{"id":104,"date":"2006-08-01T12:10:45","date_gmt":"2006-08-01T20:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phlogma.com\/?p=104"},"modified":"2009-06-26T15:25:58","modified_gmt":"2009-06-26T23:25:58","slug":"equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/philosophy-and-sex\/gender-differences\/equality-104","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEquality\u201d\u009d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notes on:<\/em>
\nSylviane Agacinski, Parity of the Sexes<\/em>.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

139<\/em>
\nThe hard pedestal<\/em> of anatomical and physiological differences suggests, perhaps, types of behavior linked to the search for pleasure or parental drives, but it can program nothing on the institutional, legal, or social orders.<\/p>\n

I would like to emphasize, in addition, that equality<\/em> must not be confused with identity<\/em>. To say that men and women are equal does not mean that they are identical: thus the principle of equality does not exclude the recognition of difference.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

140<\/em>
\nEquality is not some self-evident universal truth, far from it. Agacinski cites Hannah Arendt on \u201cthe equality of men in general: it is neither evident nor demonstrable.\u201d\u009d <\/p>\n

…equality of rights<\/em> is necessarily the product of institutions not of nature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

140-1<\/em>
\n…equality refers to the recognition of a value<\/em> and not the knowledge of a fact<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

141<\/em>
\nBut who decides the justness of the principles ruling a society?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

142<\/em>
\nEquality, with its emphasis on a \u201ccommon human identity,\u201d\u009d has often been enlisted in the struggle against racism and other forms of unjust discrimination. But \u201call men are not the same—and even less so men and women—humanity is diverse and not uniform, and it is better to understand and regulate conflicts inherent in this diversity.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

[Expanding on what Agacinski correctly remarks: Race, ethnicity, and perforce cultural tropes such as religion, nationality, etc. are manifestly not<\/em> stable. The vagaries of miscegenation and historical upheaval will undermine, diffuse, or realign clear distinctions among these points of human difference…but sex difference is different<\/em>. We cannot foresee a time when sex difference stops dividing this<\/em> species in two—not without envisioning another unrecognizable one.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

142-3<\/em>
\nWith the Terrence quote, \u201cNothing human is foreign to me,\u201d\u009d—a common sentiment behind a \u201cuniversalist,\u201d\u009d humanist perspective—Agacinski disagrees: <\/p>\n

If we recognized the human is so often foreign to us, and that it is nevertheless necessary to respect it and live with it in peace, everyone would be better equipped to confront sexism and racism. Living together rests on the ability to compromise, never upon the presupposition of natural harmony.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

143<\/em>
\nDifference<\/em>, thus, is not the opposite of equality but, rather, of identity…. Confusion arises because the word \u2018identical\u2019 is sometimes used in the same sense as \u2018equal,\u2019 especially when equality refers to a quantity. We say, for example, that the volume of one container is equal<\/em> or identical<\/em> to another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[Not only<\/em> philosophers, but all those who philosophize<\/em> are prone to a bit of bewitchment by the language (pace<\/em> Wittgenstein).]<\/strong><\/p>\n

144<\/em>
\nIf it were not<\/em> true that equality and difference were compatible, there would not have had to have been such a piece-meal struggle for specific rights for various sectors and phases of humanity: to vote for women, rights to basic welfare, to security for all (not just the rich), etc. Abstract equality of rights or opportunity has had no difficulty coexisting with gross differences of economic and political power. Agacinski writes, <\/p>\n

What does freedom of opinion mean to someone who receives no education? The overly formal nature of the rights of man has been rightly criticized. These rights were necessary and fundamental—but not sufficient. The idea of justice cannot be limited to that of equality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[And what does a formal<\/em> education mean to someone who does not face the challenge of using it? What does it matter that a citizen has a high-school or college education if his decisions are only more sophisticated versions of the travesties of those of a high-school dropout? For it is these<\/em> people (not the high-school dropouts who are less likely vote), who, in electing leaders and representatives from among their own kind, perpetuate unimaginative<\/em> states.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

145<\/em>
\nThe need for equity must allow for the need for correcting, or even surpassing, the simple application of the general law in its way of rendering justice, taking measures or making decrees, and even making laws, by taking into account the concrete reality of cases.<\/p>\n

Taking sexual difference into account in law and in institutions thus appears just and obliges us to recognize the limits of an abstract equality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The notion of \u201cequal opportunity\u201d\u009d comes in for serious criticism.<\/p>\n

