1

Public v. Private:Gendering the Social World

Week 4 – Lecture 1

5 February 2008

2

3

4

Subject: Questions "On Liberty"To: schloess@bc.eduDate: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:19:44 -0500

Dear Professor Schloesser,

1. I comprehend Mill's fear of conformity. You made it pretty clear in your e-mail as well that the predominant sense of uniformity hinders the eccentricity of intellectuals and thus inhibits them from forming new ideas. Is Mill forming a connection between equality and conformity? Obviously, just because all people are equal doesn't mean they have to be the same. But, is Mill afraid that because all people are cognizant of their equality, they will move inexorably in the direction of conformity?

2. Is it safe to say that Mill and his disgust of assimilation, customs and habits is in contrast with Edmund Burke's conservatism? I feel like Mill would be distrustful of big institutions (i.e. The Catholic Church) and their laws which are rarely questioned even though they have withstood the test of time.

3. And my final question, why does Mill keep appealing to "utility"? It comes across like "utility" is higher than Locke's, Hobbes' & Rousseau's "natural rights." I know Mill was a Utilitarian, but that doesn't help much.

Subject: Two Quick QuestionsTo: schloess@bc.eduDate: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:48:07 -0500

Dear Professor,

I have two questions on the Mill's reading. In his introduction (on pages 21 and 22), Mill says that the government cannot justify an act of "compulsion and control" simply because it is for the good of the people. As a Utilitarian, doesn't he want to maximize what is good for the people, so shouldn't he support legislation that it is for the common good? Also, I don't understand his talk of "tyranny of the majority" because I thought that Utilitarians, while using a consequentialistmoral theory, often overlooked minorities. I most likely missed some crucial point in the reading.

5

Bentham: the two great principles – pleasure and pain –lead to “rule of utility”=

“greatest happiness to greatest number”

Later: realizes these two principles can conflict; drops “greatest number” for the “happiness principle”

Mill: “pleasure” is not the principal utility cultural, intellectual spiritual pleasures [e.g., knowledge]

1859

Elected: November 1860

Inaugurated: January 1861

6

Subject: Two Quick QuestionsTo: schloess@bc.eduDate: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:48:07 -0500

Dear Professor,

I have two questions on the Mill's reading. In his introduction (on pages 21 and 22), Mill says that the government cannot justify an act of "compulsion and control" simply because it is for the good of the people. As a Utilitarian, doesn't he want to maximize what is good for the people, so shouldn't he support legislation that it is for the common good?

<“utility principle” = “greatest happiness”>

Also, I don't understand his talk of "tyranny of the majority" because I thought that Utilitarians, while using a consequentialist moral theory, often overlooked minorities.

1859

http://wilderdom.com/psychology/social/introduction/Influence.html

7

What to do about the end of distinctions?

1. “Class”

2. “Gender”

I. Gendering the public and private

What is a “traditional” domestic arrangement?

8

“The Kennedy-Obama connection is central to the campaign’s message, which is that the American people have been wandering in the desert for more than a generation, waiting for another leader who could show them how to reach for the stars. But J.F.K.’s grand achievement was the raising of expectations, not the follow-through. His administration was a decidedly mixed bag, during which people spent a great deal of time building nuclear fallout shelters.” Gail Collins, 1/31/08

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/opinion/31collins.html

9

A. “Traditional” vs. “Modern”

Traditional: no division

between work and home

Marriage / Family:

1) Economic unit

2) Productive

-- agriculture

-- shop-owners [petit-bourgeois]

--living space over shop

Women work alongside men as agricultural laborers mowing with sickles. [1702]http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/109.2/ogilvie.html

Master baker and wife do core guild tasks while unmarried female carries burdens. [1702]

10

Married woman engages in guildedbasketmaking alongside husband while unmarried female does housework. [1702]

Women work alongside men as agricultural laborers harvesting grain. [1770]

11

Woman spins while men chop wood and hunt. [1770]

Cadbury – petit bourgeois

[“small business owners”]

He minds the shop

She keeps books

They live over the shop

12

II. The Traditional World Ends around 1800.

The question is: Why?

1. Political – equality for all “citizens”

And yet: a need for hierarchy / social order

David: Oath of the Horatii

13

Jacques-Louis David: The Oath of the Horatii (1784)

Jacques-Louis David: The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789)

14

2. Scientific

Invention of the “two-sex” model of humans

cf. Diderot’s Encyclopedia!!

15

16

17

3. Urbanization / Sub-urbanization

-- Professionalization: business partner has learned bookkeeping at school; unskilled wife no longer partner

-- Suburbanization: they move to suburban home

He commutes // She stays home, raises children, “mistress of the house” [cozy private sphere; his refuge]

http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/greenwich/plumstead/plumstead-1800-1900-02.htm

“Modern”

marriage / family:

1) Emotional (not economic) unit

2) Consumptive (not productive) unit

Caution: this is for bourgeois families; not working-class

18

Intersection of Liberalism and Gender

Exclusion of women from politics

American suffragette, 1918

• B. Exclusion of women from Liberal politics

– men debate in public; women excluded

– 1848: universal suffrage granted to men [UK] but not women

– women’s jobs: not to be civic subjects but to raise civic subjects: “inculcate virtue” [discipline] in their sons

– in middle-class language, a “public woman” is a street-walker

19

“Feminization of Religion” in the 19th century:

Is “religion” a “public” or a “private” sphere?

• SUM: Gender: new means of organizing the societal body• In Liberal theory: not a hierarchical way of organizing society differences

– “Separate but equal”– Gendered spheres: yet another way (in addition to “class”) of replacing privilege,

nobility, blood as organizing principle

20

C. “Uneven Developments”: Class intersects Gender

• A. “Female private sphere” is an ideology that is organized by class: – Hedda is bored– working-class women

have to work!– Think about her maid!

Frédéric Louis Levé, A Cloud [1907]

21

Infantalization of women• Bourgeois women not allowed to leave home without governess• Confined; dabble in arts; socializing• She’s bored to death!!!

22

Frédéric Louis Levé, A Cloud [1907]

Foreshadowing:

“Hysteria” diagnosis… and Freud

23

24

SUM: 19th-century “private” as “feminine”

Household: moves from being primarily

An economic/ productive unit[an aspect of “public” life]to

an emotional / consumptive unit [meets our “private” needs].

Freud: two human impulsions: “Work and Love”

III. “Home”

Cf. “nostalgia” = “homesickness”

25

A. Architecture

[Boston brownstones, Comm. Ave.]

Brownstone: hierarchical layers of class and gender[NB: servants at the top! No elevators!]

26

27

Degas, Interior --- The Rape (1868-69)

Shadow side of “privacy”

28

Peasant Home 16th c.<-->Middle-class home 19th c.Private space? Individuality?

Warm refuge from “cold” public sphere?

29

• Heavy drapery, carpeting, wallpaper• Elaborate decorations, plants• A little nest: a “wall” of private life as a refuge from public sphere

↑ 1800s bourgeois

1920s Bauhaus →

30

Interiors: Crowded and “Cozy”: Perhaps suffocating to our sensibilities?