Hi little e, hope you're well, and congrats on the wee one. :-)
I agree, size makes a difference. Ultimately, there's always going to be some response to basic physical attributes whatever they may be. But at the same time this can pretty easily turn into a shield or an excuse for what can be straight up discrimination. I would think a good manager or leader would know when to bypass their superficial judgements.
I agree with your libertarian stance. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that matters is what an employee is capable of, not what they look like or what gender/race/religion they are.
I also agree that whether a woman draws power from manipulating men, it no longer has much effect on social opinions of women. (After all, isn't that the oldest form of feminine power maneuvers anyway?) But I don't know about your statistic for incidence of porn and incidence of violence towards women. If you mean a more liberal sexual cultural attitude correlates with lower rates of violence, then I will agree.
As for Nicole Richie... I guess it would mean more if I mentioned the publicist was talking to an actress from the UK. Of course it would be irrelevant to you.
Good managers are, sadly, hard to come by. Often people get promoted for merely looking more competent than those around them... even if really they're just sabotaging their coworkers. If you get ahead by sabotaging some folks, why would you hesitate to sabotage others?
Are you familiar with the works of Dworkin and MacKinnon? I don't want to ramble at length about something you already know. Their basic theory, which underlined a lot of radical feminism in the 70s (which ultimately turned off a lot of people from feminism and thus I think accounts for the current stagnation of the movement, at least in the US,) was that there exists a 'rape culture' and that porn is some sort of violent photographic rape. It promotes rape, it teaches people how to rape, it objectifies women and turns them into nothing but sex objects, etc. Thus porn=rape culture=more rape.
This is... just not true. If there's any correlation between porn and rape, it's that countries with extremely restrictive laws on porn also have more violence against women, period, while countries with more liberal laws on porn also have less violence against women. Does that mean that producing more porn will make women's lives better, or that more equal pay in the work force will cause more porn? Probably not.
But I think getting sidetracked talking about 'rape culture' and porn as 'oppressing' and 'objectifying' women gave feminism a lot of bad press on an issue which basically didn't matter. But I guess it's easier to complain about porn than to think about whether microfinance loans for starting home businesses will help women in the third world.
I hadn't heard of that. I'd heard of the theory, but I always thought it was a joke. (They mention this at length in the movie PCU.)
This would explain a lot of American attitudes about porn.
As far as the looking more competent thing, there's a book called "the Rules of Work" which talks about that very thing. But that's a whole different discussion. Maybe I'll spark that up for a new entry.
It's a real theory, and I think they actually did get a few laws passed under it. (Now uniting for the first time, conservative Republicans and radical feminists!) Unfortunately, when people today think of 'feminism', they tend to think of second-wave radical feminists like Dworkin and MacKinnon, and want to shy away from that. Which is why I think you get so many people who say, essentially, "I believe in women's rights, but I'm not a feminist." If the modern feminist movement wants to actually be effective and work for women's rights, then I think it needs to take a cold hard look at its own past, evaluate which ideas are actually good for women and which ones aren't, and then distance itself from people and ideas which provide more negative than good.
Unfortunately, feminism is a largely academic exercise in America, and hell, folks are still throwing around Marxist theory without even bothering to take off the name 'Marx' without seeming to realize that in so doing they are basically guaranteeing that no one in the American mainstream will ever take them seriously. Much of academia seems to have no aspirations higher than an intellectual circle-jerk, (otherwise known as 'getting published in academic journals',) and thus there is little push towards making feminism a relevant and respectable force in life/politics.
This would explain the dissolution of feminism, and even give the term "feminazi" some historical context. It's a shame, really. When you get so caught up in your own dogma you forget the whole thing has to have an appealing human face in order to garner any popular support at all. This I suspect was the downfall of American socialism as well.
Alas, what you say about feminism can be used to describe the lion's share of critical theory circulating at universities. It's gone so deconstructionist, it's eaten itself.
