Of course not. But any feminist or leftist movement that excludes working class people can't be taken seriously. This is especially a problem with feminism in Britain - there is an obvious exclusion of working class women. Whenever you see women from the Guardian or the Indie on TV, they are almost invariably noticeably middle class. And not even middle class by any sensible standard, but usually privately educated and well connected. They all even look and sound the same.
The Guardian
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Of course not. But any feminist or leftist movement that excludes working class people can't be taken seriously. This is especially a problem with feminism in Britain - there is an obvious exclusion of working class women. Whenever you see women from the Guardian or the Indie on TV, they are almost invariably noticeably middle class. And not even middle class by any sensible standard, but usually privately educated and well connected. They all even look and sound the same.
At least they're the ones campaigning to end the systemic favor given to the upper classes and white men, which is about as much as they can do. And almost everyone who works for a broadsheet newspapers will invariably sound middle class and slightly stuck-up, as that's the style expected of them. I know what you mean though, and it's not just the guardian - it's always the same people giving the same fecking half-arsed, half-researched speeches and opinions on practically every news outlet, print or broadcast.
Their campaigns are mostly ludicrous jokes. Page 3, objectification, Robin Thicke etc. I can't remember the last time I read a feminist article on the Guardian or Indie websites and agreed with it. Whenever they concentrate on economics, it's always about there not being enough women in high end middle class jobs. It's actually an absurd situation, as young middle class women have now achieved economic parity with men, if not exceeded them.
They talk about male and white privilege, yet they rarely acknowledge their own privilege (their class-based one...i.e. the most important one). And when they do, they don't actually try to do anything about it.
Objectification isn't a joke though is it? It's not morally justifiable to treat people as objects, rather than people. And page 3, while seemingly silly, is still an issue worth addressing, but largely because newspapers shouldn't be distributing soft-core pornography.
I've lost the link now, but I remember reading a government report from a couple of years ago that said the main issue is that, as you say, the upper classes (historically upper class men) are given their fathers networking capabilities to steer them into higher-end jobs, which accounts for the lack of women, minorities and lower classes at the board level of most highly successful companies, the report also said that without government interference it wouldn't be until 2050 that women achieve parity with men and went on to recommend quotas similar to those seen in Scandinavian countries. So the economic argument of feminism isn't absurd in the slightest. Unless the only women which matter are the 11 year olds of today.
But feminism is a different issue from class, just because it's currently the upper class women who stand to benefit economically more than the lower class ones it doesn't mean that feminism is in anyway wrong.
As in the Baby Boomers thread, it's the class system that's the problem & not people in general.
These middle-class crypto-liberals are already a significant problem in the British left today and threaten to become a bigger one over the next decade if left to their devices. This privilege theory/intersectionality wank is imported directly from campus politics in the United States (not the roots of it but the recent resurgence).
Far from being a joke I think it threatens to marginalise the concerns of the vast majority of people from within the left-wing. Just take a look at the American "left". You're starting to see the beginning of a backlash now but it won't be easy.
So do you think a feminist analysis of economics should relegate the difficulties and unfairness faced by the majority of women and prioritise campaigning on getting equal numbers of highly privileged women and men in corporate boardrooms?
The feminists writing in the New Statesman do not represent all of feminism. The fact that you think feminism is a different issue from class demonstrates ignorance of strands other than the most prominent one (liberal/radical feminism as opposed to socialist feminism - wonder why that is?). This tension has existed since the inception of these movements in the 19th century. It's all over the socialist/Marxist feminist literature of the time. Apologies for the length, but I think this is illustrative:
"First of all we must ask ourselves whether a single united women’s movement is possible in a society based on class contradictions. The fact that the women who take part in the liberation movement do not represent one homogeneous mass is clear, to every unbiased observer.
The women’s world is divided, just as is the world of men, into two camps; the interests and aspirations of one group of women bring it close to the bourgeois class, while the other group has close connections with the proletariat, and its claims for liberation encompass a full solution to the woman question. Thus although both camps follow the general slogan of the “liberation of women”, their aims and interests are different. Each of the groups unconsciously takes its starting point from the interests of its own class, which gives a specific class colouring to the targets and tasks it sets itself. ...
However apparently radical the demands of the feminists, one must not lose sight of the fact that the feminists cannot, on account of their class position, fight for that fundamental transformation of the contemporary economic and social structure of society without which the liberation of women cannot be complete.
