Round - VII

Read previous round here. Table of Contents here.

Dehumanization of women is not a self-evident fact! You amaze me Sir.

Women weren't considered legal persons for millennia - they couldn't vote or own property or execute contracts or even exercise consent - they still aren't able to in some parts of the world.

Wives have nearly always been considered a husband's property – Daughters the property of their fathers - Rape was originally seen as a crime against the father/husband of the woman or in case of war, a crime against the community which 'owned' those women - even today marital rape isn't considered a crime.

Are these not evidences of dehumanization? Do you also deny that slaves and black people and the Jews and Romanis were dehumanized?

Liking or not liking somebody's face is not dehumanizing them. Judging them PURELY on their face value is.

Calling Feminism an ideology is one thing - calling it a farce is another.

You may be a true humanist - a lot of other people aren't. Denying the presence of those other people is just plain lying.

Reply

Ishita Roy You seem to have missed the whole point. All the examples you cite are largely applicable for western societies. The situation is not homogenous across the world and the Peking Conference finally recognized it as a fact. Calling feminism an epistemology is not to call it a farce...but to admit that it is "a" way of knowing - not the only way of knowing. Status of a legal person, ability to execute contracts, exercise consent, economic agency, and social power - which of these are not present in full measure in corporations? These are by no means self-evident facts of humanization because they can be possessed by non-person entities such as organizations as well. Feminism is an epistemology because it allows you interpret facts in its terms. It is not a necessary condition for improving the woman condition. Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar, Keshavchandra Sen, Arvindo Ghosh, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi. Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya and scores of other people have done wonderful work for improving woman condition. They didn't draw from feminism. They leveraged Indian culture and knowledge traditions that supplies alternatives epistemologies. It is important for us to recognize that feminism is one of the many ways of knowing the world - no better than any other.....whether worse than some is a point to be examined.

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