Gender Equality and the Economics of Sex

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Interesting reading. Does he touch on the possibility that in countries where there's less gender equality strict religous interpretation may play a part? For instance, countries where women's value and behaviour are determined and restricted because of certain religous morals, giving both them and sex as a whole (which is considered sinful) a reduced value.

[Alexandra-Sky 12606]

Is it just me or is this study and the results really: sexist, racist and heteronormative? And the explanations for the results are not based on fact, but rather pre-conceived notions of gender

[SamanthaEvans 166766]

I agree with Sky: sexist, racisit and heteronormative. I would also add: Western and that it ignores the role of patriarchy plays in women's sexuality and availability.

 

I think that one key issue the report overlooks is who makes the rules about the value of sex and why they make them.

 

"If women don't have many opportunities to make money on their own, they need the value of sex to be as high as possible," Baumeister says. "When women don't have other opportunities, sex is the main thing she has to offer."

"In countries where women are at a big disadvantage, they restrain sex, so the price is high and men make a lifetime commitment to support them to get sex," Baumeister says. "Men will do whatever is required for sex."

Women are not necessarily the ones who "restrain sex." Limiting women's sexual activity serves particular societal and cultural norms. Women's virginity is an issue in many cultures and its value is reinforced by religious norms. But the real value of virginity as a selling-point in such cultures is that a potential husband can be assured that his new bride will not be pregnant by any other man nor will she have any sexually transmissible infections. The enforcement of women's monogamy is always about guaranteeing the paternity of offspring which, in turn, is about ensuring that property and assets will only be inherited by the children of the same man or by his blood relations. Considerations related to women's sexual orientation, sexual preferences and desires have no place in this system because women do not, in effect, own their own bodies or their sexuality. Women do not necessarily make decisions, as a group, about when to have sex or with whom. Those decisions are not made because of women's preferences, but because of cultural norms.

 

It seems to me that the researchers may not have been asking the best questions. If they had asked, for example, about women's financial independence and their access to safe, inexpensive and reliable forms of birth control (and abortions when required), the results of the study may have been more realistic. I also wonder whether, when asking about what women receive in exchange for sex, they asked about things like personal security. Women exchange sex (or marry) for some kinds of status, to be sure, but also for security and safety--that is, for protection from other men, protection for their children and security in the event that their male partners may become disabled or die before they do.

[Alexandra-Sky 12606]

Did you read this in a book entitled "Virgin"?

 

[quote name=SamanthaEvans;252348 But the real value of virginity as a selling-point in such cultures is that a potential husband can be assured that his new bride will not be pregnant by any other man nor will she have any sexually transmissible infections. The enforcement of women's monogamy is always about guaranteeing the paternity of offspring which' date=' in turn, is about ensuring that property and assets will only be inherited by the children of the same man or by his blood relations. Considerations related to women's sexual orientation, sexual preferences and desires have no place in this system because women do not, in effect, own their own bodies or their sexuality. Women do not necessarily make decisions, as a group, about when to have sex or with whom. Those decisions are not made because of women's preferences, but because of cultural norms.

 

.[/quote]

 

Also, they don't even talk about which factors they used to determine which women had more power in different societies (when talking about women who live in more 'equal' societies than those who don't). What are they comparing? This likely relies on really racist and Western notions of the liberated Western woman versus the oppressed, poor woman of the Third World. Bull!

[Lowdark 5613]

I would be interested to read the entire study. I agree with Samantha that it seems that some questions seemed neglected, particularly the point about a women's rights and sexuality being restrained by religous and social elements in theocratic countries, but perhaps they may hve been addressed somewhere else in the study. In the west, a woman's sexuality has always been her best leverage because for centuries (hell, millenia) that was the only leverage she was allowed by law and by custom (and there have been many attempts in western history-and even the present day-to take that away).

[SamanthaEvans 166766]

Did you read this in a book entitled "Virgin"?

 

No, I didn't. I didn't know the book existed. I think some of my analysis comes from reading a book called Rape: The Price of Coercive Sexuality which was published in the early 1980s--a long, long time ago. I also did a lot of women's studies courses in university, also a long time ago!

 

Virginity is a social construct, I think. It's not a real, objectively-defined or observable marker, yet our culture, and many others, make a big deal about it because we focus far too much on sexual intercourse as the most important sex act a male/female couple can engage in. But there are many other activities that are passionate and deeply satisfying for both partners, whether simultaneously or by taking turns. None of those activities, however, includes the possibility of pregnancy, and that's the real issue that's underneath everything else. Bill Clinton is not the only one who doesn't think that oral sex, for example, is really sex.

 

As long as we consider procreation to be the only legitimate impetus for sexual contact, we're being very unfair to ourselves and to others. Lesbians and gay men have wonderful sex lives even if neither of the parties has ever had male/female intercourse, or if they don't use dildos or other devices to substitute for what some people consider to be the normal physical requirements for what they might call simulated sex.

 

And then there's the very important issue of gender, too! There are more than two genders. How anyone identifies their gender and how all of us perform gender and in what ways we do it--these are critical issues.

 

But this study, at least as it's reported, seems very limited.

[toine 30556]

Here is a Q&A with the author at Salon.com: http://www.salon.com/life/sex/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/08/09/equality_and_sex

[Boomer 33202]

I find the whole article rather confusing. I can still remember doing Economics 101, thirty years ago. Those principles of supply and demand, and elasticity as relates to price are actually quite in evidence and relevant in an industry such as this, where there is a price that is negotiated.

 

I find his inequality idea that men want sex and women don't have similar needs, so they withhold it to gain a negotiating advantage isn't true most of the time. In most good relationships sex is a normal healthy activity, a two way street. I hope there's more to a marriage proposal than his idea.