My comments on academic feminism were by no means at all meant to imply that only feminism suffers from academic wankery. It's just the aspect of academia I happen to be talking about at the moment. :P
Post Modernism had a few some good points, but they've run out.
All political movements must on some level deal with expanding and convincing others to join if they're to survive. But people don't like that. It feels like cheating, giving up on what you believe...
I agree, size makes a difference. Ultimately, there's always going to be some response to basic physical attributes whatever they may be. But at the same time this can pretty easily turn into a shield or an excuse for what can be straight up discrimination. I would think a good manager or leader would know when to bypass their superficial judgements.
I agree with your libertarian stance. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that matters is what an employee is capable of, not what they look like or what gender/race/religion they are.
I also agree that whether a woman draws power from manipulating men, it no longer has much effect on social opinions of women. (After all, isn't that the oldest form of feminine power maneuvers anyway?) But I don't know about your statistic for incidence of porn and incidence of violence towards women. If you mean a more liberal sexual cultural attitude correlates with lower rates of violence, then I will agree.
As for Nicole Richie... I guess it would mean more if I mentioned the publicist was talking to an actress from the UK. Of course it would be irrelevant to you.
Reply
Good managers are, sadly, hard to come by. Often people get promoted for merely looking more competent than those around them... even if really they're just sabotaging their coworkers. If you get ahead by sabotaging some folks, why would you hesitate to sabotage others?
As for porn, basically, yes.
http://books.google.com/books?id=dCDbL3WyjFMC&pg=PA174&lpg=PA174&dq=statistical+correlation+pornography+violence+against+women&source=web&ots=i8v6eb3jCD&sig=fiRQMcU3YaXAfXwSinRVu9WwNmU
Are you familiar with the works of Dworkin and MacKinnon? I don't want to ramble at length about something you already know. Their basic theory, which underlined a lot of radical feminism in the 70s (which ultimately turned off a lot of people from feminism and thus I think accounts for the current stagnation of the movement, at least in the US,) was that there exists a 'rape culture' and that porn is some sort of violent photographic rape. It promotes rape, it teaches people how to rape, it objectifies women and turns them into nothing but sex objects, etc. Thus porn=rape culture=more rape.
This is... just not true. If there's any correlation between porn and rape, it's that countries with extremely restrictive laws on porn also have more violence against women, period, while countries with more liberal laws on porn also have less violence against women. Does that mean that producing more porn will make women's lives better, or that more equal pay in the work force will cause more porn? Probably not.
But I think getting sidetracked talking about 'rape culture' and porn as 'oppressing' and 'objectifying' women gave feminism a lot of bad press on an issue which basically didn't matter. But I guess it's easier to complain about porn than to think about whether microfinance loans for starting home businesses will help women in the third world.
Reply
This would explain a lot of American attitudes about porn.
As far as the looking more competent thing, there's a book called "the Rules of Work" which talks about that very thing. But that's a whole different discussion. Maybe I'll spark that up for a new entry.
Reply
Unfortunately, feminism is a largely academic exercise in America, and hell, folks are still throwing around Marxist theory without even bothering to take off the name 'Marx' without seeming to realize that in so doing they are basically guaranteeing that no one in the American mainstream will ever take them seriously. Much of academia seems to have no aspirations higher than an intellectual circle-jerk, (otherwise known as 'getting published in academic journals',) and thus there is little push towards making feminism a relevant and respectable force in life/politics.
Reply
Alas, what you say about feminism can be used to describe the lion's share of critical theory circulating at universities. It's gone so deconstructionist, it's eaten itself.
Reply
My comments on academic feminism were by no means at all meant to imply that only feminism suffers from academic wankery. It's just the aspect of academia I happen to be talking about at the moment. :P
Post Modernism had a few some good points, but they've run out.
All political movements must on some level deal with expanding and convincing others to join if they're to survive. But people don't like that. It feels like cheating, giving up on what you believe...
Reply
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