On 9/2/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
me:
> > being in the labor force isn't the same thing as being in power. In
> > the US, feminists had to fight to break down the walls set up by the
> > old boys network and still haven't succeeded completely.
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> No, but women need their own sources of income aside from what men
> bring in if they are to have more bargaining power within families and
> communities, and getting into workplaces outside homes brings women
> together with other women and men, which is a better political terrain
> than household labor that is often solitary in a country above a
> certain level of economic development.
"their own sources of income"? I don't know about Iran, but just
because women earn money from wages doesn't mean they actually own or
control their income. It wasn't that long ago that women's rights to
property ownership were severely limited in the US.
Muslim women (beginning with Muhammad's first wife, Khadija, who was a
businesswoman) actually already had the right to own their own
property when such a right was not available to women in predominantly
Christian societies.
further, in many cases women participate in a workplace in a way that
is controlled in an extremely paternalistic/patronizing/patriarchal
way. It used to be that female teachers in the US had to live up to
all sorts of "moral" rules, about their sexuality, etc. I doubt that a
country which requires that women wear special clothing that covers
their heads and bodies would be any more liberal here.
Women in the USA to this day do not enjoy paid maternity leaves common
in almost all countries: "out of 168 nations in a Harvard University
study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving
the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and
Swaziland" (The Associated Press, "U.S. Stands Apart from Other
Nations on Maternity Leave," USA Today, 26 July 2006,
<http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-07-26-maternity-leave_x.htm>).
In contrast, in Iran, women enjoy paid maternity leaves: "Maternity
leave for female workers is a total of 90 days, at least 45 days of
which have to be taken after childbirth. For multiple births, 14 days
are added to the leave. After her maternity leave has ended, the
female worker returns to her previous position and her period of
absence, upon the approval of the Social Security Organization, will
be factored into her future entitlement benefits" ("Excerpts from the
Book, Women's Rights in the Laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran, by
Shirin Ebadi, Published in Iran in 2002,
<http://www.badjens.com/ebadi.html>).
There are many things that women in Iran would want to change, but in
some respects they enjoy more feminist social and economic rights than
American women do. Perhaps, American men such as yourself ought to
first exert yourself to win American women the rights that women in
Iran already enjoy.
It's a little strange to find myself making (Marxist-) feminist points
to Yoshie. The fact is that there is no automatic process that
produces the liberation of women. Throwing women in the workforce can
easily lead to their being thrown out again (as with women in the US
after WW2). Capitalist dynamics only create possibilities for gender
equality: it is women's struggle that can realize the possibilities.
That's because you assume, without evidence, that I'm arguing that
there is an "automatic process that produces the liberation of women."
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
