Samantha Meki: I think men have acquired this noble state in the hierachy coz they're physically stronger than women, emotionally repressive than women who show their weaker side and therefore need all the men's stronger qualities to suppliment hers so as to feel secure;hence women play a part as well in pushing the Man up the hierachy making him noble coz they need some of the men's qualities which r totally opposite to theirs.
Jennifer F Armstrong: Yes, that is the conventional view, Samantha. My view is that whilst many men and women have become accustomed to viewing gender relations in that way, it is likely that they have things exactly back to front.
We need to examine our assumptions to understand how this could be.
1. Why is emotional repression considered to be strength in this absolute sense required by patriarchy? Quite clearly all humans are equipped with the capacity to express emotion, so a human that does not express emotion is not necessarily a stronger one, but rather one who is a bit mutilated.
2. Why is the expression of emotion considered to be the expression of "a weaker side"? All humans have the capacity --and need -- to express emotion.
3. Why do women buy into the logic that it is their responsibility to support and affirm men because men repress their emotions more than women do?
4. Hasn't the way women express emotions become poisoned and unnatural, due to their relationship with men within the gender hierarchy? Perhaps this is why female emotions seem "weak", like unwanted and unreliable residues of a more glorious human condition?
5. How did women end up having to try to attain necessary human qualities that are nonetheless deemed to be "the opposite to hers" by sweating for them? In the end, she elevates the male, but does not actually manage to obtain the reward she has been offered. That is, nobility remains always beyond her reach, despite her reaching for it by pushing up the male. Hasn't she been deceived in all sorts of ways?
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