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Author Topic: Patriarchy: Myths and Realities
skdadl
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posted 28 November 2004 12:56 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Is there still a patriarchy in "liberal" Western societies?

How do we define patriarchy, or patriarchal attitudes?

Are all men part of the patriarchy? Are women only (and are all women) oppressed by patriarchal attitudes? If not women only (and if not all women), then who else, and how?

I didn't want to start this thread by defining much or ruling much out, all on my own. I was inspired to start it, I will confess, by a thread that simply flummoxes me, the thread about the "Demise of Feminism."

There I was this morning, sitting over my coffee and wondering, Why don't I care about non-feminists who think that feminism has become irrelevant?

And then I remembered!

One other thing I thought about over my coffee -- and I don't mean this to limit discussion here at all -- this is just a recent personal experience:

I was thinking about the ways in which we all have a choice to objectify others or to empathize with them. I had been, to my sorrow, reading some recent reports from Iraq, reports written by Americans who seem not to grasp that a dead Iraqi is every bit as much a dead human being as is a dead American, and then remembering at the same time a few recent attacks against moi-meme, attacks from people who, I'm sure, "meant well," as we say, but who seem to believe that my habit of trying to put myself in the shoes of the Other signifies mental illness.

I know a lot of men who are every bit as good at what Keats called "negative capability" (which is empathy-plus, being able to inhabit the skin of an Other, including the wee beasties and maybe even the rocks and trees) as I am. But I don't think that those are the men who come to rule us, or who set the ruling agenda.

[Damn: I hate editing, but I hate making grammatical errors more. ]

[ 28 November 2004: Message edited by: skdadl ]


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sillygoil
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posted 28 November 2004 01:34 PM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Patriarchy is a label that is the exclusive creation of feminism to describe what feminism determines patriarchy to be, and we all have our individual interpretation of that.

I believe most would agree that patriarchy is bad and therefore feminism is good. But we must understand that feminism is a movement that is exclusively western in it's origin and if patriarchy is about privilege then feminism's origin comes from a more privileged set of experiences then, oh, say your average run of the mill aboriginal woman who functioned in a completely seperate society at about the same time that feminism was founded.

The idea of oppression is purely subjective and feminism tends to view oppression as being legitimate only when viewed through the filter of a western gender based analysis.

As a minority woman, I have to take feminism with a grain of salt because much of what is talked about regarding the oppression of women is spoken from mouths of white middle class women who probably don't have an understanding of what it might be like to experience racial profiling or not be hired for a job that has preferential hiring for women but not be hired because your skin is another colour.

Every time I turn on the television and watch a "prominent feminist" talking about violence against women or women's issues, it is most often a white woman. How can a white woman possibly know about my oppression as a minority?

It's kind of like having a man speak about women's issues.. it doesn't fit and it's kind of uncomfortable on a personal level. Because of this, feminism doesn't necessarily work for me - but then neither does patriarchy.

Feminism as a movement is not a precise science and as mentioned in the other thread, I believe it to be remarkably similar to our understanding of patriarchy - white, middle class and privileged.

The similarities between the roots of patriarchy and feminism are striking.

[ 28 November 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]


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skdadl
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posted 28 November 2004 01:44 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't remember mentioning privilege, sillygoil.

I remember mentioning the tendency to objectify others.

Not that I want to narrow debate or anything, but I found your contribution pretty narrowing, so I thought I'd open things up again.

[ 28 November 2004: Message edited by: skdadl ]


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brebis noire
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posted 28 November 2004 01:45 PM      Profile for brebis noire     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well skdadl, we must have been on the same cosmic wavelength over the weekend, because I was also thinking about

a) how the title of the previous thread was leaving me indifferent because from a personal point of view, classical, de Beauvoiresque ideas of feminism are extremely vital and

b) how femaleness is still somehow conceived as another form of "otherness" and I can see evidence of it all around me. To give an easily recognizable example: in kids' cartoons, female figures are still identified as the variant. They need dresses or ponytails or some kind of a curve to point out that they're a female equivalent of the male standard, and it's the male standard that dominates as being the more interesting, powerful and as expressing the more "human" desires or behaviour.

The way this plays out isn't exactly evident; it's subtle in the same way as in language, the 'he/him' is still the standard and 'she/her'is still the deviation.

How this actually plays out in society doesn't become evident until people reach a stage in their lives when they face adult issues: child-bearing, putting their education and knowledge to work, ageing, etc. For most people, it takes us well into our 30s to figure out how these things might affect us personally, and then there's a whole lot of changes that are coming up behind us by the force of younger people who see the world in a different way and are in the process of changing it by their very energy and presence.

I guess my point is that it's not like a few decades of feminism have really changed the course of history in a very meaningful way yet - only in a small part of the world, and even then only for some of us.

And I don't actually believe either that patriarchy is a benefit to all men. It's not an 'us against them' problem, because patriarchy forces men into impossible roles and standards that end up making a lot of them (most?) feel like losers.

Ouf, I'll stop now.

[ 28 November 2004: Message edited by: brebis noire ]

[ 28 November 2004: Message edited by: brebis noire ]


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rasmus
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posted 28 November 2004 02:59 PM      Profile for rasmus   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks for this, skdadl. It's interesting, isn't it, but not surprising, how many threads in the feminism forum are about feminism -- attacking, questioning, explaining, justifying it[/i] -- and how few threads are about patriarchy (attacking, questioning, explaining, etc.). We've already seen that tendency in the anti-racism forum, too.

More later.


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Chris Borst
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posted 28 November 2004 03:48 PM      Profile for Chris Borst     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Is there still a patriarchy in "liberal" Western societies?

Yes, absolutely. It's in flux, and there is certainly a case to be made that "patriarchy" may not actually be the best name for the structure - since it strictly means rule of the father rather than rule of men, and the rule of men may be being extended right now precisely through the undermining of the rule of the father - but the structure which "patriarchy" was chosen to name remains entirely vital.

quote:
How do we define patriarchy, or patriarchal attitudes?

Patriarchy names a structure of rule, privilege and advantage - rule by men. Male supremacism is a synonym. It is part of the constitution of our societies. "Attitude" has little to do with it. I am, precisely in writing this posting, playing out my role in the patriarchy, and am doing so even though my "attitude" is explicitly pro-feminist.

quote:
Are all men part of the patriarchy? Are women only (and are all women) oppressed by patriarchal attitudes? If not women only (and if not all women), then who else, and how?

Patriarchy constitutes men as "men" - and women as "women". Are all hierarchically-gendered persons "part of" the gender hierarchy? Well, what else could they be? Are all hierarchically-gendered persons part of the gender hierarchy in the same way? Of course not. It is a hierarchy, so it's necessarily asymmetric - even before one gets to its essential intersecion with other dimensions of rule (race, class, etc.). All men do not benefit to the same extent or in the same ways, and all women do not suffer to the same extent or in the same ways. But, precisely as "men" and "women", they can't help but benefit/suffer from the privileges/disadvantages that attach to those subject positions. Do all men support and try to further patriarchy to the same extent and in the same ways? Clearly not. Do men pay a cost for their privileges? Undoubtedly - no benefit without cost - but the point is that the benefits exceed the costs, and principally because most of the costs are borne by others, namely women.

Gibney! Ask academic questions, get academic answers ....


From: Taken off to the Great White North | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 28 November 2004 04:01 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Chris, I'm going to argue with you, right away.

I'm still in my kitchen, drinking coffee. And I am thinking: the patriarchy objectifies; the rest of us do not.

What do you say?


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Tommy_Paine
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posted 28 November 2004 04:52 PM      Profile for Tommy_Paine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
"Are all men part of the patriarchy? Are women only (and are all women) oppressed by patriarchal attitudes? If not women only (and if not all women), then who else, and how?"

To some extent or another, I'd almost say all men are part of the patriarchy-- although I hold out from saying so deffinitively. There are always exceptions.

I'd say most men don't realize it, though, in the same way a fish (it is said) remains unaware of water.

I get to see it through my daughters, my ex, and through Rebecca. I know that if I have to deal with a burocracy, return shoddy goods to a store, apply for a job, get my car fixed, I get, if not prefferential service at least non-descriminatory service-- to a point.

As a working class male, this privelege doesn't extend too far.


I guess it depends on how you define "patriarchy". If one wants to say it's a "father knows best" or, "those in authority know what's best for you", then certainly, almost all of us are victims of the partiarchy-- and the position of "patriarch" is not closed to the male gender.

I guess there was a time in feminist thinking that if we just had more women in positions of power, they'd bring their "feminine compassion" to the system, and all would be right with the world.

I don't think that is what is happening, or has happened. Women in positions of power can be as "patriarchal" as men. And, I don't mean that "feminism" is patriarchal, but that many, if not most, women in positions of power have been co-opted by the system.

So, it's the system that has to be changed. I think that's a major failing of "the left" in Canada, in that whether we are feminists, union members, environmentalists etc, if we just get "our people" in the corridors of power, then everything will change.

That hasn't been the case so far, and I'd like to know how many times we want to run this experiment to illustrate this. Hint: our heads will break before this brick wall will.

I'm not suggesting that feminism has to open it's doors to men, in order to create a new advocacy to bring down the patriarchy. Feminism is about advancing the cause of women, and should ever be thus.

