by Searcher08 » Sun Mar 27, 2011 4:01 pm
Thank you for that, wordspeak2. You articulated my concerns regarding the "deeply dodgy" roots of 'MS' Steinem very clearly. I share your concerns about the critical importance of pulling the plug on patriarchy.
- for me personally, I try by by moment to moment action and reflection and modelling respect for the person.
Q How specifically did I myself do it today? One by posting this, the other, witnessing a tiny victory.
A By the way I asked the waitress in a (two floor) cafe I was in for a coffee. The most I could do in that situation was make contact, create rapport and mention, in a light way, that I imagined her feet were sore from going up and down stairs so often (she smiled and said indeed they were) When she brought the coffees, even though I was engrossed with my mate, I stopped and when I received the coffee I looked her in the eye, said "Thank you" and smiled and MEANT it. She beamed and said "You're welcome!" - and MEANT it. One small interaction that left each of us enhanced.
She was in a sea of ordinary working class blokes who were chatting with their mates about footie and who either ignored her beverage laden arrival, saying "Cheerz dahlin" without connection... or asking her out (!) in cheeky-chappie style "So wenz u comming att wiv us for a beer gor-jus?" and she was adept in the way good waiters and waitresses are, at handling this..."Maybe you ask again next week, so I see if you are gentleman or just air head" which was greeted with a good natured chorus of taunting to the guy, looking sheepish) from his friends. an "You tell im!" to her.
I respected her because she was her own woman and made her own small stand. The system found equilibrium through her humour and grace. I would put money that the cheeky chappie wondered about what he said.
We smiled and 'thumbs upped' to each other as I left.
I've been surprised at the lack of apparent interest in this subject here.
Instead?...nit picking? who is being offended by whom about what? conversational hissy fits? Is that it??? Hmmmm.... whatever floats your boat. but has much has changed?
Do the financial elites care about equality for women in the most general sense?
I would say almost certainly not, as a thing in itself. But as a means to an end, sure.
From a purely finance capital point of view, when one has a market penetration of only 50% of the potential population, well those margins gotta change. When Bernays launched the campaign to get women to smoke as a symbol of their independence, I think that was a stunningly clear template of the approach - one of the use that the financial elites and the corporatocracy has had for both women in general and the women's movement.
An enabler to exploit a huge new market of wage slaves.
I have seen loads of women trade-in their female power for an attitude which could best be described as 'out-pricking the pricks' . They mirror the the most toxic men and toxic images of men in the business environment around them; they treat every interaction as a potential war. When a certain strain of ideological feminist is challenged on this, the response tends to be that "I am trying to diminish those womens power!!". ORLY? I beg to differ. It is the cult of you have to be a "bitch" to 'survive and thrive' in a "dog eat dog corporate world". It maps to a conversation I have seen black people discuss about black people turning 'white' - articulating a somewhat similar loss of sense of their roots, playing along to get along, a kind of co-option - is that the right phrase? So one sees 'pseudo-feminists' apparently waving the feminist flag but actually being active foot soldiers, captains and generals for establishing exploitative finance capital and showing equal rapacity in corporates (and the concomitant lifestyles as being worth modelling, when actually, these things are not what they are cracked up to be, maybe even they are things whose continued existence is at the very root, the very fabric of patriarchy itself thus the oppression of women themselves.
Would a conversation about this would be worthwhile?