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A CHANGE IN VALUES 

A change in values: Texte
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A change in values: Image

By Inés Tijera 

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Feminine vs Masculine traits


In patriarchal societies different traits have been associated with either the feminine or the masculine. Care, emotions, comfort, private, dependance, irrationality, reproductivity and passivity have been attributed to women while work, strength, adventure, independence, public, rationality, productivity and activity to men. This binary separation ruled how humans went about their daily lives for at least a few centuries arguable much longer than that. On top of this, in patriarchal systems the divide is hierarchical, meaning the traits associated with men are esteemed more valuable than those linked to women. The correlation however does not explain the order of causation. As far as I know it is an ongoing debate whether women’s lower status caused the more negative views on the attributes associated to them or if the negative association of these traits were the reason why they were attributed to the feminine gender and thus reinforcing women’s lower status in society.

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To illustrate my point, I will use emotions or being emotional as an example. Rationality and analytical thought have been viewed as superior to emotions in our society. Attributing emotions to women and making it dichotomic means if women are emotional, they are also automatically considered irrational. Being irrational is often viewed as the same as being dumb, naïve or even childlike, in a nutshell someone in need of supervision. With these attributes associated to women it can be easily justified that men should have authority over them and consequence control. The other way is that emotions are only seen as inferior to rationality because they are associated with the feminine which has a worse position in society compared to the masculine. In this scenario, emotions being associated with women is the cause of the devaluation of emotions. Most likely the truth lies somewhere in between, with the two reinforcing each other. I do believe that the association of certain traits to women is due to learned behavior and that viewing them as inferior is very convenient to justify the dominance of men over women.

A change in values: Texte

Women changed, not the system


In last century in western society a fascinating shift happened, which to a degree can and should be attributed to the second wave of the feminist movement. Middle and upper-class women started claiming many of the attributes and traits previously reserved for men. They increasingly started to work (productive), become visibly engaged in politics (public), travel (adventure), live alone (independence), study (rationality), create art (activity) etc. It is important to remark that poor women or single mothers previously were working or living alone yet they weren’t considered as respectable by society. Yet, by having women taking on these tasks and traits who benefited from a high status (even if inferior to the men surrounding them) changed society’s perception. In consequence, an important justification for women’s inferiority fell off. This improved their position in society without changing the actual patriarchal system. It allowed those women who had the options and chose to move up on the patriarchal ladder by essentially becoming “men”.


It also happens to be that the attributes associated with men are the values promoted of a capitalistic system. Emphasizing financial independence, productivity and again rationality, which is essentially the homo economicus: A person who makes decisions by calculating costs and benefits, without the interference of emotions. Yet, the problem is that devaluing reproductive tasks or emotions has profound negative consequences. Now, that many women have distanced themselves from them in order to improve their social status and men haven’t taken them up either, basically a vacuum is being created.


The global care chains are one example of the consequences of this vacuum. Either women (and some men) will try to keep up with the double shift of paid work and domestic care work to the loss of leisure time and mental wellbeing. Or dual career households in wealthy countries will engage paid help in order to deal with the housework that traditionally the ‘wife’ was responsible for. Often, women from poorer countries will leave their own families and, in many cases, small children behind because of the salary and monetary security such a job can provide for them. At the same time their families will pay even poorer women form the same country to take care of children during the mothers’ absence. These women’s children then are left to fend for themselves with the older siblings taking care of the younger ones or relaying on community networks. The trauma this can create for

the mothers and the children should not be understated.

A change in values: Texte

Change values to change the system


I am not arguing that it is inherently bad that women work, study, or travel. Quite the opposite, I myself have highly benefited from the privileges to be able to engage in these activities. It’s the reason why I am able to write about this in the first place. However, what I am trying to say it appears that the system is out of balance because of the negative views on traits associated with the feminine.

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Care is important. So are emotions, we aren’t completely rational beings and pretending to be is ironically more irrational. A change in values is crucial if we want to live in a world where humans can be happy. This doesn’t mean that women should go back to taking care of the household while men work. It means we need to imagine how it could be different. If care is seen as valuable maybe more men will also be interested in staying at home to raise their kids or to cook and clean. If emotions aren’t seen as a weakness maybe men will be more likely to speak up when they are facing mental health issues instead of becoming aggressive and showing up on the statistics of domestic violence. If we don’t see dependence as such a negative thing, maybe we will organize ourselves with a community to share the domestic care tasks. Maybe with a change in values we escape the deadlock of a system we all seem to be trapped in. Maybe we can afford to produce less and, in the process,

stop the degradation of our environment that threatens our existence.


A lot of maybes with a lot of potential. I could keep writing about this, but I think you get the idea. In my surroundings I see change happening. This gives me hope, but I know we have a long way to go.

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Watch this short film that illustrates the care chains in Paris je t’aime: loin du 16e by Daniela Thomas and Walter Salles. 

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Bibliography:

Arlie Russell Hochschild. (2001). Global care chains and emotional surplus value. In A. Giddens & W.

Hutton, On the Edge: Living with Global Capitalism.

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Doreen B. Massey. (1994). A global sense of place. In Doreen B. Massey, Space, place, and gender.

University of Minnesota Press.

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Francesca Bettio, Annamaria Simonazzi, & Paola Villa. (2006). Change in care regimes and female

migration: The ‘care drain’ in the Mediterranean. Journal of European Social Policy, 16(3), 271–285.

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Linda McDowell. (1999). Gender, identity, and place: Understanding feminist geographies. University of

Minnesota Press.

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Saskia Sassen. (2009). Global Cities and Survival Circuits. In Kevin Gaines, Barry Shank, & Penny Von

Eschen, American Studies: An Anthology. John Wiley & Sons.

A change in values: Texte

Photo credits: Inés Tijera

A change in values: Texte
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