But it doesn't preclude finding ways to form alliances with other groups that are victims of the partriarchy, and campaign on common goals.


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skdadl
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posted 28 November 2004 05:10 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Women in positions of power can be as "patriarchal" as men. And, I don't mean that "feminism" is patriarchal, but that many, if not most, women in positions of power have been co-opted by the system.

Tommy, I couldn't agree more.

And I would stop there if we were only discussing public/power relations.

But I have lately really been put to the test on psychological grounds, and I have found massive resistance, among men and women both, but men unquestionably, to my conviction that empathy conquers all.

I remain ... convicted. As in, I am not going to change my mind.

But I am amazed at how deep a kind of instrumentalizing psychology has sunk into our culture. I have been accustomed to thinking of that psychology as "male," but maybe I'm outdated now in doing so.

Maybe it is not male any longer, but I think still that it is patriarchal, the judgement levelled upon the Other from the outside.


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Chris Borst
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posted 28 November 2004 05:11 PM      Profile for Chris Borst     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by skdadl:
I am thinking: the patriarchy objectifies; the rest of us do not.

What do you say?


Hmmm ... The patriarchy (amongst other related structures) objectifies, therefore it doesn't matter whether the "rest of us" do or not. Actually, most of us do objectify, most of the time. But, the point is that "we" objectify because the structure objectifies - our actions reproduce it, so that it can reproduce others, who will reproduce it, ...

We cannot separate our constitution from our "selves" the way your suggestion would seem to imply. That's why we all have to take responsibility to change it.


From: Taken off to the Great White North | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Chris Borst
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posted 28 November 2004 05:27 PM      Profile for Chris Borst     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Tommy_Paine wrote:
quote:
I guess there was a time in feminist thinking that if we just had more women in positions of power, they'd bring their "feminine compassion" to the system, and all would be right with the world.

I don't think that is what is happening, or has happened. ...

So, it's the system that has to be changed. I think that's a major failing of "the left" in Canada, in that whether we are feminists, union members, environmentalists etc, if we just get "our people" in the corridors of power, then everything will change.


Absolutely. I commented on just this in reply to lonecat on the Women's Studies thread. There is no Good Master, even when the Master is one of "our people".

Further to which, skdadl wrote:

quote:
I have found massive resistance ... to my conviction that empathy conquers all.

It depends on what "empathy" is supposed to mean. Voluntaristic acts of "being nice" to people is hardly going to bring about the Revolution, as it were. There is a structure. But if "empathy" is compatible with, say, a general strike, or squatting, or grocery store raids, or similar direct actions, well, sure. Whether we wish it or not, we're part of a conflict, and what "empathy" is supposed to mean when deployed as, in effect, a weapon ("conquers") is rather unclear.


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sillygoil
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posted 29 November 2004 08:40 AM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I don't remember mentioning privilege, sillygoil.
I remember mentioning the tendency to objectify others

Objectifying others is the first right of the privileged. The two go hand in hand, the greater the privilege, the greater the capacity to objectify those who are less privileged.

[ 29 November 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]

[ 29 November 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
Mandos
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posted 29 November 2004 11:11 AM      Profile for Mandos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Maybe it is not male any longer, but I think still that it is patriarchal, the judgement levelled upon the Other from the outside.

What's wrong with levelling judgement on the Other from the outside?

"Psst, you want to buy a judgement..."


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skdadl
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posted 29 November 2004 11:18 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
We cannot separate our constitution from our "selves" the way your suggestion would seem to imply. That's why we all have to take responsibility to change it.

Chris, thanks for putting the dynamic more subtly than I did (or could have); I agree with this, and yet ... I think there is more to say.

By empathy, I don't mean just "being nice" -- in fact, I think that empathy is often not very "nice" at all. It is more often ... penetrating.

I really do think that there are different ways of thinking and that people can learn them, more or less. For instance: people who do what I call craftwork (and to me, craftwork encompasses a huge range of work: all the arts, the skilled trades, much intellectual work, etc) are trained and then become experienced in staring at very small things for a long time. From the way that you write, I would say that you have some experience doing this with a concept, and with words.

To me, that habit of mind, encouraged by many different kinds of training, is especially conducive to empathy. One can even become mystical about it, as Blake (the world in a grain of sand, eternity in an hour) or Keats (negative capability) did, although I don't really like to call their visions mystical -- I've had that experience, of suddenly seeing the universal in the most particular particular.

Now, if we turn from that thought to sillygoil's categorical assertion:

quote:
the greater the privilege, the greater the capacity to objectify those who are less privileged.

First, I just can't believe that any such simple correspondence exists. Some oppressed people are capable of the most brutal objectification; some privileged people are capable of immensely generous "identification" or empathy with the Other. That's not to deny the privilege in any system, but we have a leftover here, or a complicating variable, and it is, I keep thinking, a way of thinking.

You can see from brebis noire's (yay! we need more black sheep!) post above that some of us (feminists) still feel a psychological slippage after all the political-philosophical analysis is said and done (and I write as a socialist, always have done my feminism that way).

The kind of consciousness that I described above as craft-consciousness is also an "attitude?" or a way of thinking that was commonly available to women through traditional feminine training, repressive and oppressive (and sometimes just damned nasty) though that was in many other respects. Having been so inscribed all our lives, many of us often have the jarring sensation of thinking differently, just too differently, to fit into most existing power structures at all, including progressive political ones.

Admittedly, obviously, not all women feel that way. But then there must be another "way of thinking" that propels the patriarchy (or whatever we're going to call it) and simultaneously allows people to feel comfortable working by its rules.

Well, I'm writing in circles now and will leave the field open to anyone else with thoughts. Thanks so much for the generous contributions from such different directions so far.


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dillinger
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posted 29 November 2004 11:30 AM      Profile for dillinger   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by sillygoil:
As a minority woman, I have to take feminism with a grain of salt because much of what is talked about regarding the oppression of women is spoken from mouths of white middle class women who probably don't have an understanding of what it might be like to experience racial profiling or not be hired for a job that has preferential hiring for women but not be hired because your skin is another colour.

I'm glad you brought that up. It is interesting to watch movements get highjacked by bourgeios "activists", feminism included. Gradually the struggle shifts from a pro-worker agenda that the majority of people can relate to(daycare, equal pay, etc), to an angenda that represents the more boureois issues of the leadership (lack of women in corporate boardrooms and bureaucratic hierarchy, sidetracking onto irrelevant identity/language politics). No wonder people feel a disconnect and don't identify with it.

To the extent that feminism can reengerize itself will be directly related to its development of a mass base and learning from that base instead of preaching to it.


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skdadl
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posted 29 November 2004 11:37 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Could I ask people to remember that this thread is not about the failings of feminism, of which there are no doubt many, and God knows there are lots of other threads where they are discussed?

I would also ask people to remember that there are few feminists around these parts who think that feminism has or ever did have much to do with getting into corporate boardrooms.

Thanks.


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Chris Borst
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posted 29 November 2004 03:43 PM      Profile for Chris Borst     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
[QUOTE]the greater the privilege, the greater the capacity to objectify those who are less privileged.

First, I just can't believe that any such simple correspondence exists.[/QUOTE]

skdadl, I'm with sillygoil on this one. If you're going to use a term like "objectify" to describe the dynamics of privilege, you need to be careful not to reduce it to mere voluntarism - something that anybody can do, to anybody, at any time, an act like, say, spitting. Privilege can, as sillygoil says, quite usefully (if not exclusively) be defined as the capacity to deploy others as instruments of your will (things, objects). Note, that's a capacity. It needn't necessarily be exercised.

Your comments on "craft-consciousness" as productive of "empathy" do not, I'm afraid, help me much in understanding how "empathy" is supposed to "conquer all". I could venture more guesses, but I'm more inclined to just admit ignorance and say ... "huh?"


From: Taken off to the Great White North | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 29 November 2004 03:55 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
But that, as I have said before, Chris, is not what I am doing. I am not using the term "objectify" to describe the dynamics of privilege.

I am talking psychology, I suppose. But also, I am suddenly reading you and sillygoil and wondering to myself ... Huh?

[ 29 November 2004: Message edited by: skdadl ]


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venus_man
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posted 29 November 2004 05:12 PM      Profile for venus_man        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Does objectifying means a form of emotional detachment from the subject under discussion or observation? The form of non-involvement, a forced separation from the subject that makes it a mere soulless object? People are not objects, nor in fact anything else. A chair perhaps. Yet Van Gogh shows us that chair indeed has some sort of personality.

The problem of objectification is common for the human race, and not a single issue of man or woman. It's the actions that follow the perception that are differ according to the personality, environment, morals and times.

Ancient Greeks would talk about eidos or a sort of the idea inherent in all objects of the world. That idea is what that object is, that makes it a subject, a living unit, a myth if you want.

World perceived by many as a mere collection of objects (people are part of them) for the variety of reasons. Most of them have to do with historical experiences, fears, education, egoism.

However i think over-indulgence is not good as well. In order to perceive subjects as they are they just need to be perceived as such.


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Ravenscript
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posted 29 November 2004 06:08 PM      Profile for Ravenscript     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
silly goil writes: "As a minority woman, I have to take feminism with a grain of salt because much of what is talked about regarding the oppression of women is spoken from mouths of white middle class women who probably don't have an understanding of what it might be like to experience racial profiling or not be hired for a job that has preferential hiring for women but not be hired because your skin is another colour."

