A few years ago (2002) is published by éditions La Dispute the translation of a text of Goffman, originally published in the United States in 1977, and until then little known1. It is The arrangement of the sexes.
Erving Goffman shows that the basis of social differences between the sexes reside a large number of beliefs and social practices, which form a system that is particularly effective. Theargument of biological differences always comes back to the front of the stage to justify the social differences between the sexes, the reading of this work of Goffman allows you to battle with this misconception. The theoretical issue of this book is to assess the way in which the differences between the sexes are constantly presented as explanatory of the social arrangements.
“In all societies, the initial classification by sex is at the beginning of a sustainable process of sorting, by which the members of both classes are subject to a socialization differential. From the beginning, the persons classified in group male, and those who are in the other group are given a different treatment, acquire different experience, will benefit or suffer from different expectations. “
“By such and such a gesture, ritualized, the men will not miss to show, from time to time, they consider women as beings fragile and precious, that it needs to be protected from the harsh realities of life and to whom we should witness to love and respect. The women can well be defined as being of lesser value than men, but it is with seriousness that they are idealized, mythologisées, through values such as mothering, innocence, kindness, sexual appeal, and so on – a pantheon of lesser value may be, but still a pantheon. In addition, many women – perhaps their large majority in the United States even in our own days – are deeply convinced that, if sickening, that is the place they are in society, the official view of what differentiates their natural characteristics from those of men is accurate, and that it is eternally and naturally. It is these specific factors that are associated with the position of women which introduced a likeness considerable between our modern world and egalitarian worlds the more patriarchal than we can ever imagine. “
For more information :
– Short reading note
– An analysis in Bitches care