If in certain circumstances the short-term tasks of women of all classes coincide, the final aims of the two camps, which in the long term determine the direction of the movement and the tactics to be used, differ sharply. While for the feminists the achievement of equal rights with men in the framework of the contemporary capitalist world represents a sufficiently concrete end in itself, equal rights at the present time are, for the proletarian women, only a means of advancing the struggle against the economic slavery of the working class. The feminists see men as the main enemy, for men have unjustly seized all rights and privileges for themselves, leaving women only chains and duties. For them a victory is won when a prerogative previously enjoyed exclusively by the male sex is conceded to the “fair sex”. Proletarian women have a different attitude. They do not see men as the enemy and the oppressor; on the contrary, they think of men as their comrades, who share with them the drudgery of the daily round and fight with them for a better future. The woman and her male comrade are enslaved by the same social conditions; the same hated chains of capitalism oppress their will and deprive them of the joys and charms of life. It is true that several specific aspects of the contemporary system lie with double weight upon women, as it is also true that the conditions of hired labour sometimes turn working women into competitors and rivals to men. But in these unfavourable situations, the working class knows who is guilty. ...
...
For the majority of women of the proletariat, equal rights with men would mean only an equal share in inequality, but for the “chosen few”, for the bourgeois women, it would indeed open doors to new and unprecedented rights and privileges that until now have been enjoyed by men of the bourgeois class alone. But each new concession won by the bourgeois woman would give her yet another weapon for the exploitation of her younger sister and would go on increasing the division between the women of the two opposite social camps. Their interests would be more sharply in conflict, their aspirations more obviously in contradiction."
(1909)
Yes, feminism and class are obviously different issues. Feminism is concerned with gender equality. Class, or anti-elitist movements, are concerned with wealth disparity between the upper and lower classes. They are different movements, and while many people in each camp support the other, that's as far as the overlap goes. Wealth equality and the destruction of the class system would not end gender inequality, and similarly an end to gender inequality would not end wealth inequality.
And I've already acknowledged that the upper class women are set to gain a bigger advantage, but that's not the fault of feminism, that's the fault of elitism. The report I mentioned earlier also recommended that boardrooms should have quotas for the lower classes and minorities, so I'm hardly promoting a bourgeois feminism nightmare scenario.
Just because elitism has a worse effect on the lives of women (and people generally) doesn't mean the arguments of these feminists are wrong.
I saw an article that said Robin Thicke had been voted Sexist of the year by some womens group. Yet an antire Uni had segregated a seminar/lecture because a muslim fundamentalist man had been visiting, also Spain has just passed restrictive abortion laws. The mind boggles. For a start, the video was directed BY A WOMAN, and the song itself is not even about rape, nor is it sexist, crappily written yes, but not sexist or whatever.
The song is blatantly sexist. Whether that is more sexist than other things is debatable but come on.
Mullah Omar should win sexist of the of year until he dies, but yeah, the song is definitely sexist.
Nah I don't think it is, it was over the top reaction. There have been worse songs to have come out.
Not being the worst is not an argument that effects whether or not it's sexist.
Why can't you see that the realities of gender inequalities manifest very differently between classes? This is why it is so stupid to separate the issue of class from feminist politics if it is actually concerned with gender inequalities.
Take a few problems that are traditionally seen as 'women's issues': bearing the full burden for child-rearing, prostitution, domestic violence, objectification in pornography/page 3. If all women were guaranteed financial security, were guaranteed opportunities to pursue fulfilling work, and child-rearing was socialised to a much greater extent, no woman would be financially dependent on their abusive partners, no woman could possibly be coerced into prostitution or pornography out of a lack of other opportunities, and mothers (particularly single mothers) would have a much easier time coping. Wealthy women already have all of these advantages over regular women.
How can these be made available to all women without tackling the class issue? What is the liberal feminist strategy here?
They frankly don't talk a lot about the way class shapes how gender inequality manifests. Most liberal anti-racists also miserably fail to see how this works for racial inequalities.
As for none of this being the "fault" of feminists.. any kind of feminism that is in acquiescence with the continuation of a class system must bear part of the fault for the problems it causes, for women and for everyone. Their refusal to address and highlight it is condemnable and disgraceful. As for the shite they do come out with; the matter of "equality" in the boardroom is a classic example of this. What fecking difference does a quota for this group or that group in a boardroom make for achieving greater socioeconomic equality? It doesn't matter whether you guarantee a spot for a few working-class people or a few women or a few ethnic minorities. It doesn't matter if there were no white men in there at all. They would all have to carry out the same constitutional function to maximise profits.