I agree. Some white feminists, I think, are largely unaware of the works of minority feminists that often propose concepts that differ from mainstream western feminism. For example, some black feminists such as bell hooks and Carole Boyce Davies view black men as potential allies in feminist causes and, although there is most definitely gender oppression, patriarchy is not viewed as an undifferentiated cultural evil.
African feminists Oyeronke Oyewumi and Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi propose a similar partnership between men and women and do not necessarily accept a blanket condemnation of patriarchy as the enemy.

Edited to add: Western feminism does privilege the category of gender first... in other words, race is a modifier as in "a woman, who is black." Most black feminists would likely describe their experience as "black women," with race as a the determining feature of experience before gender.

[ 29 November 2004: Message edited by: Ravenscript ]


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skdadl
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posted 29 November 2004 06:19 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Some white feminists, I think, are largely unaware of ...

Why do you think that, Ravenscript?


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Ravenscript
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posted 29 November 2004 06:59 PM      Profile for Ravenscript     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't know. Maybe it's because western feminists, like mosat of us, are most comfortable with what's most familar and seldom read outside of the box... or if they do, they dismiss such alternative constructs, issues or concerns as irrelevant to "their" feminism.

I do know that even now, it's entirely possible to take a course in women's studies at a university and never read a feminist of color unless the course is specifically taking race as its focus.


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Rebecca West
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posted 29 November 2004 08:51 PM      Profile for Rebecca West     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Ravenscript:
I do know that even now, it's entirely possible to take a course in women's studies at a university and never read a feminist of color unless the course is specifically taking race as its focus.
In every Women's Studies course I've taken, writings by women of colour have been included as absolutely fundamental to understanding the diversity that is women's experience and the diversity of expression of those experiences.

Not long after my youngest daughter was born, a friend of mine put me in touch with another new mother who identified herself as a lesbian marxist woman of colour. She talked about some of the limitations she experienced within her feminist group, limitation set by other radical lesbian feminists of colour who felt she had, in some sense, "betrayed" her sisters by having a relationship with a man, and by having a child, which they felt would negatively impact her level of committment.

We went out for coffee with our wee daughters in tow, and discussed how nervous each of us felt - she meeting up with a white woman and me meeting up with a woman of colour. Each of us was very concerned with our differences, worried that we might not share commonalities, world views, goals.

After a fairly short period of time, we both realized that while we had different experiences as women, we spoke a common language. We had more in common than we had in difference or "otherness". It was a relief. Not so much so because we established a comfort level with surprising ease, but that each of us understood that our commonalities meant that as feminists, in the broad sense, we could understand that diversity does not mean exclusivity, that it encompasses a great deal of common ground that can be the basis for really productive dialogue.


From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 30 November 2004 01:50 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This is really interesting.
(I so enjoy reading thoughtful messages expressed in precise language!)

I'm not sure i can contribute much, but this prompted me to try:

quote:
The kind of consciousness that I described above as craft-consciousness is also an "attitude?" or a way of thinking that was commonly available to women through traditional feminine training, repressive and oppressive (and sometimes just damned nasty) though that was in many other respects. Having been so inscribed all our lives, many of us often have the jarring sensation of thinking differently, just too differently, to fit into most existing power structures at all, including progressive political ones.

Am i correct in assuming that the kind of thinking you mean is what's traditionally referred to as "intuitive", and often dismissed as "irrational"?
That doesn't fit into the current power structure. When managers say, "Think outside the box", they only want you to enlarge the box by a centimeter, not disregard it: the box is essential to their power-structure.

quote:
Admittedly, obviously, not all women feel that way. But then there must be another "way of thinking" that propels the patriarchy (or whatever we're going to call it) and simultaneously allows people to feel comfortable working by its rules.

I don't think one is meant to feel comfortable at all. One is meant to feel constrained, pressured, even threatened. One is meant to compete and be anxious all the time; to believe that any compromise of personal conviction, virtue, truth and beaty is worth making, just for a chance at getting out of one's current box (and into a bigger, roomier box).

I believe this power-structure, with its constrained habit of thought, is a product of patriarchy, but indirectly. It's the first-born son of Capitalism and Scientism - a marriage made in Hell. But Capitalism and Scientism are themselves products of Patriarchy.
That is, if i'm reading Patriarchy correctly as unopposed, unrestricted rule by the male who can beat up the most other males and impregnate the most females.
See, there was nothing wrong with trade and science. What's community-destroying and soul-killing is the elevation of these ordinary human activities to a philosophical system that admits of no other possible world-views. And i think that could only have happened during a long, uninterrupted rule by a very few men.

(must pause, in case i get timed out; let the dog in and get some wine)

[ 30 November 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402

posted 30 November 2004 02:56 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Because, otherwise, somebody would have said, "You can't cut down those woods! Where will the pixies live?"
Somebody did say it, so they burned her and they expunged pixies from people's minds, lest superstition impede Progress.
Someone would have said, "You can't build a Walmart here; it will spoil the village."
Someone did say it, and they gave him the job of Personnel Manager, with immense power over the young women employees, and they made the very idea of villages repugnant, lest love of community impinge upon Profit.

None of that would have been possible if most people had not already accepted the ownership of practically everything - land, resources, knowledge, law, status, and even God - by a few highly favoured individuals. These individuals were male, because that's who made the most noise and broke the most heads in the previous 300,000 years.
Their kind of thinking goes: Actions speak louder that words, but words - simple ones, repeated often and fixed in place with a fist - are useful, too. I want what I want when I want it, and damn the long-term consequences. Nice guys finish last. Show me the money.
Not very subtle, but if you're on top, you can bully or bribe more clever men to do the detail-work.

The tragedy is, there was a moment (perhaps several moments) in history when it could have gone either way.
What tipped the balance in favour of patriarchy, its headlong rush to ownership and control at any price, was women.
Specifically, women's admiration of, deference to, and desire to mate with Alpha males.
That enormous force still exists in 'liberal', 'enlightened' Western society.
Patriarchy could never have survived without the support (and canny advice) of mothers, wives, concubines and serving-wenches. That other kind of thinking - the kind that doesn't come in a box, that makes a logical leap from B to F, that can distinguish 254 colours and predict where the badger will surface - has been put into the service of Patriarchy right from the start.


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Klingon
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4625

posted 30 November 2004 04:01 AM      Profile for Klingon        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
MajQa! Skdadl You are arguably the Rabble's greatest philosopher--or more accurately, the one who best puts philosophies under scrutiny by the questions you pose. I will do my best to keep up, given my limited experience with the theory on this subject, with just my practical knowledge.

quote:
Is there still a patriarchy in "liberal" Western societies?

I suppose it depends on what you define as "patriarchy."

The term originates generally from "fatherly" or paternal or relating to the importance or influence of the father. That in itself isn't a bad thing, since as long as we have fathers, we will understandably have fatherly influence, and the role of men as fathers (providers, protectors, teachers of the young, etc.) will always be there as well.

The view as explained to me by various "militant" feminist groups (which I call "cults") in the 1980s that patriarchy is a sort of evil conspiracy involving all men collectively ruling tyrannically over all women doesn't exist and has never existed, from what I can tell.

However, another definition of "patriarchy" implies a form of governance (where "archy" part plays a role)--one that isn't necessarily democratic or conducive to equal rights and opportunities or respect. This defines the patriarch as a position of undemocratic power and that is based on coercion and privilege subject to all kinds of abuse, especially over the family--including women.

This type of patriarchy has also existed for a long time, and still exists today in many respects, depending on the situation.

quote:
How do we define patriarchy, or patriarchal attitudes?

The only definitions I know much about are the ones I just listed. Patriarchal attitudes could be described like those expressed by some folks on the Demise of Feminism string, about how since men and women are fundamentally different in many respects, they supposedly can't be equal. This view, in addition to being totally out to lunch, is also very dated and outright disrespectful.

It's interesting that I read a recent Vanier report (can't remember the URL) on the Canadian family that found that the traditional "nuclear family"--pop, as the number one bread winner, in charge; mom, as the home maker, second in command, and the kids, seen as un-producing, helpless, un-knowing offspring, having no status at all--a pretty patriarchal organization which arose out of the Industrial revolution, has become, in a big majority of cases, a thing of the past.

It claims that largely by force of a changing (read worsening) economy, co-parenting has become the main stay. The two-income family, with both parents working and sharing many of the household duties, has become the norm. It also shows the role of kids has changed, as more and more kids, again due to economic necessity, stay at home after becoming adults, often becoming secondary providers, sharing in the domestic duties and even raising their own families within their parents' household (kind of like what's happening around my place). This obviously cuts into the patriarchal family organization big time.

quote:
Are all men part of the patriarchy? Are women only (and are all women) oppressed by patriarchal attitudes? If not women only (and if not all women), then who else, and how?

As said, nope! This view is based on largely factless assumptions and, I have found, is advocated by mostly sectarian cults and self-described (As well as self-serving power cliques and guilt trippers) "militant" or "radical" tangents that have practically no credibility with activists or the public outside of their own small circles. It's kind of like those who argue there is some sort of Jewish conspiracy, and all Jews, regardless of who they are or their social status, are involved (in other words, guilt by association).

