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I am currently taking a Political Psychology course in which we focus on inter-group conflict and the causes of genocide and terrorism. In class the other day, my professor, Rick McCauley, presented the concept of feminism and asked the class to consider why there has never been violent group conflict surrounding feminism/gender. I have been thinking about this question the past couple of days and have come up with a few ideas.

1. Most groups that move towards violent conflict feel threatened due to an awareness of their mortality. A group will attempt to defeat other groups in an effort to outlast them and establish a kind of immortality. Women, like men, will never be immortal. As long as humans exist, approximately half of them will be female. Thus neither gender experiences a sense of immortality.
2. You cannot have a self-perpetuating, self-reproducing gender group. The two sexes exhibit a mutual dependence in terms of reproduction. This inability to isolate the group limits the cohesiveness and thus the saliency of an individual's gender identity.
3. I would argue that the current feminist agenda is about breaking down boundaries; thus, essentializing the outgroup and acting negatively towards it would be counterproductive.The feminist mission is one of inclusion not exclusion. The inclusive nature of feminism is also significant in that it pulls individuals from all sorts of different groups together...men, women, black, whites, latinos, etc.... making it difficult to essentialize the ingroup or the outgroup. I'm not even sure if feminists have an essence.

My professor then asked why women's sports have not been an arena for feminists to rally behind. Are they upset that male sports get more attention and money?

My feeling is that sports are a difficult topic for feminists because professional athletics depend upon a gender binary. Perhaps feminists would argue that all genders should compete together, but many people would disagree, saying that this is not a fair competition because men are naturally stronger, faster, etc. At this point, feminists would then have to confront the issue of whether there is a biological difference between genders. Are men really stronger? More athletically capable? This is a very messy topic.

Finally, and this is totally separate, I was interested in Ingrid's comment on Tuesday that feminism should fight to celebrate gender, not erase it. I entirely agree. I think that it might be easier to work towards an acceptance of all genders than an elimination of gender. I think that the problem is not gender but gender roles and the gender binary.