By Morgan Leason

Manon Garcia spoke about the issue of male power in her talk, “Experiencing Men’s World,” at the Adele H. Stamp Student Union on Wednesday, Oct. 5. She is a junior professor of practical philosophy at Freie Universität in Berlin.

“It’s inevitable that we’re self-centered because we see the world and experience the world in first-person, but there is a way in which we can look at others, not as third persons, but as second persons,” Garcia said.

The concept of men’s world, a construct of society in which everything in life is arranged for the advantage of men, has shaped a large part of who women are today and how they perceive themselves, Garcia said.

The talk was organized by the Bahá’í Chair For World Peace Program, which is part of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland. Hoda Mahmoudi has been the head of the Bahá’í Chair For World Peace Program for the past 10 years.

“We have had probably some of the topmost scholars come and talk about racism, talk about empowerment of women, about global governance, climate change and human nature,” Mahmoudi said. These topics are the five themes that the program focuses on.

Garcia said how everything in this world has been tailored to men — “When we think human being, we think man.” 

For example, she notes that seat belts function less effectively for women than men. Garcia explains that crash tests are done with male dummies and women involved in crashes are more likely to be seriously injured because they are on-average shorter in height and arrange the seat to a position different from the optimal safety position in a car. 

Mahmoudi said that women are discriminated against from the moment they are born. 

“When women come into the world, they are already defined as less than,” Mahmoudi said. “They don’t come into the world with the opportunity to change their status, to change who they are perceived as being by others, because they basically come into a patriarchy that has already defined where they belong and what their role is, and how they should be treated.”

Garcia said that when young girls become women, they discover that they are being looked at and objectified, which can shape the relationship that women have with their bodies.

“All women live in objectification the way that fish live in water,” Garcia said.

The statistical truth is that women are under a constant threat of sexual abuse — women put themselves in a pre-victim situation because they are taught to never go out alone at night, never get on an empty subway train or make eye-contact with a man, she said. 

Kate Seaman, the assistant director of the Bahá’í Chair For World Peace Program said she appreciated Garcia’s methodology of explaining men’s world. 

“Sometimes when you’re talking about philosophical concepts, it becomes a bit abstract, but she did a really good job giving concrete examples to illustrate what she was talking about,” Seaman said.

The talk received a turnout of  60 people, tuning in from all over the world; several participants were from Iran. The talk was presented in a hybrid format, but participants only opted for the zoom option.

Garcia said she hopes to enlighten women on the idea that it is normal to feel a contradiction between being human and being a woman, because society has taught us that women are a divergence from the norm. She also reminded the audience that women are just as much a part of the world as men are.

Featured Image: Manon Garcia gives her talk “Experiencing Men’s World” in College Park, Maryland on Oct. 5, 2022. Photo by Morgan Leason.