Also, these types lack credibility because they tend to ignore the fact that women who, in one way or another, fill a position of authority traditionally help by men most often act in a similar way, simply because that behaviour is what is required to hold that position, or keep that position relevant to everyone else. (In other words, undemocratic power and oppression is still undemocratic power and oppression regardless of who's calling the shots and who's getting shot).

quote:
I will confess, by a thread that simply flummoxes me, the thread about the "Demise of Feminism."

Well, try reading my posts on that string and tell me what you think. Let's just say I view anyone who claims the demise of any form of progressive type thinking (or even misguided progressive type thinking) these days is out to lunch.

quote:
Why don't I care about non-feminists who think that feminism has become irrelevant?

Probably because feminism seems like it has generally a very vague definition, so folks tend to define it in very personal terms. So your definition is very personal to you, and obviously gives you sense of self-confidence. So who cares about what a non-feminist thinks or whether it's relevant to them (since they are non-feminist, why would it mean anything to them anyway).

I would probably be considered a non-feminist because of my disagreement with various feminist groups in the past. However, it is relevant to me, because I know, work with and respect many people, especially in the labour and cooperative movements and the NDP, who define themselves with that term.


From: Kronos, but in BC Observing Political Tretchery | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
Chris Borst
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 731

posted 30 November 2004 08:56 AM      Profile for Chris Borst     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Ravenscript:
some black feminists ... view black men as potential allies in feminist causes and, although there is most definitely gender oppression, patriarchy is not viewed as an undifferentiated cultural evil.
African feminists ... propose a similar partnership between men and women and do not necessarily accept a blanket condemnation of patriarchy as the enemy.

I've been resisting replying to this ...

I'm afraid I'm not convinced this is an accurate portrayal of the theories at issue. Not the part about men being potential allies - I, for one, certainly hope I can, and think I have at times been - but the part about how this somehow means there either is no patriarchy, or it's "not all bad".

Men can be potential allies, yes, just not as "men". As people of colour, clearly; as working-, or generally not-ruling-, class, clearly; as gay, bisexual, or trans, clearly; etc. - but not as "men". To think that men have to be acceptable allies in virtue of their privilege is to fall prey to "essentialism" - to think that men just are "men", are always, everywhere, comprehensively "men", such that either men aren't so bad and can be allies or are "all bad" and can't. The "badness" of persons is not to the point. The force of the claim about structures of privilege is that even the "good" ones get the benefit.

Nearly everyone is excluded from the ruling class along some dimension of rule. That's why the real ruling class is so damned small. Effective coalition politics - solidarity - depends on all of us bringing our disadvantages to the common table, and accepting (even participating in) the criticism of our privileges while we're there.

Being an effective ally entails vigilance. When men start asking for exemptions or "slack" on account of being allies, start thinking they can say which feminists have "credibility" and which are "cults", start taking up too much space - then they've ceased to be allies, and have fallen back onto their privileges.

Patriarchy - like white supremacy, like capitalism - is not just some moral failing, or psychopathology, or conspiracy, or otherwise "bad behaviour". Patriarchy is a structure of rule. The presence of allies on the privileged side, the possibility of treachery to rule, in no way demonstrates the non-existence of the structure - if anything, it dramatizes that it does.

Which point seems abundantly well understood in the various feminist theorizations of (what has come to be called) "intersectionality".


From: Taken off to the Great White North | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
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posted 30 November 2004 09:37 AM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Privilege is something that those with privilege don't seem to recognize that they possess. It has been mentioned that this thread was supposed to be about patriarchy, but you cannot have a discussion about patriarchy without having a discussion of non-patriarchal forms of oppression which exist in and outside of feminism.

Feminism must also be open to constructive criticism from within, while this thread is about myths and realities regarding patriarchy, we cannot have a truly equal society until we examine the myths and realities which exist in feminism, humanism, masculinism, racism, black and white-ism, even bagism to quote John Lennon.

I cannot accept arguments regarding patriarchy when feminism which claims to represent my needs or my rights and my oppression is largely a white middle class movement.

It isn't patriarchy or feminism that creates racial profiling. It isn't patriarchy or feminism that talks a good talk about the evils of racism, but within the feminist movement, the main issues which seem to pushed to the forefront are issues such as violence against women or equal pay for equal work.

FYI - did you know that a great many visible minority women who are victims of family violence aren't exactly crazy about seeking shelter in a largely white administered shelter system? Food for thought...

We have to peel back those issues and examine who, within the constituency of women is victimized more - I would venture to say that if you look closely enough, you'll see that it is visible minority women who are the greatest victims of all. Today's feminism with it's white middle class females talking about their oppression is laughable to me when my constituency has a different colour of skin and speaks with an accent.

[ 30 November 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
dillinger
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7346

posted 30 November 2004 10:25 AM      Profile for dillinger   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by skdadl:
Could I ask people to remember that this thread is not about the failings of feminism, of which there are no doubt many, and God knows there are lots of other threads where they are discussed?

Sorry, that was not meant to be a comment on the failings of feminism in general, although I see now it came accross that way. I should have been more clear.


From: Toronto | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
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Babbler # 2534

posted 30 November 2004 10:34 AM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm leery about characterising feminism here - certainly in Québec - as "middle-class". The organised workers' movement and community group movements have played a major part in the form of our feminist movement and in keeping it alive and vigourous. Certainly the "Bread and Roses" and World March of Women, with its demands centred on fighting poverty and violence, does not have a "middle-class" orientation - and there is a lot of trade union and community group participation in that.

I've been thinking about patriarchy as a category - how it intersects with class societies - indeed the sexual division of labour was the first and has an impact on all subsequent class divisions. But at the same time "patriarchy" does become sort of a catch-all, failing to examine the evolutions and revolutions in societies.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 30 November 2004 11:07 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Not to worry, dillinger -- it was a sort of general caution, not aimed at you specifically, and it seems to be working intermittently.

There's just so much to chew on of so many kinds above, so I'm going to chew for a while.

Relative to lagatta's comment, and to concerns about the struggles of women from visible minorities within the history of Canadian feminism, anyway: It might be worth remembering that we are on a site whose publisher is Judy Rebick, aka Judes on babble, who has a long history, particularly from her years as a leader of NAC, of fighting alongside those women and promoting their leadership within NAC. Her perspective would be especially valuable -- perhaps sometime we could get a separate thread going on the story of those struggles within NAC, and then the story of what happened to NAC as it tried to broaden its work.

I can't speak for her, of course, but I doubt that she would be doing broadside dismissals of all other feminist work -- I suspect that she too would be looking for the intersections.

Lastly, nonesuch wrote:

quote:
I don't think one is meant to feel comfortable at all. One is meant to feel constrained, pressured, even threatened. One is meant to compete and be anxious all the time; to believe that any compromise of personal conviction, virtue, truth and beaty is worth making, just for a chance at getting out of one's current box (and into a bigger, roomier box).

For my own thinking, that is an immediate help. Thanks. I shall return.


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
liminal
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5617

posted 30 November 2004 11:14 AM      Profile for liminal        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Taking Sillygoil's comments to a new thread, in order not to derail this one.
From: the hole I just crawled out of | Registered: May 2004  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6884

posted 30 November 2004 11:28 AM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Ugh... you're missing the point. Patriarchy is a system within an system that oppresses everyone. To discuss one system without looking at the whole misses an opportunity to address the larger evils impacting our society and struggles for equality.

When I say that feminism is largely white middle class (okay - just white then) it parallel's the privilege which exists withing patriarchy - also white and middle to upper class.

Don't believe me that feminism is largely white? Well if Rabble is intended to promote equality, then kindly explain to me the lack of non-white columnists who contribute regular columns to this website:

Rabble is white, please don't insult my intelligence by claiming otherwise

I'm not exactly seeing any pictures of who is representative of visible minorities.

[ 30 November 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
sladner
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 595

posted 30 November 2004 07:02 PM      Profile for sladner     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If we're talking about patriarchy in Western countries, with a liberal philosophical tradition, then we are talking not just about patriarchy but about whiteness.

I agree with sillygoil that patriarchy can only exist within the intersecting oppressions of race, class and ability. What is interesting to me is this claim of men as "allies," which sillygoil suggests is common in non-white communities.

The underlying assumption of patriarchy is what George Lakoff calls the "strict father" morality, which conflicts with the "nurturant parent" morality.

Check out his work here:
web page

The strict father is inconsistent with same-sex partnerships, for example, which may explain the extreme reaction from the right about gay and lesbian marriage.

But is whiteness inconsistent with the nurturant parent? Are the moralities of racialized communities more in line with the nurturant parent?

Sillygoil, what do you think? Is whiteness about the strict father?


From: Toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402

posted 30 November 2004 09:26 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
If we're talking about patriarchy in Western countries, with a liberal philosophical tradition, then we are talking not just about patriarchy but about whiteness.

Yes, but which came first? It's helpful to look at the evolution of the current situation.
I submit that patriarchal systems existed in societies of every colour and race, long before those societies even knew about one another.
I submit that all patriarchal systems are built on force rather than co-operation; maintain their stability through violence - overt or administrative; usually both; adhere to a more or less rigid caste system. They tend to be warlike; to conquer and subjugate others, as a matter of course.

It so happened that European patriarchies developed bigger guns than did similarly structured societies elsewhere, which in turn enabled them to subjugate those races. And that's why the present top dogs in North America are white.