And again a paper with only an internet presence breaks a story that the useless Aussie press either couldn't find or ignored/suppressed because it didn't fit Rupert's agenda.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/19/revealed-doctors-outrage-over-unsafe-refugee-patients
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/19/revealed-doctors-outrage-over-unsafe-refugee-patients
Again, I'm not arguing that feminism will solve the class issue, it doesn't attempt to and that's already a granted fact, they're different issues. But since you seem so keen on talking about class, why shouldn't lower class women be equal to lower class men and upper class women to upper class men?
And one the things which hold back the lower class, minorities and women is lack of upward mobility. You're far more likely to get a promotion if you're a well connected (oft. upper middle/upper class), white, heterosexual, native male. One of the ways to tackle this is quotas, not just at the boardroom level, that's just the best example as the higher you go, the more monotonous the people become. Yes, it'll be the same corporation but it'll be a corporation with a far more representative workforce at all levels. If you can't see how such quotas help fight elitism, then what the feck are you asking for, a violent revolution?
No, it's actually not a "granted fact". As I have said a couple of times now, socialist feminists actually do understand how class intersects with women's issues, even if you don't, and they organise and campaign accordingly. They also don't want lower class women to merely have equality with lower class men; they want equality with everyone in the society. I think they are right to. Gender and class privilege should be abolished.
I notice you have ignored the question I posed, as to what a class-free feminist strategy for dealing with the few significant problems I mentioned would entail. You seem to believe that feminists should not deal with poorer women's problems unless they also affect richer women. Do you also believe that feminists should ignore women's issues that uniquely affect black and Asian women? You would have to be consistent and say that feminism and race are different issues after all, just as feminism and class supposedly are. Are the Southall Black Sisters not proper feminists? What are proper feminist issues? Ensuring that enough women's faces are on banknotes?
From the first sentence of this paragraph it's clear you're not thinking about the issues properly. A lack of upward mobility holds back the lower classes, it doesn't hold back all minorities and all women. Why are you categorising these 3 groups together when talking about social mobility? It's nonsensical. Middle-class minorities / women don't need "upward mobility" - they're already fecking "up" there.
I strongly doubt you have any good empirical evidence about what you're claiming here with regards to promotions, but it doesn't matter, some of it is common sense. I'm more interested in your opinion that the options for increasing socioeconomic equality are either to institute race/gender/sexuality/class-based quotas at every single level of every single workplace in the country, or violent revolution.
I believe in simpler ideas like actually-functioning political and industrial democracy. Violence has nothing to do with it. Democracy means actual control over these institutions that shape our lives at home and at work. Quotas don't challenge the class system one iota even in theory. If this ludicrous idea even worked, it would merely ensure that the elites would be more racially and sexually diverse.
No, it's actually not a "granted fact". As I have said a couple of times now, socialist feminists actually do understand how class intersects with women's issues, even if you don't, and they organise and campaign accordingly. They also don't want lower class women to merely have equality with lower class men; they want equality with everyone in the society. I think they are right to. Gender and class privilege should be abolished.
I notice you have ignored the question I posed, as to what a class-free feminist strategy for dealing with the few significant problems I mentioned would entail. You seem to believe that feminists should not deal with poorer women's problems unless they also affect richer women. Do you also believe that feminists should ignore women's issues that uniquely affect black and Asian women? You would have to be consistent and say that feminism and race are different issues after all, just as feminism and class supposedly are. Are the Southall Black Sisters not proper feminists? What are proper feminist issues? Ensuring that enough women's faces are on banknotes?
From the first sentence of this paragraph it's clear you're not thinking about the issues properly. A lack of upward mobility holds back the lower classes, it doesn't hold back all minorities and all women. Why are you categorising these 3 groups together when talking about social mobility? It's nonsensical. Middle-class minorities / women don't need "upward mobility" - they're already fecking "up" there.
I strongly doubt you have any good empirical evidence about what you're claiming here with regards to promotions, but it doesn't matter, some of it is common sense. I'm more interested in your opinion that the options for increasing socioeconomic equality are either to institute race/gender/sexuality/class-based quotas at every single level of every single workplace in the country, or violent revolution.
I believe in simpler ideas like actually-functioning political and industrial democracy. Violence has nothing to do with it. Democracy means actual control over these institutions that shape our lives at home and at work. Quotas don't challenge the class system one iota even in theory. If this ludicrous idea even worked, it would merely ensure that the elites would be more racially and sexually diverse.
I think you're misunderstanding me here, because if you'd read any of my other posts in the CE I think we'd probably agree on most issues.
