Hochschild’s article Gender Codes and the Play of Irony was a very interesting read. The emphasis on gender codes reminded me of the Intro Women’s Studies class that I took this past summer. In the lecture we talked how the changing gender codes are a paradox to what the feminist movement actually stood for. Instead of reaching a stage of egalitarianism, the striving to have more rights as men in the public sphere tends to lead to a more stigmatization of women. Women who are fighting for more equality, in my perspective, argue that they want what men have rather than to what women want. It seems to me that, to them, egalitarianism equals to a more masculine identity. For example, if we look at the chart of Gender Codes in the book (Hochschild, 49), in the modern codes we are able to see a pattern of subtle masculinity taking place. A career-woman look consists of business suits in subdued “male” colors and short hair while women should use male vocabulary in order to be taken seriously at work. Perhaps in their minds, achieving equality with men means becoming a man themselves. However, wanting equal rights should not equate as having to become an exact replica of the counterpart. I believe that this will only to further division along the gender lines and further stigmatize the female “domesticity” roles and male “aggressive/career” roles. Hochschild argues that we could either hold on or let go of these advices through irony. I do not see how this is possible when the society imposes upon us to take on these gender codes either traditional or modern.
Can this be a driving factor for a mother waning their daughter(s) to go out to the public sphere and have a career-oriented life? This relates back to what Hochschild wrote in her introduction chapter. She writes how even though her mother was a good mother, she had never seen her mother to be genuinely happy in her domestic/caretaker role. As a result, Hochschild claims that she “developed the simple, mistaken, idea that staying home to care for children was sad and going to work was happy” (Hochschild, 5). This idea that care does not necessarily bring about joy is new to me. In fact, I do not believe that I have ever though of it. I have never noticed my mom being ever being unsatisfied with her primary role as a mother/wife/care-taker. After becoming a professional artist in her early 40s, I have never seen my mom being overjoyed that she had a career outside the domestic sphere. She seemed to enjoy her different roles within the different spheres and she was able to balance it very well. If Parsons were here, he would be terribly surprised to find out that our family was not a dysfunctional one (since my mom was not a “traditional”/exclusive homemaker in his eyes)—rather I was brought up in a stable, loving, and functional family. Has this shaped my (future) career life or my perspective on care? I do not think so.
Q1) Is it possible to just let go of these gender codes imposed upon us by the society?
Q2) Is it possible to want equal rights as men without taking on a subdued form of a masculine identity?
Q3) Do you believe that “female depressive solution” affects the way one sees her own future (career-wise) or perspective on the domestic sphere?
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