There might be some merit in discovering why and how this happened. What characteristics and properties of European nation-states enabled them to be more successful conquerors than other patriarchal societies? (i.e. Why didn't the Chinese, with a considerable head start on science, take America?)
The reason this is worth tracing back is that the same properties still exist in the present power-structure. If you know the origins and history of a phenomenon, you may be able to identify its weaknesses; you may be able to undermine its power more effectively.


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6884

posted 01 December 2004 07:41 AM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The strict father is inconsistent with same-sex partnerships, for example, which may explain the extreme reaction from the right about gay and lesbian marriage.

But is whiteness inconsistent with the nurturant parent? Are the moralities of racialized communities more in line with the nurturant parent?

Sillygoil, what do you think? Is whiteness about the strict father?


I think the extreme reaction from those who oppose same sex marriages first off, isn't the exclusive domain of the right - if anything, opposition is right down main street Canada and among people who are center and right (possibly even some lefties). I think the opposition to it is because for lack of a better word, people think it's yucky. It scares them. It threatens them. It threatens their sexuality even though the lesbian porn section at your local video store is just as busy as the new release section of summer blockbuster movies.

I don't think that the moralities of racialized communities is as you are suggesting because their frame of reference is consistent with their cultural beliefs and norms. In many cases, their faith acts as an anchor in their overall cultural identity as it defines them. The irony is that our white middle class culture on the surface tends to celebrate that fact or promote it, certainly the left celbrates it and promotes it but in contrast, white western culture that has an anchor in it's religion or faith is seen as evil or bad.

Muslim community - good
Sikh community - good
Evangelical Christian community - bad


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
brebis noire
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Babbler # 7136

posted 01 December 2004 09:36 AM      Profile for brebis noire     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Patriarchy is a vital aspect of evangelical Christianity, it takes its overall model from the Bible (where women are definitely the 'other', except - sometimes - when Jesus notices them); however, the strength of evangelicalism is that it has adapted very adroitly to modern, technological society, especially I'd say over the past 10 years or so. Therefore it is able to attract and embrace peoples of all cultures - this is one of its main goals, through missionary activity. One of the countries that has embraced it very well is South Korea, for reasons I don't fully understand.

In Canada, you'll find evangelicals of all colours and backgrounds. It's a modern religion that thinks it's come on a straight line of history from Jesus to 2004. It makes people feel safe (the peace in your heart no matter what bad things are happening all around you type of idea); patriarchy is what gives it some structure. Women aren't allowed to preach, for example - they are allowed to "talk when behind the pulpit" in certain circumstances, but they can't give a sermon with a pastor's authority, even if they have a PhD in theology. They can teach other women or children, of course.

It's also a religion that is very anti-intellectual, which is why you won't see a lot of evangelicals in social sciences or arts and letters programs. You'll find the arts-oriented people in Bible schools or seminaries, kind of an alternate society, where patriarchy rules.

For one thing, I think it's the highly technological aspect of modern society that men seemed to have grasped on average a whole lot better than women (feel free to smash this assumption, anyone) that has given more impetus to this movement. Technology scares people...does it scare (or bore, or just put off) women more than men?


From: Quebec | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6884

posted 01 December 2004 11:16 AM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I am a unitarian. It embraces all faiths and it isn't patriarchal, feminist, or any other "ist" or "al" that I can think of.
From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
clersal
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 370

posted 01 December 2004 11:41 AM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Don't believe me that feminism is largely white? Well if Rabble is intended to promote equality, then kindly explain to me the lack of non-white columnists who contribute regular columns to this website:

You would have to ask non-white columnists.

I think you are probably right about feminism being largely white. Not because Rabble does not promote equality but because non-whites have perhaps more immediate priorities. Finding jobs that make decent wages. Probably putting up with a lot of racist shit every day. Getting an education. Finding a place to live. Keeping the kids from been beaten up every day......the list is long.


From: Canton Marchand, Québec | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6884

posted 01 December 2004 11:47 AM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Some things need not be explained, the proof is in the link to the columnists. There are many non-white activists and writers, in my community we even have a minority writers collective.

If patriarchy is oppressive, then feminism by not being inclusive of minority women is equally oppressive.

[ 01 December 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]

[ 01 December 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
clersal
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 370

posted 01 December 2004 12:03 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
.... the proof is in the link to the columnists.

What is your point?

quote:
... then feminism by not being inclusive of minority women is equally oppressive.

That is absolute bullshit. Feminism does not EXCLUDE minority women.

quote:
n 1: a doctrine that advocates equal rights for women 2: the movement aimed at equal rights for women

Any mention of minority women not welcome? Sheesh..


From: Canton Marchand, Québec | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 01 December 2004 12:08 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
nonesuch wrote:

quote:
the same properties still exist in the present power-structure. If you know the origins and history of a phenomenon, you may be able to identify its weaknesses; you may be able to undermine its power more effectively.

This, and brebis noire's last paragraph, prod me to think:

I don't know if I can pin down the properties that have enabled conquest, but I can do something better: I can pin down some properties in our own tradition that did NOT enable conquest, but about which our histories lie.

And no, I'm not talking a simple sex split here.

As an example, from the historical period I know best: We hear a lot of people wandering about these days talking about "our Enlightenment heritage," or some such rot, as if they actually knew what that was.

We can tell what they think they are signifying when they drop the word Enlightenment into their conversation like a solid object: they think they are referring to rationalist scientific inquiry and the industrial and technological revolutions that followed thereupon. And they think that that is what the Enlightenment was all about.

First: consult common sense. The term refers to a period that was roughly two hundred years long. Doesn't it at once occur to all of us that more than one thing goes on over the course of two centuries? Two decades, for pity's sake?

Second, this was the period of the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the counter-Counter Reformation, etc. There's the thought-model to look for. Currents and cross-currents and counter-currents.

And yet, it isn't the thought-model that our history texts, nor our pundits, have encouraged us to follow. History is written by the victors, indeed, and what the victors have to say about the Enlightenment is that it was a triumph of rationalist scientific inquiry, full stop.

Bunk. Stuff and nonsense. Even if you start only with the word reason, you find yourself at once forced to radically different definitions of that term as you pass from one major period to another, early C17 to mid-C18 to early C19, which is where rationalism proper really takes off as a faith.

If our current dominant power structures had any serious interest in the Enlightenment, they would be terrified to discover some of its driving forces -- and in the greatest writers of the period, too, none of whom is a dorky rationalist.

Well, to a point (and I do have one): we have suppressed much of our own history, not just the histories of oppressed or marginalized groups and classes and of women, but much of the better side of our own traditions of humane thought.

That was what some of the powerful and their servants got very good at.

[ 01 December 2004: Message edited by: skdadl ]


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6884

posted 01 December 2004 12:22 PM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Clersal wrote:

quote:
That is absolute bullshit. Feminism does not EXCLUDE minority women.

I am willing to venture that you are not a visible minority, hence your utter hostility in the above quote. The proof is everywhere - you just have to open your eyes a bit more. I mentioned the lack of visible minority columnists on rabble to emphasize my point. This is a white movement that pays lip service to visible minorities. Rabble talks a good talk about equality, but "auntie" is white, and from what I can tell, the regular columnists here are also white.

Cleral also wrote:

quote:
a doctrine that advocates equal rights for women 2: the movement aimed at equal rights for women

A doctrine is a group of words printed on a piece of paper. That paper is meaningless and worthless when the movement becomes exclusive to whites only or presents the issues relating specifically to whites first and that of visible minorities second.

Clersal - ever get a speeding ticket? If you are white, you get the ticket. If you are black, for example, you get your car searched. Ever try to get a job in a supposedly "employment equity friendly" workplace where there is a large representation of women working there but, golly, they're white aren't they? Golly, it's sure uncomfortable speaking with an East Indian accent and the hiring committee is made up of white women. Golly, I see feminist activists on the television news and they too are white!

Gimme a break...

The feminist movement doesn't make anywhere near the effort required to address the issues impacting my constituency. You may suggest that violence against women, etc, is colour blind, but we minorities deal on a daily basis with oppression that white people cannot conceive of because they don't experience it. Therefore, ignorance is bliss, isn't it?

It's easy to say that what I am presenting is bullshit when you are white and privileged. Walk a mile in my shoes Clersal, what size are they - I will personally deliver them to you and place them on your feet.

[ 01 December 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]

[ 01 December 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 01 December 2004 12:38 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Could I ask people to remember that there is another thread devoted to the specific tensions among feminism, class, and race over here.

This thread has developed into a discussion of overarching qualities of the power structure. It is not about straightforward male/female antagonisms, or about any other straightforward antagonisms. It is utterly unstraightforward.

But it is aimed at the overarching structures of power, nowhere else.


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
clersal
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 370

posted 01 December 2004 12:46 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
.... hence your utter hostility...

I'm not hostile at all. I objected to EXCLUDE. I mentioned my reasons why some minority women are not involved in feminism. There are probably a lot of white women who are not involved in feminism for exactly the same reasons.

quote:
... but we minorities deal on a daily basis with oppression that white people cannot conceive of because they don't experience it.

Agreed, hint, hint I think I mentioned this.

quote:
The feminist movement doesn't make anywhere near the effort required to address the issues impacting my constituency

And your constituency, what is it doing?

