, dowry is one of the major
financial burdens on parents of girls, so much so that parents fear having
lots of girls. If this is a problem in a given country or region or
religion, it makes sense to make the practice of dowry illegal. If it is
already illegal, movement activists should strive to see to it that people
actually understand that this law is a good thing and will follow it.

2) If women have less chances of paid employment and/or earn lower wages,
women will be less valued. So it makes sense to struggle for wage and
employment equality.

3) If parents want to have a boy to rely on in their old age (because most
girls marry out of their households), for a prospect of the lonly and
financially insecure old age is a real concern, it makes sense for
activists to demand that the State take good care of old pepole while
making sure that there will be community institutions where old people
could hang out, enjoying one another's company as well as getting chances
to meet younger people.

4) There ought to be lots of ideological battles that fight against the
general and particular myths about women's inferiority to men. (But for me
to say more than this, I need to know more about a given country's
conditions.)

>The question I raised concerned your "it is as simple as that" statement
>that sexist sex selection will end with patriarchy (which meant that we
>can't and shouldn't  do anything about sexist sex selection in the
>here-and-now).

No, it doesn't mean that. I belive that true gender equality is impossible
under capitalism, but I have never said that we should not do anything
about inequality now. If I said that, I wouldn't be a feminist (though I
may still qualify as a marxist in some people's minds.) We must take part
in struggles for concrete reforms while linking our current demands in a
way that points to a fundamental transformation of society from capitalism
to socialism. (Easier said than done, isn't it?)

Anyway, I made that comment because this thread originally began with a
question about the relationship among individual women's "moral choices,"
sex selection, "whims," and patriarcy. In this case (as in many others),
marxists' time would be better spent on collective struggles about
structural problems.

> Presumably we oppose rape for other reasons than because
>it is classified by the state as being a crime, correct? Nor should we
>support legal abortion _because_ it is legal -- using that logic, we
>would _oppose_ abortion when it was illegal.

Well, in fact my support for the right to abortion would not change whether
or not it is legal. And rape is to be fought against even if some forms of
rape are legal in some situations (for instance, not all countries
recognize marital rape as crime). So I suppose what I should have said is
that it is rather self-evident that we fight against rape as marxists and
feminists under capitalism and socialism; but it is misguided to restrict
abortion rights even more just because patriarchy may in some cases make
use of abortion for the purpose to sex select in a sexist way.

>Your last question is really beneath you, Yoshie.

So my apology to you for a pot shot. But I was also *greatly annoyed*--to
be very honest--by the (rhetorical?) question in your post (to which I
replied) which asked if I don't do anything about sexism and even rape just
because I made the statement about sex selection not disappearing until
patriarchy ends. I thought you knew me better.

>(but, for the record and as a matter of legal fact, in the US, abortion in
>general is _not_ legal. Indeed, there are a great many restrictions on a
>woman's right to abortion. Further, these restrictions were not only
>imposed by States, but were part and parcel of the Supreme Court ruling in
>Roe v. Wade that legalized abortions under certain conditions).

Surely. Ohio just passed three more restrictions. I guess time to do more
activist work rather than just talking about abortion on a list.

Yoshie




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