On 9/2/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Outside the Nordic countries, women's representation in parliaments in
> the OECD nations isn't a whole lot better than the rest, especially
> when we take serious economic and/or political problems that plague
> the rest and relative absence of them in the OECD nations into
> account:
why exclude the Nordic countries? If they can do it, why not we?
Nordic countries have social democratic parties that have adopted
gender quotas, in response to women's demands. We have no social
democratic party that can actually take power, nor anything much to
the left of social democracy. Besides, in any organization to the
Left of the Democratic Party that isn't specifically feminist, you
find very few women anyhow.
> Besides, PEN-l is more
> Marxist than LBO-talk in subscriber demographics, and, alas, the more
> to the Left you travel, the fewer women you see!
if that's true, it's something to be fought.
How? A woman who differs from Doug Henwood, he feels free to
pronounce that she isn't a Marxist. I really don't care what he
thinks is Marxism, but that kind of attitude sure won't help increase
the number of Marxist women -- it will only decrease it by exclusion.
I really know nothing about feminism _per se_ (except that there are a
large number of splits and debates). Beyond being the expression of
women's collective needs, it's an abstraction.
But I do know that no-one can claim rights without a fight.
Sure, but why sloganeer here? I'm interested in facts and analyses.
Slogans can't tell you much of anything.
by the way, how does one "speak louder" on-line?
At the extreme, one does what Louis Proyect does -- purge those who
differ from one, so that one can hear only one's own opinion.
Unfortunately, that's been a typical practice in socialist states.
> It's too late. Most feminist women have given up on Marxism in the USA.
and they've embraced liberalism? isn't that the general trend, even
ignoring the sins of the Marxist Males?
Most Marxist men also vote for the Democratic Party, embracing
liberalism, when it comes down to that.
> Women have the right to point out problem behavior on the part of men,
> except men here don't support it unless it is exercised by women in
> Iran!
prove it. does this apply to _all_ men?
That's basically the norm of discourse. For instance, you didn't
criticize Doug's and Lou's personal insults to me, but you felt free
to criticize me for replying to them in kind. That is gender
discrimination. Women are supposed to be polite, even when men
aren't.
It seems to me that you come to this kind of conclusion because most
men (and maybe some women?) interpret your stuff as defending the
government of Iran.
If it's not Iran, it's something else. Once, Lou was on a jihad
against my favorable opinions about Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins
Wood (of all topics!) and Doug was on a jihad against my view that US
troops be withdrawn immediately from Iraq (by now Doug has changed his
mind). After Iran, no doubt something else will motivate them to go
on a jihad against me!
Yoshie:
> > > It should be obvious that I'm talking mainly about possibilities,
> > > unless I specifically state that there will be automatic changes.
me:
> > I kept on bringing up obstacles to these possibilities and you seemed
> > to ignore my points.
Yoshie:
> What makes you assume that I am ignorant of them?
you had lots of chances to bring them up, but you didn't.
There are a lot of things that you don't bring up, but I don't
necessarily assume that you don't know what you don't bring up in a
particular thread.
> The state and employers' needs are pull factors; women's needs and
> desires are push factors.
right, but in traditional patriarchal organizations, there was a long
period of relative balance between patriarchal power and female (and
young male) revolt. It was a long enough period of balance that people
often don't remember things being different. But then capitalist
and/or the state come in and break the balance.
In the abstract, that may be a valid point, but the Islamic Republic
of Iran hasn't existed for such a long time. It's been here only for
the last 27 years, i.e., it's younger than either of us.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