You presume I am white because I disagree with you? Tsk, tsk.

Some of my best friends are.......


From: Canton Marchand, Québec | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402

posted 01 December 2004 01:57 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
brebis noire:
quote:
For one thing, I think it's the highly technological aspect of modern society that men seemed to have grasped on average a whole lot better than women (feel free to smash this assumption, anyone) that has given more impetus to this movement. Technology scares people...does it scare (or bore, or just put off) women more than men?

me: feeling free to... dent, not smash.
You're thinking of technology as we see it today, which is pretty scary. It can be beneficial, but it is also destructive.
It might scare women more, because it is owned and controlled by men - the men who were born privileged, then steeped in patriarchal assumptions, and trained for a place in the current power-structure.
This means that deployment of technology will be competitive, goal-oriented, short-sighted, disruptive and - yes, often violent.
Perhaps women, in general, do still have a wider, more inclusive awareness then men, in general, of how everything is connected and that every action has long-range consequences.

It's not so much that women are bored by, or incompetent at mechanics, as that women have been routinely barred from control of it. (For instance, when the typewriter and sewing machine were new, only men were allowed to operate them. Once men realized how tedious these chores are, the typewriter and sewing machine became women's tools and men took possession of the next new invention.)
There is some basis for believeing that a great many labour-saving devices were originally made by women. The kind of inclusive, patient, detail-conscious thought process that i belive skdadl referred to is very likely to put objects together in practical, innovative ways. What they make is a tool.
When the chief quits laughing and realizes that this new thing can add to his power, he takes it over, sets his cleverest male underlings to improving on it, and declares women too feeble-minded to understand or operate it. Now it's technology.

As to present-day fundementalist (there's a whopper of false advertising!) religion, its leaders are certainly not averse to using technology - especially of mass communication - to increase their own power.

[ 01 December 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
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posted 01 December 2004 05:00 PM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
You presume I am white because I disagree with you? Tsk, tsk.

I presume that you are white because your arguments are similar to the arguments I have been hearing from white feminists for years. Rather than tell me about all of your minority friends, walk a mile in my shoes.


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
faith
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posted 01 December 2004 05:41 PM      Profile for faith     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This has to be one of the best discussions I have read on Babble.
The thoughtful informed comments are food for thought for sure. I particularly enjoyed Chris Borst's comments -
quote:
The force of the claim about structures of privilege is that even the "good" ones get the benefit.

Nearly everyone is excluded from the ruling class along some dimension of rule. That's why the real ruling class is so damned small. Effective coalition politics - solidarity - depends on all of us bringing our disadvantages to the common table, and accepting (even participating in) the criticism of our privileges while we're there.

Being an effective ally entails vigilance. When men start asking for exemptions or "slack" on account of being allies, start thinking they can say which feminists have "credibility" and which are "cults", start taking up too much space - then they've ceased to be allies, and have fallen back onto their privileges.


well said Chris.
FWIW I feel that sexism is the first 'ism', as someone else pointed out ,sexism and subjugation of women took place in many ancient civilisations long before such societies were aware of each other's existence. Children in our society are also taught from the cradle that women are the 'other' the one not as priveledged , not as powerful. Racial taunts are not tolerated on most school grounds but sexist comments from children (unless obscene language is used) are basically ignored.
Exclusive rule by men certainly existed in the early days through the church , and we are still paying for that legacy. Historical looks backwards should caution us about the Fundies in any of the religions of the world , which are all patriarchal .


From: vancouver | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
clersal
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posted 01 December 2004 06:17 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Rather than tell me about all of your minority friends, walk a mile in my shoes.

I didn't mention minority friends. That was a joke that flew right over your head.

If you had read what I posted:

quote:
I think you are probably right about feminism being largely white. Not because Rabble does not promote equality but because non-whites have perhaps more immediate priorities. Finding jobs that make decent wages. Probably putting up with a lot of racist shit every day. Getting an education. Finding a place to live. Keeping the kids from been beaten up every day......the list is long.
You added to it.

I still object to feminism EXCLUDES minority groups. Minority groups are excluded from lots of things. Anyhow I think it is a bit silly to pick on Rabble.


From: Canton Marchand, Québec | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
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posted 01 December 2004 06:59 PM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I still object to feminism EXCLUDES minority groups. Minority groups are excluded from lots of things. Anyhow I think it is a bit silly to pick on Rabble

Pointing out that a website devoted to issues such as equality and ending racism, feminism and left leaning issues whose columnists are 99.9% white isn't silly at all. I am just pointing out something that shouldn't be happening on a website about equality. It isn't representative of the voices of those who are visible minorities. Everyone is white.


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 01 December 2004 07:34 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Clersal, sillygoil never said that feminism EXCLUDES minority women. You were the first person in this thread to use the word "exclude". This is what she said:

quote:
then feminism by not being inclusive of minority women is equally oppressive.

And sillygoil is right. There is a difference between actively excluding women, and not being inclusive. Quoting a dictionary definition of feminism and then saying that nowhere in that short excerpt does it say that feminism does not welcome minority women doesn't prove anything whatsoever.

The problem with feminist movements hasn't been that they're actively trying to exclude minority women. No one wants to do that. The problem is that the women's movement has had a history of systemic racism in it, in which minority women have been marginalized. Sillygoil has an excellent point when she uses the rabble columnists as an example of this. Rabble is a left-wing, progressive web site and I think everyone involved wants there to be diversity, and would never dream of actively excluding people from minority groups from participating. Everyone is very well-meaning. Therefore, rabble does not EXCLUDE minority voices. And sillygoil didn't say that to begin with - those are your words that you put in her mouth. The point is, that when all your columnists are white, even though you're not actively excluding minority voices, you're also not being INCLUSIVE of minority voices.

And those were the exact words that sillygoil used: "by not being inclusive" - not "being exclusive".

BTW, sillygoil, just to let you know - the "columnists" do not represent all the writers on rabble. I think all of the writers in the "columns" section are syndicated columnists, and unfortunately, almost all of the syndicated columnists in the mainstream media, even the lefty ones, are white. You will find a lot more diversity in the rabble "features" section than in the "columnists" section, although I'm sure the majority even in that section consists of white voices. And that is the section most prominently displayed on the front page of rabble. There are a lot more features writers than columnists because many of the features writers submit something only once in a while, or maybe once only, or they do a series or something.

I remember a really good series by, I believe, an Inuit woman, and I learned a lot from those articles. There have been articles about immigration racism written by people with Middle-Eastern-sounding names (I don't remember any pictures accompanying, so I don't know whether they were visible minorities or not). Etc.

[ 01 December 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
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posted 01 December 2004 07:51 PM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Michelle:

Thank you for expressing what I was trying to express while hitting my computer screen with my slippers in frustation.


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
clersal
rabble-rouser
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posted 01 December 2004 08:34 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yes, you are right Michelle. Sorry sillygoil my apologies.
From: Canton Marchand, Québec | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Rebecca West
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posted 01 December 2004 10:31 PM      Profile for Rebecca West     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
It's easy to say that what I am presenting is bullshit when you are white and privileged. Walk a mile in my shoes Clersal, what size are they - I will personally deliver them to you and place them on your feet.
This would be a better world if we could all do this for each other. But we can't, not really. I think it is safe to say that we all agree that diversity is a good and necessary thing. And while not all the columnists and contributors are white on Rabble, the vast majority of them are, and that does say something about the failure of the left, in general, to attract those they claim to, want to, support.

You are angry and frustrated. It is clearly not enough to hear admissions from whites about white privilege. What do we need to do?


From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
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posted 01 December 2004 11:39 PM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sillygoil's Top 5 Things that Feminism Must Do To Promote Inclusiveness

1) Since Rabble is a pro feminist site, put a BIG ad on the main page asking for contributions for columns from visible minorities.

2) Have a variety of Auntie's - a cultural mosaic of Auntie's if you will, each contributing something different every couple of weeks.

3) National round table meeting of leaders from existing women's groups and leaders or women's groups representing visible minorities.

4) Existing women's organizations should conduct a process of organizational renewal whereby they will conduct internal audits of all hiring practices, program delivery models, outcomes measurement processes, to identify any gaps in delivering services or even recognizing the need for services from women of diverse groups.

5) Existing women's organizations should conduct vigorous recruitment of visible minorities and conduct board development training with special emphasis on raising awareness of visible minority women's issues.

I could go on... lots to do, lots to do....


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
Rebecca West
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posted 02 December 2004 12:41 AM      Profile for Rebecca West     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Good ideas...now how do we raise the money to pay for these initiatives?
From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
sillygoil
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posted 02 December 2004 12:50 AM      Profile for sillygoil     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Numbers 1 and 2 don't cost anything. Rabble can easily put up an ad in no time.

As for the balance of my ideas, I would be happy to chair a steering committee of volunteers to develop an overall framework for something along the lines of a national round table discussion. We can then develop a fundraising plan and begin to raise money for obtaining a venue, contacting various women's organizations who, if they choose to attend, can certainly send a representative and raise money internally to send that individual.

4 and 5 can be done at no cost to a women's organization. Any good non-profit group will conduct an organizational renewal initiative every few years anyway. Board recruitment isn't necessarily at cost to an organization as it falls under the auspices of board development within an organization's strategic planning process.

Would you be willing to participate in a steering committee Rebecca?

