ABSTRACT
A basic hypothesis formulated above concerns the fact that, while it is obvious that multiple axes group subjects in accordance with different points of reference which under specific conditions become factors of oppression, this multiple subjective reference is overlooked through the homogenization of women (as well as of men), which is entailed by the acceptance of gender as a dichotomous relation.1 A consequence of this is the ascription to the subjects of one of the two collective gender identities considered to be evident and given,2 as primary, even exclusive for the total constitution of their personality according to certain views, since it is perceived as decisive. Thus, a distorted image of social reality is composed, with consequences at both the level of policies and that of ideological legitimation of women’s subordination. Also, it has been argued that, though it still seems “utopian” for radical changes to come about in the gender relations system, this is nonetheless wholly necessary as a precondition for the formation of equal citizens of democracy;3 citizenship certainly presupposes the existence of different yet independent and equal subjects who exercise equal political rights, according to their judgement. Therefore, it is not possible for one and the same subject to be at the same time a free citizen of democracy and a wife, financially dependent and oppressed within the family.4 Furthermore, we have already remarked that gender dichotomy presents itself as socially necessary insofar as it is functional to have a separate category of subjects with a leading role, even to the exclusion and prejudice of other activities, in reproduction, both physical and social.5 Thus, different characteristics are ideologically ascribed and socially fostered in the two groups who have (due to ascription) different social roles.6 However, as long as this differentiation is no longer socially functional as important socio-economic developments imply, and even less so ideologically acceptable, the oppressive gender dichotomy, which expresses a social contingency, has no reason to exist. That is, when it becomes increasingly perceived that the masculine and the feminine, as they are socially defined, inhere in all, women and men, and the attempt at categorization of each subject in one given, pure and distinct
gender category is restrictive and oppressive to all. Which means, among other things, that it is also not harmonized with the idea of democracy, which like all ideas, historically develops and changes, resulting in meaning nowadays much more than it used to in the past, even being legitimated as a central organizational principle at all social levels.
