Culture in the Blender

Most of my mental capacity at the moment is going into being mad about and trying to understand the sexist behavior of someone at work. A fact that I think is highly relevant – and is currently being suppressed – is that the man in question is from a society that is generally known to be much more sexist than the country in which I am now, which in turn is more sexist than at least one of my other homes. (Not just from my personal observations, mind you, from studies and reports as well.) Susan Moller Okin has written an essay entitled Is Multicultralism Bad for Women? that raises a number of good questions about group rights and women’s rights. I think she’s right – there comes a point where the interests of women in a minority group are not commensurate with the interests of the men in it, and that can’t be ignored. Furthermore, therecomes a point where the interests of men in a minority group are opposed to, well, ALL women. You can’t give people carte blanche to oppress women (or homosexuals, or any other group) just because they’re a minority. To my partial relief, I have heard multiple people respond with “When in Rome…” to that he may not have a coherent picture of what a professional relationship is, or may carry with him ideas about women and their place that are not acceptable even here in the US. However, I’ve also gotten quick warnings not to be racist.

I do not think that for me as a woman to be suspicious of people, but especially men, from cultures widely known to have oppressive ideas about women is racist. It simply doesn’t have anything to do with skin color, it has to do with culture and cultural-societal constructs. I’m a bit suspicious of, frankly, all men on this count. However, with 99% of the men I encounter, they do not give me any indication that it is anything but suspicion, and I drop it and proceed with business. With partners that aren’t from the handful of countries that have reconstructed social reality to the point where a dad who doesn’t do half of the housework and pick up the kids at daycare is a deadbeat dad, I have always worried about how they will behave as a partner. At any rate, no matter how delicately you have to handle cultural imperialism, positing universals where there may or may not be any, etc – this isn’t a general case of a woman in one country getting pissed about how sexism another country is. I’m pissed about how an expatriate to one of the countries I’m from is applying cultural norms from another country to me, much to my detriment. My heart tells me that a woman from his country has all right to be pissed for the same reasons I am and probably more that she might know and I don’t, but that’s for her and her sisters-in-arms to fight. However, I cannot see why this man ought to be allowed to break all kinds of (at least supposed) norms of this society that we’re both in and oppress me because I’m a woman simply because he’s an expatriate and part of a racial minority. That makes no sense whatsoever. I’ve spent my life adjusting to cultures, and this is what I get? Imported, sanctioned oppression?