[ 02 December 2004: Message edited by: sillygoil ]


From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402

posted 02 December 2004 02:03 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I was thinking about the ways in which we all have a choice to objectify others or to empathize with them.

This - which i took to be the main point of the thread, initially - was brought back to me quite forcefully by the Life of Mammals segment i watched tonight. A Bushman was chasing an antelope. At one point, he lost the trail. He found it again by pretending to be the antelope - recreating its every motion and thought. Empathy put to practical use.

It's not the exclusive domain of women. It's a way of thinking that can be learned by anyone. When i do a cat imitation, i don't think about how i look from the outside, but how the action feels from the inside. Actors and writers learn it, deliberately, as part of their craft.
To people living raw and precariously, it's essential to survival. It's natural - unavoidable, even. They have to be keenly aware of their surroundings all the time; to observe and notice everything. They can't help but see connections and similarities.

People living in artificial environments, like a city, are not necessarily aware of the interconnectedness of things. Many work at jobs with no obvious purpose; they get paid in symbolic money; they don't build their shelter or make their clothes; mostly they never even meet their dinner on the hoof: they experience the very struggle for survival, not in the palpable, breathing, immediate moment, but at one remove, or two, or ten.
This means that they don't need to notice and observe other living things. They need to be aware of traffic lights and office politics; listen for sirens and learn to adjust the vertical hold. It's a very busy world; there is a great demand on their attention. Control is esential; mastery is highly desirable - empathy is a luxury we appreciate in entertainers, psychiatrists and nurses.

I don't think most people make a conscious choice, either to objectify others or to identify with them. I think empathy is a trait or skill which is accorded little value in industrial societies. Therefore, it's experienced all the time by those who have no choice - who were born with a greater than average capacity for noticing - and practised at will by those who have had to learn it for their profession.

What has this to do with patriarchy?
Not much, except insofar as patriarchy is responsible for producing industrial societies. (Which it is!)
Why are women the most likely (though far from exclusive!) repository of this ... skill? curse? vestigial trait? saving grace? Because the powerless always have to be more vigilant. A boss is in no danger if he fails to notice the hurt feelings of an employee, but a slave who can't read the mood of the overseer gets whipped a lot more often than one who can.

[ 02 December 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Rebecca West
rabble-rouser
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posted 02 December 2004 11:12 AM      Profile for Rebecca West     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by sillygoil:
As for the balance of my ideas, I would be happy to chair a steering committee of volunteers to develop an overall framework for something along the lines of a national round table discussion. We can then develop a fundraising plan and begin to raise money for obtaining a venue, contacting various women's organizations who, if they choose to attend, can certainly send a representative and raise money internally to send that individual.
That will, no doubt, become necessary, especially if individuals represent organizations that don't have a budget for travel expenses. However, it's always a good idea, when putting together a conference/seminar/event budget, to have a line in there for subsidies for attendees representing organizations who have financial need. We would not want an organization left out because they couldn't raise the money.

quote:
4 and 5 can be done at no cost to a women's organization. Any good non-profit group will conduct an organizational renewal initiative every few years anyway. Board recruitment isn't necessarily at cost to an organization as it falls under the auspices of board development within an organization's strategic planning process.
Not a financial cost, but certainly a human labour cost. I think a better result would have to have some initiative, some motivation beyond it simply being "the right thing to do". As we know, some organizations in the non-profit sector, for all their progressivenes, have some serious employment standards issues, as well as issues of discrimination, racism, etc. Some consideration would have to be given to just how such review processes, on a voluntary basis, could best be promoted and achieved.

quote:
Would you be willing to participate in a steering committee Rebecca?
I would. I have a number of skills, especially in fundraising and financing, that might be of value, but my time/resources are contrained by being a single working mother already heavily committed to activist work. If you want to take this out to PM, then we can discuss timelines and goals, etc., and I can give you an idea of what kind of time commitment I can make.

From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
brebis noire
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posted 02 December 2004 12:21 PM      Profile for brebis noire     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Originally posted by nonesuch:
It might scare women more, because it is owned and controlled by men - the men who were born privileged, then steeped in patriarchal assumptions, and trained for a place in the current power-structure.
This means that deployment of technology will be competitive, goal-oriented, short-sighted, disruptive and - yes, often violent.

It's not so much that women are bored by, or incompetent at mechanics, as that women have been routinely barred from control of it. (For instance, when the typewriter and sewing machine were new, only men were allowed to operate them. Once men realized how tedious these chores are, the typewriter and sewing machine became women's tools and men took possession of the next new invention.)"

Thanks for framing it for me in this way, nonesuch. It makes me think of the way that when women become the movers and shakers in health and education, all of a sudden these activities lose their status and the action moves on somewhere else. It's not like I believe there's a conscious conspiracy behind it - but the alternatives aren't much better to contemplate.

And unfortunately, it brings me back to the idea of force/aggression/violence being the ultimate controlling factor, and that doesn't make me feel very good about being human. As a health professional, I've become aware of all of the technology that is being used for good: healing, time-saving, communications, environment-preserving and all, but when you're going around with the uneasy feeling that the ultimate control of it all depends on who is strongest and can make the greatest number obey, you really have to wonder when nature will have had enough of us.

[ 02 December 2004: Message edited by: brebis noire ]


From: Quebec | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 02 December 2004 02:14 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Oh, i'm with you there, brebis noire!
Technology, used well and wisely, could still - just possibly - save us.
But it's not going to happen, is it? The Ring Lords won't give up control: it's more precious to them, even than the lives of their own grandchilden.

[ 02 December 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Chris Borst
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posted 02 December 2004 08:05 PM      Profile for Chris Borst     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
nonesuch asked:

Yes, but which [patriarchy or white supremacy] came first? It's helpful to look at the evolution of the current situation. ...

It so happened that European patriarchies developed bigger guns than did similarly structured societies elsewhere, which in turn enabled them to subjugate those races. And that's why the present top dogs in North America are white.

There might be some merit in discovering why and how this happened. What characteristics and properties of European nation-states enabled them to be more successful conquerors than other patriarchal societies? (i.e. Why didn't the Chinese, with a considerable head start on science, take America?)


There is no consensus on this question in the historical literature, since the answer is so directly tied to our current evaluations, but among historians with sensible politics, the key is seen to lie in the fact that Europe never got united - i.e., never got over its "warring states" era. The political structures of Christendom effectively contained inter-European warfare for centuries, but, once those began to break down (13/14C), the stage was set for a major change. The Hapsburgs under Charles V tried to unite Europe, but failed. Instead we got Westphalia, and the interstate system which is only now starting to fall apart. (Napoleon and Hitler both tried to unite Europe, but also failed.) Westphalia institutionalized a sort of permanent state of what we would now call "Cold War" - economic, technical-scientific, political, social-cultural, but usually NOT openly military, conflict.

Having devoted centuries to developing technologies to murder one another, but being stymied at home - and blocked by the powerful Ottoman Empire in the Levant - European states began their systematic process of global conquest, colonization and destruction. That process peaked between 1867 and 1905, and the 20th C saw the beginnings of the global rollback - the struggle over the "color line" exactly.


From: Taken off to the Great White North | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 02 December 2004 11:48 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks - that's a good start to an explanation.
All these similar peoples competing among themselves, but in a small enough geographical area to exchange information.
I was leaning toward political instability as the main factor, with Christianity a close second.

Interesting subject on its own; probably not useful to an understanding of patriarchy or ways of thinking. When i posted that, i thought there might be some common ground between the original topic of this thread and the racial issue. But since that other conversation went off in a different direction, i've tried to ignore it. I can just about keep my eyes on one ball; can't keep track of a whole other game, on the same field.


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Gryphon
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posted 10 December 2004 09:26 AM      Profile for Gryphon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
nonesuch, what world do you live on? lmao

My major is Biological Engineering and my minor is math. Girls outnumber guys in my program 2:1. In Environmental engineering, they're about even. In Engineering Systems and computing you can count the number of girls with a single hand. People apply to programs they like, and they get accepted based on their grades. it's as simple as that. females now outnumber males in medical and law school. There is no institutional sexism deciding these things. The Man isn't sitting at his desk weeding out all the applicants with female names for his shredder.

It has nothing to do with boy children being more privilegded, or some conspiracy to keep women out of technology. You want an ipod or a digital camera, buy one. you want to learn mulitvariate calculus or how to program a computer, buy a book. Future Shop doesn't discriminate against consumers.

In my first year calculus class I was talking to the teacher after the lecture (about a discrete math course I had that taught things like symbolic logic and boolean algebra), and this girl came up and said "you know the reason why girls have trouble with math is that men wrote the math language". I could not believe what I was hearing. That was the single stupidest thing I'd ever heard. Before then, I had never experienced anything quite like that. I'd like to know why feminism stopped being about egalitarianism, and became this ugly man-hating mockery of itself.

And that spirituality of everything being interconnected only felt by women is such bs. If anything, you have a greater appreciation for the interconnectedness of the universe when you learn about nature and how it works.

It's like you came out of a work of fiction or something. "cleverest male underling"? where do you come up with this stuff? you should write comic books. I'm suposed to be Lex Luther because i decided I wanted to design cool things, and make the world a better place? wtf? when me and my peers (who are mostly female) find cures or treatments for breast cancer and osteoporosis you remember your disdain for science and technology.


