The Oppression of Women as Women

The oppression of wo custody as wo workforce PHIL 202 Assignment 1 26/01/2012 The patriarchal confederacy in which we rattling has systematically oppressed women for centuries. It is non until extremely recent history, with the Womens outpouring Movement, that women puzzle been open to take meaningful strides towards a much(prenominal) postulate-to doe with and just society. We rich person come a long vogue since that time, women trick flat vote, work, practice politics and live independently of men it bets as though we have come very close to the equality that we have worked so hard to achieve. provided that statement has proven to be incredibly false.If we examine Marilyn Fryes metaphor of the bird cage and apply it to the changes that have been brought upon our society we can project how the oppression of women not merely until at present exists, but has gained new dimensions. By inspecting the progress women have made to ruffle into patriarchal society we can see that we have succeeded to remove approximately of the fit outs that have held us back from escaping the cage, however the removal of these wires has added new responsibilities for the egg-producing(prenominal) gender and it is these new responsibilities that have added completely new wires to our cages.By examining Marilyn Fryes expression Oppression we will examine why she believes that women are oppressed as women (Frye, p. 16) and why it is that, even though men hardihood barriers and difficulties, she believes that they are not oppressed as men (Frye, p. 16) Whilst reading Fryes article I was truly disagreeing with the tops she was making. How can she state that men are not be views oppressed in some way they have the burden of sustenance their families, they cannot express any(prenominal) emotions without seeming weak, and they arrogatet have the picking of spending as much time with their children?These facts made me certain that men too were oppressed, how ever in a different way than women. As I neared the end of the article I came to a sudden recognition the opinions I had formed were a product of my microscopic view of the smirch and I was not able to see that the burdens men faced were only barriers held in place in order to preserve the patriarchal society that has been created and they were not faced with systematic oppression. In order to illustrate this point we can take a look at an example from the side of two opposing genders. The workplace seems to be following the path f equality, even though certain issues remain (men earning more than women on average, men holding higher positions etc) they seem to be miniscule problems compared to the unmatchables faced by the women decades before us. The wire on the cage that we would have named ability to lock a career seems to be a rusty weak wire that is falling apart, no longer capable of holding women back. It may seem as if this is a victory, however, the oppressing society we live in has ensured that the destruction of that hit wire has been acknowledged and replaced by a new strong and stalwart set of wires in order to ensure systematic oppression.Now that women are able to work they are perceive as lazy and old-fashioned if they dont, however if they do work they are perceived as universe intimidating, bad mothers and sometimes masculine. whence it seems as if the situation where a women is perceived as hard-working, intelligent, ambitious and modern as well as wo military manish and an excellent mother and homemaker does not exist, yet it is actively expect of them if any of the aforementioned characteristics are not present she will be given a dreadful label by society.It is clear that the advancements we have made have lead to an entirely new dimension of oppression. If we now continue on to examine the role of a man in the workplace we can see that they do face barriers but they are in absolutely no way systematically oppressed. If we exam ine a single barrier they face, for example, the burden of having to support their family, as this is the norm with regards to conjure up roles. The man must go to work and must earn bills to pay the mortgage, to feed their children and to buy his wife the dishwasher she has been nagging him to get.This is a responsibility that he is expected to fulfill, however he is no way oppressed. In order to obtain an adequate job a man may go to school, earn a degree and find a stable and well-paying job. He will find this job with much more ease than a cleaning woman with the same qualifications and will get payed more than the aforesaid women. Being a man will be an improvement to his search and will in no way place any obstacles in his way, as opposed to woman whose gender is significantly attached to whatever injustices and deprivations she suffers, be they great or small. (Frye, p. 6) By obtaining a job, he has now earned the labels of intelligent, ambitious, and hard-working of m elody, in our age and time a woman might be able to acquire all of these labels as well. However the labels describing her femininity and home-life might not be as pleasant.What about a man? He is now supporting his family therefore he is now masculine and worthy, he is also seen as a good induce as he is supporting his children (the fact that he might not spend an adequate amount of time with them is of no importance as in our society financial support takes precedent of emotional support. Therefore our society has given him the burden of supporting his family but we can see that this is only a barrier put in place in order to for men to be able to exclude women from semipolitical and economic life and therefore control it. It may be a disadvantage in some ways, however it is important to recognize that it is a needed disadvantage in order to maintain control and can in no way be labelled as oppression.The simple precondition oppression must be understood because without catc h its rightful meaning it is much misused, and sometimes not innocently (Frye, p. 0) We must come to the understanding that men do face obstacles and barriers however they do not face the systematic oppression that women do as a result of their gender. Of course there are oppressed men living all slightly the conception, but this oppression does not stem from the simple fact of their brace but many other factors such as socio-economic situation, sexual orientation, political situations etc Simply put, there are thousands, maybe millions of men around the world who are in no way oppressed, but not one single woman because her gender is the defining characteristic for her oppression.