Gender inequality is more an issue less developed countries - most notably Afghanistan where young girls are risking their lives if they go to school. And yes, that's more serious than the lack of representation for women on printed money, but that doesn't mean the argument that women should be better represented on money is wrong, it may seem inane and pointless, but it's not wrong. More than half the human race is female, but men have practically all the prominence.
And I classified women/minorities/everyone else who isn't white straight and middle upper/upper class together because of the white heterosexual upper class male privilege. Yes, an upper class woman has far more privilege than a lower class one, but an upper class man has more than either. The struggle for equality extends far further than class - it concerns race, gender, sexuality and all other forms of identity.
The quotas which are implemented in the Scandinavian countries are one way of fighting inequalities (namely the fact that unless you're born into the right families, your options are greatly limited). If not these quotas then what do you suggest we use in their place? Because as much as we all want a simple actually-functioning democracy, it takes policies to actually get there - these policies are things like quotas, the living wage, free education and more government funding for gainful employment.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/08/beware-of-cupcake-fascism
One man fights valiantly to get a whole essay into Pseud's Corner.
One for @alastair to enjoy.
One man fights valiantly to get a whole essay into Pseud's Corner.
One for @alastair to enjoy.
I don't believe he's a real person. He's an elaborate performance piece set up by Toby Young to skewer left wing hipster types.
WTF?
CiF is a fokking joke, Guardian ought to kill it before it makes them a complete laughing stock.
This a true thing.
I'd Like that post if I could, Haddock.
Personally, as a would-be author, it annoys me that Guardian Books is just as happy asking "What are the best Cats in Novels?" as it is discussing shrinking advances and Amazon's domination (for instance).
Personally, as a would-be author, it annoys me that Guardian Books is just as happy asking "What are the best Cats in Novels?" as it is discussing shrinking advances and Amazon's domination (for instance).
Obfuscation.
That is all.
That is all.
Here are his other performances: http://infinitelyfullofhope.wordpress.com/
There's a 6,000 world post about M&Ms on there.
I rather enjoy reading the comments just to see how crazy people can actually be.
He's amazing. He's like some kind of Pseud bot. He's written a 2,000 essay on Sherlock and Doctor Who where he concludes..
He's really gone deep cover here, fair play.
The first sentence, rather, the pile of clauses, is fantastic. He really enjoys talking about infantilization. I bet he has a weird fetish about wearing diapers.
Not so much about the Guardian particularly but this story about a plagiarism row in the world of art made me despair. What a bloody ridiculous state of affairs:
Didn't realise that we had a Guardian thread. I'll happily admit that I used to live in the Politics Live Blog.
What a load of wank. The FT had a great headline today about the ONS now adding drugs and prostitution to gdp calculations. Took them five hours to spot it but tbf I was manic today and missed it. Was buried deep in a mega-boring press release. I'll follow up first thing. The annex to how they calculate it is great.
Its stupid, but I think one article a while back did question performance art like this. Personally I think its all rubbish, and the Guardian should be writing less about this, and more about stuff in art that is relevant to society in general.
Amid all the (deserved) DM abuse, lest we forget the Guardian's ability to disappear up it's own arse. This prick said the poppy installation was 'fake, trite, Ukip-style' and horror of all horrors 'popular art'.
Most people across the political spectrum found Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red a powerful and evocative tribute to the war dead. Not so this guy. The wider public 'got it' and liked it, so it was obviously shit and not abstract enough. What a fecking cretin.
http://www.theguardian.com/artandde.../tower-of-london-poppies-ukip-remembrance-day
Most people across the political spectrum found Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red a powerful and evocative tribute to the war dead. Not so this guy. The wider public 'got it' and liked it, so it was obviously shit and not abstract enough. What a fecking cretin.
http://www.theguardian.com/artandde.../tower-of-london-poppies-ukip-remembrance-day
In fairness, I don't think that was his main argument.
The whole piece had a sneering tone that rankled me. Is it really a depressing nationalistic show or was it a poignant tribute? I guess it is in the eye of the beholder.
Disgraceful apostrophe error in my post, tbf. Tiredness and grammar don't mix.
The only problem I have with the poppy display is its presence at the Tower. What an incredibly inappropriate place to choose.
Ben Elton gave a very impassioned rebuttal to the criticism from the Guardian during an interview on Fivelive last week. He put Eleanor Oldroyd somewhat on the back
foot IIRC.
If interested, forward to 15:00 in the following podcast:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/5live/extraedition/extraedition_20141106-1500a.mp3
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Really? It worked aesthetically and is central, from a practical point of view. The Tower's grim past is going back hundreds of years- it's only been a monument for yonks. For me it was more about the thing capturing the public's imagination and this achieved it better than anyone could have expected.