From: Guelph | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 10 December 2004 01:40 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
It's like you came out of a work of fiction or something. "cleverest male underling"? where do you come up with this stuff? you should write comic books. I'm suposed to be Lex Luther because i decided I wanted to design cool things, and make the world a better place? wtf? when me and my peers (who are mostly female) find cures or treatments for breast cancer and osteoporosis you remember your disdain for science and technology.

In light of everything i've said (not just a sentence, here and there, chosen at random), i don't feel this is entirely warranted.

The 'cool things' that are designed (by people of either sex) do not invariably make the world a better place; some of them make the world a radiactive wasteland. I do not have disdain for science and technology. I do fear and loathe the current rulers of the world and the whores (scientific, political, journalistic and military) they can always seem to recruit in large numbers.


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
brebis noire
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posted 10 December 2004 03:32 PM      Profile for brebis noire     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Gryphon:
nonesuch, what world do you live on?

One of the wonderful advantages of babble is being able to read and contemplate the experiences of others...we're coming from different cultural and geographical places, and people are of different ages and perspectives. OK - from different worlds. So I hate it when a person asks this question, because it devalues and discounts another person's experience - which may be more insightful than your own. Maybe when you're a bit older you'll understand the value of perspectives outside your own peer group. And I'm speaking from experience here...as someone who took a very long time to catch on to how gender and class issues would affect her own little life.

quote:
My major is Biological Engineering and my minor is math. Girls outnumber guys in my program 2:1. In Environmental engineering, they're about even. In Engineering Systems and computing you can count the number of girls with a single hand. People apply to programs they like, and they get accepted based on their grades. it's as simple as that.

Exactly. It's as simple as that - when you're in school. My degree was in veterinary medicine, which like just about any other professional degree, is a pretty closed world. Women outnumbered men by about 2 to 1 as well. But guess what? When it was time to apply for a job, somehow men had a concrete advantage when it came to salaries and opportunities. At job interviews, the biggest and best-located clinics were even asking women when they were planning on having kids and if they felt that having kids would affect the number of hours they would be able to work. One of my colleagues was so frustrated by that she swore she would bring her uterus in a pickle jar to the next interview to prove she wasn't interested in having kids. By graduation, every single guy had a job, but only half of the women did...most went on to do Master's degrees or internships. And yes, eventually, some of them did have babies, and yes, this does cut down on a person's available number of hours to work in a day. From my observation, women can work as hard and as well as men, but generally because someone's gotta take care of the kids, they don't work as long hours. When men start volunteering in large numbers for childcare duty, then we can start talking.

[/QUOTE]when me and my peers (who are mostly female) find cures or treatments for breast cancer and osteoporosis you remember your disdain for science and technology.[/QUOTE]

I don't recall nonesuch expressing any disdain for science and technology.

[ 10 December 2004: Message edited by: brebis noire ]


From: Quebec | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Gryphon
recent-rabble-rouser
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posted 10 December 2004 05:00 PM      Profile for Gryphon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
cool things that save the world:
bioremediation of polluted sites, memory metal cardiac stents, optimization of processes to create things cheaper, with less polution, and using less energy, hybrid vehicles, fuel cell technology, tissue engineering, green energy, using ergonomics and human factors theory to design things in such a way that fewer mistakes are made, and fewer occupational injuries occur, smart structures, etc

There are PLENTY of opportunities to design cool things that make the world a better place. Designing a more efficient car or consumer product is done (by the engineer but probably not by the company) to make the world a better place, not to make it one step ahead of your skill set.

I fear some of the current world leaders too, and the situation they're putting the world in too. But they have nothing to do with why there are fewer female civil, and mechanical engineers and more chemical and biological.

brebis noire:

quote:
One of the wonderful advantages of babble is being able to read and contemplate the experiences of others

that is so true, but somehow I doubt nonesuch has ever encountered one of my evil henchmen ( whom apparently in her culture, place and age monopolize all of the cutting edge typewriters and autogyroes). Employers not wanting to hire women because of the hypothetical risk of them becoming pregnant, and leaving them with a hole to fill is unfortunately a REAL problem. I'm sure it doesn't just occur in technological positions though, and I'm sure that it's more the isolated decision of a manager or business owner than that of The Evil Brotherhood of Tech Nerds.

quote:
Technology, used well and wisely, could still - just possibly - save us.
But it's not going to happen, is it? The Ring Lords won't give up control: it's more precious to them, even than the lives of their own grandchilden.

I actually find that quotation sort of funny, because Canadian engineers wear iron rings that are literally made out of the shortcomings of our predecessors (a bridge that collapsed twice and killed a bunch of people) as a reminder of their responsibility to society, and that they have an ethical obligation to do the right thing in the face of corporate pressure. But referring to us as the evil power hungry king from LOTR sounds pretty disdainful to me. I am willing to forgive though, since she sees why my reaction wasn't unwarranted.


From: Guelph | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Rebecca West
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1873

posted 10 December 2004 07:38 PM      Profile for Rebecca West     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Gryphon:
I fear some of the current world leaders too, and the situation they're putting the world in too. But they have nothing to do with why there are fewer female civil, and mechanical engineers and more chemical and biological.
That has more to do with perceptions of what those engineering fields accomplish, as far as male/female enrollments go. Women don't see themselves as fitting into those engineering fields. Also, when they hit first year engineering, they see disciplines filled with guys, with, understandably (being filled with male students) a very male culture. It's hard to feel encouraged without some extra effort put forward by educators interested in promoting the fields to women.

It's similar in the Sciences - more women go into biological and chemical sciences and very few choose applied math and computer science. It's largely perception, contributed to by the overwhelming presence of male students in those areas...when asked, many female computer science students say they feel intimidated by the overwhelming presence of male students. It's important to address those issues, for reasons that go beyond patriarchy or feminist principles.

In the employment sector, the bias against women in hiring and advancement, due to women having children, is a problem, but not because women have children. It's a problem because women still have to bear the overwhelming majority of the childrearing responsibilities the overwhelming majority of the time. Gender equity isn't just a "fairness" thing, it is important to the quality of the workforce and the economy. By and large, when you look at societies that are male-dominated, with women being excluded in vast areas of the paid workforce, you see more socioeconomic disparity, more poverty and less economic stability. Gender equity and a diminished "patriarchy" make practical sense, beyond theoretical ideals or "fairness" and "equity".

Even those who don't subscribe to feminism or a view that sees patriarchy as inequitable or unfair from a human rights standpoint, should see the logical value of parity in both the workforce and in the family dynamic. It makes practical sense, in a very pragmatic way.


From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402

posted 11 December 2004 02:18 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
But referring to us as the evil power hungry king from LOTR sounds pretty disdainful to me. I am willing to forgive though, since she sees why my reaction wasn't unwarranted.


I wasn't, at all, referring to you or your little classmates as the evil, power-hungry kings.
The subject of your diatribe was my comment on control. You control nothing. You will perform the tasks the overlords pay you to perform. If you invent something truly wonderful, they will buy the patent; market it, if they think it will make them richer and more powerful; suppress it, if not. You are not the chiefs: you are the clever underlings.

Yes, indeed, technology can do some pretty amazing things. Unfortunately, much of the work it does is cleaning up the messes it made the year - or decade, or century - before. Even more unfortunately, deployed for short-term goals, it can make much bigger messes, much faster, than it can clean up.

Ps.

quote:
what world do you live on?

The Planet of the Apes.
Incidentally, in a former incarnation, i was a medical technologist. I'm fully aware of the potential benefits of a cure for cancer - assuming it's allowed on the general market at all, assuming non-billionnaires ever get access, assuming it's more lucrative than some spin-off that makes rich old broads look 10 years younger. I'm equally aware that industrial technologies cause a lot of cancer.

[ 11 December 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 11 December 2004 09:33 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
brebis noire: you are a vet? That is so neat! I think you are babble's first vet. Boy, are you going to be busy.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2534

posted 11 December 2004 12:20 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Not only that, she is a COUNTRY vet, so she must deal with sheep (black and otherwise). This is so interesting that it should break off into a different thread! No, I don't mean a babble "ask your vet" column ... women do too much free work as it is ... but questions about such an experience. There is a lot of snow here - I can imagine in the hills where brebis lives, getting calls from M Boucher and Mme Gélinas about their prize cow who is poorly...
From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
brebis noire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7136

posted 11 December 2004 02:54 PM      Profile for brebis noire     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yup, lagatta, skdadl,I tried to do the country large-animal vet thing for a few years, but it really didn't work out for me, for reasons that are too long to go into here. Some of them are related to the still patriarchal structure of medicine and veterinary practice itself, but not all. I hasten to add that I know many excellent women large animal vets; and the ones (men and women) who give up practice or go into companion animals do so for a variety of reasons - men and women find it equally demanding, physically and time-wise.

Now I do occasional small animal practice at a local doggy and kitty clinic, but most of my work is in translation - so I don't mind at all answering questions... Except that the best I can usually do is to say: um, sounds like Fido/Fluffy needs to see a vet... We need to use all five senses to make a diagnosis, since the patients aren't usually very forthcoming about their symptoms.

Sorry to derail this thread, please proceed.


From: Quebec | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 11 December 2004 03:20 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Can you do reptiles, brebis noire?
From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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