Doan Trung Nghia (T.

N)
9/20/2014
Change the World Professor David Kristjanson-Gural
Assignment Week 4

1. a. What implications do norms of masculinity and femininity have for mens and womens lives in the public
and private spheres according to Kaufman?
In Kaufmans view, Masculinity and femininity constructs our society and how different genders function.
When we talk about women, we often think of lower wage, less involvement in politics and economics and strong
association with household and children. The opposite is true about men: domination in almost every social aspect
and favorable income. Masculinity and femininity sometimes take extreme form. For example, its not rare to find
men using violence to dominate over women and women following unhealthy life style to achieve the beauty
standard set up by the society. The reason comes from a popular belief: In most large-scale modern societies,
masculinity or maleness is associated with strength and power, rational and logical thinking, and aggressive
emotions such as anger rather than the more empathic emotions associated with vulnerability. Femininity, on the
other hand, is associated with weakness and deference, intuitive reasoning, and with emotions related to
vulnerability rather than anger. (Kaufman, 154)
Moreover, the expectation for children plays an important role in molding their behavior. We create a
reward system to mold our childrens behavior according to our wish. Adults are the first ones to bring concept of
masculinity and femininity into childrens brain. When they are encouraged at rough and tumble play and scolded
for expressing fear, as male babies disproportionately are, they become more active and emotionally guarded;
when they are warned against risk-taking and cooed over for how cute they look, as female babies
disproportionately are, they become more passive and responsive. (Kaufman, 155)
b. What are the four core characteristics of gender roles according to Hackman and how do they act to support
the ideology of sexism? Relate her analysis and/or that of Kaufman to your own experience or that of someone
important to you.
According to Hackman, four characteristics of gender roles that perpetuate sexism are biological belief,
heteronormativity, diametrical opposition and violence.
The first characteristic is biological belief. According to Kaufman, genders are born with biological
differences. As a result, status quo assigns genders with different behaviors. It ingrains in our mind, making us
believe that the position of our gender is fixed. We, therefore, have a tendency to comfortably accept these labels
rather find a way to fight against them. If you ever wonder why there are fewer female leaders than male
counterparts, Hackman proposes an explanation: Women are too emotional to be good leaders. (Hackman, 319)
The second example is heteronormativity. Heteronormative attitudes categorize people into only two
acceptable groups, men and women. According to advocates of heteronormativity, heterosexuality is the only
natural form; lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, transgender (LGBTQ) people, therefore, threaten the natural social
construction of the society. In addition, generations implant in us the concept of acting like a man and acting
like a woman, so strong that tolerance towards LGBTQ is a complicated process.
The third example is diametrical opposition. Social norm dictates that men are higher to women in the
hierarchy. For every good characteristic men have, women have the exact opposite reputation. For every
characteristics that students defined as masculine, for example being tough and strong (superior), they defined
feminine as the exact opposite, weak and docile (inferior). (Hackman, 319) The author then points out an
outrageous example that is surprisingly prevalent, when men used the concept of non-heterosexual and women to
insult each other.
The last core characteristic of gender roles is violence. From verbal harassment to physical assault, men
use violence as a means to oppress women. From school bullies to domestic violence accused, violence tights to
men rather than women. This is the ultimate manifesto of sexism, as men give themselves the right to assault
women and violate their womens rights.
Born in privileged gender, I didnt pay too much attention sexism when I was little. In Vietnam, when a girl
gets married, she comes to live in the house of her husbands family and is therefore considered their daughter.
As a result, many parents prefer sons to daughters. After my older sister was born, my family was poor, and my
parents struggled to make ends meet. The obvious solution would be settling down, being satisfied with my sister
and putting all the resources to bring her up. However, the prevalent desire to have a son affected my parents, and
then they had me as the second child despite of our situation. Thankfully, it worked out for my families, but there
are many families in Vietnam living in poverty because they have too many children. This again emphasizes the
sexist perception that boys are better than girls many parents hold.
c. In Chapter 6, Kaufman identifies a number of different feminist responses (liberal, radical, socialist and multi
systems). What type of feminist response makes the most sense to you and why? What does the response you
chose have in common with the other responses and in what way does it differ?
Multi systems feminist makes sense to me the most. While all four feminist types try to reach goal of
equality for women and freedom of oppression for women, multi systems feminist stands out as the most inclusive.
While liberal, radical and socialist rarely mention other types of social justice, multi systems feminist recognizes
the connection between sexist and racism, classism and homophobia. They understand that a womans struggle
doesnt only come from genders oppression, but rather a combination of pressure from social forces. Bell Hooks
explains this notion: Privileged feminists have largely been unable to speak to, with, and for diverse groups of
women because they either do not understand fully the inter-relatedness seriously They reflect the dominant
tendency in Western patriarchal minds to mystify womens reality by insisting that gender is the sole determinant
of womans fate.(Bell Hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center)
Multi system feminist frees from the loopholes from other feminist response. Liberal feminism rarely had
an answer to the questions of who should take care of children and how society could be organized to take their
interests into consideration (Kaufman, 165). It focuses solely on fighting for the equality of women without
realizing the consequences to the society as a whole: Are women really liberated when some women rely on the
exploited labor of others to take care of the domestic sphere? Do we want a society based on increased levels of
alienation and competition? Are women really liberated when they begin to act according to the value structure
propagated by men in the dominant groups of society? (Kaufman, 166) Radical feminism also shows its weakness
by accepting the gender assumptions of the society: Radical feminists are more likely to challenge a value
structure that puts reason above emotion. Socialist feminist, on the other hand, neglect women of color and
focused too much on the experiences of white women in the United States. (Kaufman, 174)


2.a. Explain the main elements of Rawls view of justice as fairness?

b. How does Rawls contest Nozicks idea of basing fairness on market outcomes? What is your assessment of
these completing views?