The acerbic author of Deschooling Society and Medical Nemesis here
takes on all sides in the sex-role debate: from the "animal
sociologists," blind to "what is characteristically and exclusively
human," to academic feminists who view the past through the social
science categories of the present. To Illich, all miss the critical
difference between "vernacular gender" and "economic sex."
Vernacular genders are the cultural patterns that, in
pre-industrial societies, regulate the language, attitudes, and
behavior of each sex. Tools are intrinsic to gender relationships
("to the degree that one can actively master one's tools, their
shape determines his/her self image"); and the very division
between domains "creates the tension that holds [each] society
together." With industrialization, these gender patterns disappear
and the sexes are reduced to more neutered categories. But no
compensating reduction in sexism occurs. Instead, the widening wage
gap, continued discrimination, and institutional sexism lead
Illich, like others, to see the industrial order as intrinsically
sexist. The answer, however, is not wages for housework - for
housework is "shadow work," as "unlike productive employment. . .
as it is unlike homesteading and traditional household activities."
And the entrance of men into this realm merely opens "a new field
for competition between the sexes." In contrast to those who
associate gains in women's rights with increased prosperity, Illich
sees in scarcity the possibility of a new rapprochement. "A
contemporary art of life can then arise, so long as our austere and
clear-sighted acceptance of the double ghetto of economic neuters
then moves us to renounce the comforts of economic sex." Some of
these ideas have appeared elsewhere in the Illich canon (Tools of
Conviviality, The Celebration of Awareness, Shadow Work); but their
extension to encompass gender is surprisingly effective. An
energetic attack on entrenched positions, and sure to provoke.
(Kirkus Reviews)
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