SMALL HAPPINESS (VC0888)

THEMES AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

• It seems pretty clear that the social structure portrayed in the film oppresses women.  The concept of oppression lies at the heart of development, so we need to get clear about it.  So: what is the nature of the oppression, exactly? What makes it oppression as opposed to, say, just differentiated gender roles or a just — maybe God-ordained — subordination of women to men?  How do you know it's oppression when the women (not to mention the men!) don't seem to mind it, when they agree to it?
• We also need to understand how oppression persists.  So:
  • If the social structure is oppressive, why have women been unable to change the system for so many millennia?  That is, what keeps the system rolling along from generation to generation?
  • If it’s oppressive, why do many or most women feel it to be right?
• The concepts of "institutionalized oppression" and "internalized oppression" are useful in understanding the nature and persistence of oppression.
  • Institutionalized oppression is oppression that results from institutions (i.e., other people) having control over you. The issue is not the control per se but rather that it results in things that are bad.
  • Internalized oppression is oppression that oppressed people themselves have "bought into".  For example, some women believe that women really are inferior to (or at least deserve less than) men.  Here the central issue is not whether the men believe that women are inferior.  The central issue isn't whether women recognize that they are seen as inferior or recognize that they can't do anything about it.  The central issue is, rather, whether women themselves see themselves as truly inferior.  In the oft-quoted words of Eleanor Roosevelt, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
  • What institutional oppression do you see at work in the film?   What internalized oppression do you see? What evidence do you see that people are breaking out of those oppressions?   What resistance is there to the oppression?
• Institutionalized and internalized oppression usually feed on each other: the institutional oppression produces oppressed people who see the oppression as a reality about themselves rather than the society; this internalized oppression justifies the existing social order as being "the natural, inevitable order of things" instead of something humans make and thus can unmake.  Any theory of development has to deal with both these oppressions simultaneously.  In other words, development has to involve changes in both individuals and societies together.
• What development seems to be occurring in this society, according to the film?  How do you justify your calling it development?  In what sense, if any, is it political development?
• Is there a sense of oppression (and thus of development) that is independent of people’s choices?  I.e., would we be justified in saying that Long Bow’s culture is oppressive to women, even if no one objects to it?
• Is this just a bizarre foreign culture?  “Benighted heathens”?   Is there any oppression in our own society?

POSSIBLE ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

It seems pretty clear that the social structure portrayed in the film oppresses women. The concept of oppression lies at the heart of development, so we need to get clear about it. So what is the nature of the oppression, exactly? What makes it oppression as opposed to, say, just differentiated gender roles?

Oppression: unequal life chances; lower wages; fixed roles; physical oppression (bound feet; responsibility for birth control measures); isolation in husband's home; control and abuse by mother-in-law; being sold; responsibility for job AND family.

It is oppression instead of just differentiated (but equal) gender roles because in the original position people wouldn't be indifferent between genders.

* We also need to understand how oppression persists. So: If the social structure is oppressive, why have women been unable to change the system for so many millennia? That is, what keeps the system rolling along from generation to generation?

Note the overall sequence: each woman is born not a member of the family but a guest; only route out is to get married and leave; sent to husband's house and isolated; threatens mother-in-law's relations with her son; only route out is to have a son; lavish protection on him, the source of her status, and disregard the daughters; raise him; tyrannize his wife in turn, demanding that she have a son. And so the circle completes itself.

Look at the psychological effects on both women and men. From birth women are regarded as worth less than men, and they see only one opportunity to succeed (within the system as they find it, anyway). They conclude that they ARE worth less than men, that they deserve to serve men.

From birth men are taught that they're the cat's meow. Who wouldn't agree with that? They are taught that they're special, and it takes a singularly aware and self-confident man to reject the social system that gives them such status, whose consciousness can transcend the omnipresent lesson that women's perspective is not an important one to consider.

* The concepts of "institutionalized oppression" and "internalized oppression" are useful in understanding the nature and persistence of oppression.

>> Institutionalized oppression is oppression that results from institutions (i.e., other people) having control over you.

>> Internalized oppression is oppression that oppressed people themselves have "bought into". (For example, some women believe that women really are inferior to men.)

What institutional oppression do you see at work in the film? What internalized oppression do you see? What evidence do you see that people are breaking out of those oppressions?

Institutionalized oppression: Women responsible for birth control. Leaders are all men (except for specifically "women's" concerns; women are all workers.

* Institutionalized and internalized oppression usually feed on each other: the institutional oppression produces oppressed people who see the oppression as a reality about themselves rather than the society; this internalized oppression justifies the existing social order as being "the natural, inevitable order of things" instead of something humans make and thus can unmake. Any theory of development has to deal with both these oppressions simultaneously. In other words, development has to involve changes in both individuals and societies together.

* What development seems to be occurring in this society, according to the film? How do you justify your calling it development? In what sense, if any, is it POLITICAL development?

No more foot binding. No more arranged marriages.

LECTURE ON "SMALL HAPPINESS"

[Put on board:]

* INSTITUTIONALIZED OPPRESSION

* INTERNALIZED OPPRESSION

* DEONTIC VS. ARETAIC JUDGMENTS

* Some of you may have seen this in other courses with different perspectives on it, but I show it for a very specific reason: To show the nature of culture and how oppression works.

* Some elements I hope you'll get out of this video and our discussion:

• that cultures around the world are not like our own!
• that oppression comes in many forms, through multiple practices
• that there are two types of oppression:   institutionalized and internalized
• that oppression is perpetuated when every individual (1) is unable to raise the issue of oppression effectively, including, particularly, the inability to join with others similarly oppressed, and (2) makes the best decision for h/herself in her situation. In other words, since they're all doing the best they can, people are not to be blamed for their oppression. We distinguish deontic from aretaic judgments. The former involves a demand for a justification and a critical scrutiny of the reasons offered, so the focus in on the reasoning, not the person. The latter involves a judgment about the worth of a person doing the act, so the focus is on the person, not the reasoning.
• that despite the above, oppression IS resisted; people resist it as a supererogatory obligation.

