[Buddha-l] Re: Gender on Buddha-l

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Bernie Simon schreef:

> The difference between the male and female point of view is the 
> difference between the point of view (pov) of the oppressor and the 
> oppressed. I think that somewhere in Edward Conze's collection of 
> essays, Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies, he writes that while the 
> oppressed understands the pov of the oppressor, the reverse is not 
> true. The oppressor can't be bothered to think in other terms, sees 
> their own pov as the way things are and not a pov at all, and the 
> oppressed pov as deviant.
>
> -

This is crap of the worst kind. And backed up by an authority argument. Think if you can! This is about justice. And this discussion wouldn't be possible if justice wouldn't supposed to be a shared value and have shared norms. If women or any other group have less power or freedom then other groups we find this wrong, whether we are guys or girls. Now to say to a member of a group that he's unjust because he's not a memeber of an oppressed group is just bad reasoning. An individual cannot be responsable for the structure of a social field. My wife and I share our domestic duties as well as we can, but that doesn't mean that the differences in male and female social role patterns will stop. The world isn't just, it never was. We can only try, can we? A good way to start in the U.S. would be to change the administration and we cannot say that Richard doesn't try. :-) 

Erik


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