“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Thursday, March 24, 2016

"You Shouldn't Vote for a Woman"

"...because that would be sexist. It shouldn't matter who delivers the message."

Discuss.

At some point I may tell you what I think of this middlebrow parody of third-wave feminism, constantly touted in a "you better not think otherwise or else" sort of a superego way--in a year in which the opposition seems particularly hell bent on outdoing its usual wish to transmogrify women into vessels who should be ashamed--which sounds exactly like eighteenth-century Enlightenment patriarchy.

2 comments:

Asa said...

I actually kind of think femininity is a thing. Whether that thing is "real" or not is beside the point. To what extent it is socially constructed is mostly beside the point. The point is that we could use more of it in how our government is run. Because of patriarchy, any woman who wants to get elected has to expunge most (but not too much) of the femininity from her public persona. And men have femininity too. But I still think this is a reason to vote for a woman simply because she's a woman. It didn't outweigh other considerations for me in how I caucused in this presidential primary, but it's a valid consideration.

D. E.M. said...

I don't know. Hillary is a dutiful daughter of the patriarchy. These dutiful daughters are nothing but trouble, IMHO-- Condoleeza, Margaret Thatcher, etc. Hillary endorsed the Iraq War. That broke my heart, especially after the entire world marched against it. We marched up here in Winnipeg in minus 40 weather; I'll never forget it. And organized info tables at the university, where white peoples screamed at us & people of color thanked.
I'm off topic.

The cause or principles of femininity -- if that means whatever stands outside of masculinity or patriarchal masculinity -- isn't in Hillary, I don't think.

The whole thing bums me right out. That wall Trump talks about takes my breath away.