* As portrayed in the video, are the women in this culture oppressed, and if so, how? List as many aspects of the oppression as you can.

• unequal life chances (women can't work at night, can't take high-paid industrial jobs, can't be boss, are given harder jobs [e.g., saw blade polishing])
• concubinage & multiple wives
• lower wages
• fixed roles
• physical oppression (bound feet; responsibility for birth control measures)
• isolation in husband's home
• control and abuse by mother-in-law; at least in the old days, according to one of the old women, "The daughter-in-law had no right to speak" when she had moved to her mother-in-law's house.
• being sold
• responsibility for job AND family (men insist women do the housework: keep kids clean, cook)
• physical abuse (husband stepping on wife's foot)
• the women could not initiate a divorce, although the men could. After 1949, women could also.
• abuse if the woman miscarries or is unable to conceive.

* We term these forms of oppression, institutionalized oppression, because they are embodied in social institutions and practices, not any particular person's evil.

* How do you know it's oppression instead of just differentiated (but equal) gender roles? How do you know it's oppression when the women don't seem to mind it, when they agree to it?

It is oppression instead of just differentiated (but equal) gender roles because in the original position people wouldn't be indifferent between genders and even further, in the original position people would not choose to live in a society where there were such fixed roles, since they wouldn't know if they would like that role or not.

* What maintains this oppression from generation to generation for — as best we can tell — several thousand years?

Note the overall sequence: each woman is born a second-class citizen of her family: not a member of the family but a guest; her only route to social acceptance and personal happiness is to get married and leave her family of origin. She goes to her husband's house and is isolated and not allowed to speak (and in particular to protest, to press her claims); given that this is an arranged marriage and that she has no earlier contact with the groom, she comes to the marriage without even the security of a personal / love tie with her husband to counteract the existing mother/son tie; nevertheless, her presence threatens her mother-in-law's relations with her son; her only route to social acceptance and personal happiness is to bear a son. If a son is born, she lavishes protection on him, the source of her status, and disregards her daughters. She raises him, sees him married, and tyrannizes his wife in her turn, demanding that the wife have a son. And so the circle completes itself.

Look at the psychological effects on both women and men. From birth women are regarded as worth less than men, and they see only one opportunity to succeed (within the system as they find it, anyway). They conclude that they ARE worth less than men, that they deserve to serve men.

From birth men are taught that they're the cat's meow. Who wouldn't accept being treated that way? They are taught that they're special, and it takes a singularly aware and self-confident man to reject the social system that gives them such status, whose consciousness can transcend the omnipresent lesson that women's perspective is not an important one to consider.

* Note key role of both physical and intellectual isolation, which corresponds to the means of liberation: naming one's condition ("feudal") and solidarity.

* Why, if they're oppressed, do women (e.g., mothers-in-law) participate in this oppression by criticizing women when they themselves were criticized, etc.  [We term this INTERNALIZED oppression, when a group buys into the oppression by believing they deserve to be treated in this oppressive manner, or that this manner of treatment is "natural", the natural order of things.)]

• First, they are taught this.
• Second, the institutions mean that their only hope for their own welfare is to oppress others.
• Third, note that institutionalized and internalized oppression reinforce each other:  the institutional oppression produces oppressed people who see the oppression as a reality about themselves rather than the society;  this internalized oppression justifies the existing social order as being "the natural, inevitable order of things" instead of something humans make and thus can unmake.  Any theory of development has to deal with both these oppressions simultaneously.  In other words, development has to involve changes in both individuals and societies together.  We can't deal with development without considering both forms of oppression.

OTHER COMMENTS:

• The style in clothing seems so sterile, so army-like. Are there differences?
• Smoking so common.
• Noodles & veggies, not rice.
• Children giggling as the woman is pushed down.
• Mother-in-law: “I only lived for my sons”
• “New bride, fill my pipe” — how does that tell her who her husband is?
• Absence of saddle, stirrup, bit on horse. Yokes on cows?
• Ling Chiao is the name of the daughter-in-law?
• “A new daughter-in-law had no right to speak — her relatives gave the orders”

OTHER NOTES ON "SMALL HAPPINESS"

[Lasts 58 minutes.]

• Filmed in 1982 (approx)
• Long Bow is 400 miles SW of Beijing.
• Note systematic nature of oppression
• Notice the kids laughing and learning as the woman is forced to kneel at her in-laws' names.
• Note focus on the family as the locus of control: Why bow? A woman replies: "Every FAMILY has these rules." And in another context, the village workshop, where the manager was related to most of the girls (and hence they were related to each other): "If I left [to go back to work] and the others didn't, they would all blame me": the orientation is automatically to the group, not law or custom or the contract among people.
• Note shift in family planning due to being in the cash economy. Workers in the factories and mines only get one child; but more are needed in the countryside. In another discussion: women can't work for wages because "working for money means you have to be on time", but with their family responsibilities they can't be. (Recall running the race with the sack of rocks on your back.)
• Note the role of social pressure in getting women to submit to various oppressions, e.g., foot binding: mocked if they have big feet. Two elements here: both externally applied social pressure ("People said tiny feet are good") AND internalized oppression arising from the investment of pain by the women involved. (A natural? reaction of people: "If I suffered and survived, then others must do the same.")
• Note the role of bound feet in domination: spouse could just stomp on her feet "and she'd have to sit down".
• How are engagements arranged?
• What social and economic conditions make a son necessary?
• Integration of birth control (both policies and institutions) with the oppression of women.

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