Sex, gender, and sexual orientation  (Page 3/7)

In other words, the sociocultural and sociostructural environment of our society and the structure and culture of our corporations creates scenarios in which women and people of color are not on a level playing field in terms of jobs. Even though Kanter wrote her seminal book Men and Women of the Corporation in 1977, things have not changed as dramatically as we would like to think.

Modern feminism

Modern feminism, which is an attempt to overcome the worst aspects of male domination, has a hundred year history in the United States beginning with such women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. In 1898, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) wrote Women and Economics in which she reasoned that women are the only creatures who are totally economically dependent upon the male of the species, and that so long as this condition continued to exist, our American society would stagnate. Gilman also wrote the famous short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” about a woman treated like an object who becomes an object. “She Walketh Veiled and Sleeping,” her best-loved poem, is an indictment of the condition of woman who have been kept emotionally, intellectually, and economically “asleep” by the male-dominated patriarchy.

She walketh veiled and sleeping

For she knoweth not her power;

She obeyeth but the pleading

Of her heart, and the high leading

of her soul, unto this hour.

Slow advancing, halting, creeping

Comes the Woman to the hour!—

She walketh veiled and sleeping,

For she knoweth not her power. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Herland, The Yellow Wall-Paper, and Selected Writings . Penguin: New York. 1999. p. 320.

Mary daly and radical feminism

Feminism, which is an ideology aimed at eliminating patriarchy in support of equality between the sexes has been highly controversial in recent years. It has been linked to the destruction of the family, and there are some conservative social critics who believe that traditional roles for women are necessary in order to maintain social stability. Traditional mainstream feminism, however, is concerned with equality in all aspects of life such as equal pay for equal work; affordable, safe, competent day care; elimination of sexual harassment; tougher rape laws; tougher child abuse laws; tougher domestic violence laws; medical coverage for families; the family leave act; abortion rights; single parent adoption; and increased funding for shelters, among other things. However, when most people think of feminism today, they tend to think of the kind of radical lesbian feminism propounded by activist-writers such as Mary Daly (1928-2010) who taught Feminist Ethics at conservative, Roman Catholic Boston College from 1966 until 2001 when she resigned her tenured professorship rather than allow men into her classes.

One of Daly’s most well known book is Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism . In this 1978 volume, Daly discusses in detail the sexism that has caused women to be second-class citizens or even non-citizens in many parts of the world today (women in Kuwait, in 2010, many years after the Gulf War of the early 1990s, are still not allowed to vote). The Table of Contents of Daly’s book is a striking example of historical sexism around the world. Topics such as Indian sutee or the immolation of widows on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands; Chinese footbinding which actually broke the bones and rotted the flesh of little girls for hundreds of years; and the European witch burnings of the 15 ^th through 17 ^th centuries which resulted in the deaths of between two and nine million people, mostly women, are all egregious examples of the consequences of patriarchal sexism. Radical feminists believe that traditional gender roles do not address the needs of society.