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Sex and Games: On Oppression and Rationality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Virginia Sapiro
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Extract

‘Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry’, was penned by Jeremy Bentham in 1825, but could as appropriately appear in most contemporary treatments of social choice and rationality. Political economists still use the felicific calculus; they search for ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ by exploring means and consequences of aggregating individuals' preferences to form social choices among competing values. The values are assigned equal weight. The origins and processes of development of individual preferences are taken as ‘givens’, i.e. as irrelevant to the problem of social choice. What counts is rational behaviour, which is said to exist when action is ‘correctly’ designed to maximize goal achievement, ‘given the goal in question and the real world as it exists’.

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Articles
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British Journal of Political Science , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , October 1979 , pp. 385 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

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5 The internal dimension of oppression is available through one of the obsolete meanings of the word. Many women argue – in the face of considerable resistance – that rape is a form of oppression used by males against females. As the Oxford English Dictionary tells us, one of the oldest meanings of the verb ‘to oppress’ is ‘to rape’.

6 On the internalization of stereotype, see, for example, Deaux, Kay, The Behavior of Women and Men (Monterey, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1976)Google Scholar; Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Hacker, Helen Meyer, ‘Women as a Minority Group’, Social Forces, xxx (1951), 60–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kardiner, Abram and Ovesey, Lionel, The Mark of Oppression: Explorations in the Personality of the American Negro (Cleveland, Ohio: World, 1951)Google Scholar; and Allport, Gordon W., The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1954).Google Scholar

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20 Wollstonecraft, , A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 85Google Scholar. Further references to this work will be indicated by page numbers inserted in the text.

21 ‘Madness is only the absence of reason… the ruling angel leaving its seat, wild anarchy ensues’, Wollstonecraft, Mary, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (Gainesville: Scholar's Facsimile, 1960), p. 64Google Scholar. ‘It is a proverbial observation, that a very thin partition divides wit and madness’, Wollstonecraft, , A Vindication of the Rights of Men, p. 64.Google Scholar

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24 It is important to note that excessive present-orientation and the corrollaries Wollstonecraft draws are integral parts of the stereotypes assigned to many Third World colonial populations as well as a number of minority groups in the United States.

25 Wollstonecraft, , A Vindication of the Rights of Men, p. 92.Google Scholar

26 For example, Searing, Donald and Stern, Alan, ‘The Stratification Beliefs of British and American Adolescents’, British Journal of Political Science, vi (1976), 177–203.Google Scholar

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33 All interpretations of the results of these studies are mine unless otherwise indicated. There is one caveat to bear in mind in attempting to collate, discuss, and read experimental game literature. These studies together constitute perhaps the clearest example of ‘normal science’ in the literature of social science. There are scores of studies relating to the points discussed here; most arc largely replications of previous studies, performed within the rubric of ‘game theory’. However, each differs at least slightly from each of the others. The pay-off matrices, sex of experimenter, introductory stimulus, and any number of other factors are unique to the individual study. Thus, complete comparability is not possible. Moreover, for those who have not sampled the literature on experimental game studies, it is most difficult to discuss it in clear prose free from jargon. I have attempted to write in English wherever possible.

34 For a brief explanation of Prisoner's Dilemma Games see Appendix.

35 See Bedell, Jeffrey and Sistrunk, Frank, ‘Power, Opportunity Losses, and Sex in a Mixed-Motive Game’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, xxv (1973), 219–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bixenstine, V. Edwin, Chambers, Norman, and Wilson, Kellog V., ‘Effect of Assymetry in Payoff Behavior in a Two-Person, Non-Zero Sum Game’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, viii (1964), 151–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carment, , ‘Effects of Sex Role in a Maximizing Difference Game’Google Scholar; Kahn, Arnold, Hottes, Joe and Davis, William L., ‘Cooperation and Optimal Responding in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game: Effects of Sex and Physical Attractiveness’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, XVII (1971), 267–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Komorita, S. S., ‘Cooperative Choice in a Prisoner's Dilemma Game’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, xxi (1965), 741–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mack, David, Auburn, Paula and Knight, George P., ‘Sex Role, Identification, and Behavior in a Reiterated Prisoner's Dilemma Game’, Psychonomic Science, xxiv (1971), 280–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marwell, G., Schmitt, D. and Shotola, R., ‘Sex Differences in a Cooperative Task’, Behavioral Science, xiv (1970), 184–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Oskamp, Stuart and Perlman, Daniel, ‘Factors Affecting Cooperation in a Prisoner's Dilemma Game’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, ix (1965), 359–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rapoport, Anatol and Chammah, Albert, ‘Sex Differences in Factors Contributing to the Level of Cooperation in Prisoner's Dilemma Game’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 11 (1965), 831–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Steele, M. and Tedeschi, J. T., ‘Matrix Indices and Strategy Choices in Mixed-Motive Games’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, xi (1967), 189–205.Google Scholar

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86 For discussions of love and oppression, see Rapaport, Elizabeth, ‘On the Future of Love: Rousseau and the Radical Feminists’Google Scholar, in Gould, and Wartofsky, , Women and Philosophy, pp. 185–205Google Scholar, and Tormey, , ‘Exploitation, Oppression, and Self-Sacrifice.’Google Scholar

87 ‘Some will object, that a comparison cannot fairly be made between the government of the male sex and the forms of unjust power which I have adduced in illustration of it, since these are arbitrary, and the effect of mere usurpation, while it on the contrary is natural. But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?’ Mill, John Stuart, ‘The Subjection of Women’, in Rossi, Alice, ed., Essays in Sex Equality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 147.Google Scholar

88 As presented in Brams, Steven J., Paradoxes in Politics: An Introduction to the Nonobvious in Political Science (New York: Macmillan, 1976), p. 82.Google Scholar

89 For a more technical discussion of the Prisoner's Dilemma Game, see Rapoport, Anatol and Chammah, Albert M., Prisoner's Dilemma: A Study in Conflict and Cooperation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar