A Confusion of Codes and Maps: What's a Girl To Do?

Looking at the different approaches of feminist discourse, I found the relational intersectionality perspective interesting because of its acknowledgment that “relations of inequality themselves undergo change” and that the individual must be studied within the institution as well as the culture (Ferree, 429). Specifically, the changes in relational dynamics through time and place emphasize the need to study the overall context of each shifting relation. For example, Myra Marx Ferree talks about how “the shift to globalized chains of production…have challenged local gender systems as well as race and class arrangements” (Ferree, 429). Just thirty years ago, women of my grandmother’s generation saw the first signs of emerging globalization as a catalyst to integration in the work place – new global competition following the recession of 1973 and a stagnating cost of living forced employers to need extra workers to face the demands of an expanding economy. Globalization became a major force towards gender economic equality. But, now thirty years later, globalization has led to outsourcing and decreasing safety concerns, a phenomenon which often affects the most disenfranchised of both the export and the import country – women.


In reading Karen Pyke’s article I became quite frustrated by her tone of inevitability, a resignation to the status quo. Although many of her observations have logical support within the context, her article left me asking “How do we change this?” If women are “‘culturally prepared for powerlessness’” and “power relations [are] inherently asymmetrical,” both reinforced by men and women alike, how do we as a society move past these seemingly archaic stereotypes and roles which continue to permeate social relations despite the rise and growing acceptance of feminism (Pyke, 531)?


The different perspectives on enacting gender codes provides some insight into why so many varieties of roles exist even amongst those with similar codes. The way in which someone absorbs a gender code and chooses to exhibit it deeply affects their relations with friends, family, society and themselves. Hochschild’s explanation of Marabel Morgan’s view on how to act out codes left me with a bitter taste in my mouth; why should one have to convince herself of her feelings and actions in order to appease someone else? Helen Gurley Brown’s strategy of accepting gender codes and using ploys to work within them also does not bode well for me; why pretend to have feelings or wants? Although I don’t think tape recording dinner conversations is the best way to create healthy relationships, as suggested by Gloria Steinem, I do agree that egalitarian symmetry is necessary for balancing power and respect within a codified structure.




Q1: Looking at the three different ways of enacting codes, with which do you agree? Do you think it’s possible to “talk [yourself] into believing the flattery” or is it better to “Accept them [acts of thoughtful deeds] as necessary” without wanting to do it (Hochschild, 52-53)?


Q2:Which approach, locational or relational, do you think best captures issues of intersectionality? Is there certain situations which warrant using one approach over the other or should they both be used to complement each other?


Q3: Looking at the E.U.’s “push for state institutionalization of engaged fatherhood,” “activation” and “flexibilization,” do you think these state imposed regulations will change the gender balance within the work place? Do you think it is the state’s place to enact such conditions as “legally fixed retirement ages, vacation days, school calendars and shopping hours”? How does this focus on the family within the law fit in coordination with the growing pressure for increased productivity and globalization? (Ferree, 432)