[It too often means an equal chance to participate in a game that is rigged against you. It assumes the same things that are valuable to the already privileged should take up your time in competitively attaining. It does not question whether these things themselves ought to be worthy of the effort or whether there might not be others neglected that should supplement or replace them. For instance, the valorization of wealth beyond a human scale<\/em>, beyond the point of diminishing returns even for its possessor, not to speak of others. How many more tens, hundreds, or thousands of times more valuable can a unit of the labor of one human being be than that of another? How much variation can there be across the species as to merit? One need not be against rewarding merit to see that it is not merit that is being rewarded here, or that if it starts out that way, it very soon becomes something else. The market place can be no final arbiter of value. It merely reflects the ways in which we all want to be in on the take. What makes the thief anti-social is that he wants his supplies at an extremely competitive price, different only in degree, and not always that, to what motivates the savvy businessman. Since everything has a price even what is stolen (the costs of surreption, of being fugitive, of the risk of apprehension, etc. here assuming our thief has no internal qualms; if he does, so much the better to make our point), the thief must calculate that the price is worth paying, that he can enjoy the fruits of labor with little of the pain of labor itself, a skill the obscenely successful businessman has perfected as well. And much of the time, he is correct in his calculations, the more so if he is educated, well socialized and connected in the community he intends to betray as in the case of the white collar criminal… But the ultimate criminal is he who has obviated the necessity of breaking laws, or even placed himself in a position to make them. Such a person everyone aspires to be.<\/em> He is called independently wealthy, one of the \u201cpillars of community.\u201d\u009d The independence<\/em> here is significant. It means this person no longer depends<\/em> on others to survive to the extent most of the rest of us do. His resources can overcome any adventitious threat but perhaps his own stupidity. It has long since stopped being about reward for his effort. It is now insulation from the elements that do not spare the rest of us…<\/p>\n

If the common thief operates<\/em> outside the requirements of society, the independently wealthy wants to do better, he wants to live<\/em> outside of them. Can we blame either?<\/p>\n

But we do: loudly the former while we only mutter about the latter and fancy we will have our turn at his game.<\/p>\n

If morality is about the limits we place on individual behavior in order that we all flourish as best we can, not equally (for that word has come to mean less than nothing), but with some modicum of justice, then anyone who seeks to deliberately place themselves outside its purview is immoral.<\/em><\/p>\n

The immoral we shall have with us always even more so than the poor. Unlike the poor, however, for whom environment serves as constant reminder, the morally depraved<\/em> need reminding that they are that.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

147<\/em>
\nAgacinski urges we make the distinction between objective competence for a position (say, a surgeon) and positions where the competence is vastly more subjective such as political office. <\/p>\n

We do not make this distinction often enough, and thus, certain men, and moreover, certain women, candidly believe that you become a candidate in an election because of competence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There may be need for quotas \u201cto institute mixity where it did not previously exist…\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

148<\/em>
\nAgacinski seems concerned with \u201caccess to candidacy\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

[If quotas are a form of positive discrimination to make up for past, negative discrimination (viz<\/em>, in the direction of lopsiding power), and if this is using evil to combat evil, then… but the problem was the characterization of discrimination<\/em> as evil in the first place. This came about from the mistaken assumption that there can be no fundamental and morally significant differences between people, hence no just<\/em> basis for discrimination. But at least<\/em> with regard to sex, this has never been the case. (We scarcely fault partiality with regard to inheritance, nationality, skill etc. We expect a mother to save her own drowning children before those of another. No judgment is being made here on whether we should<\/em>, only that we do<\/em>.) Discrimination is not inherently unjust. It becomes so when coupled with nearly ubiquitous stupidity, but in this it is no different from whatever one contrives to call its opposite.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

149-150<\/em>
\nOn why women are needed in proportionate numbers in philosophy, the social sciences, humanities,…indeed every vantage point from which judgments are made affecting human development:<\/p>\n

Anthropology, history, psychology and psychoanalysis, economics, political science, philosophy, etc. are not the work of neuter subjects but of men and women whose points of view depend in part on their own conditions and on their own experiences as sexed beings. … we must accept the always \u2018political\u2019 dimension of these sciences, acknowledge the unconscious politics of the sexes<\/em>, and avoid granting the masculine perspective a monopoly on interpreting all things human.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

151<\/em>
\nAs legitimate as quota strategies may be, they are a bit different from the idea of parity.<\/p>\n

Parity in politics has thus taken on the meaning of a power sharing between men and women that calls for a new definition of democracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

152<\/em>
\nSometimes reform through \u201csmall steps\u201d\u009d cannot work. This can happen because the underlying conceptual terrain does not permit it. Then, the terrain is due for radical regrading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Notes on: Sylviane Agacinski, Parity of the Sexes. 139 The hard pedestal of anatomical and physiological differences suggests, perhaps, types of behavior linked to the search for pleasure or parental drives, but it can program nothing on the institutional, legal, or social orders. I would like to emphasize, in addition, that equality must not be … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “\u201cEquality\u201d\u009d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,49,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agacinski-parity","category-political-philosophy","category-gender-differences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}