Men who are what's-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander feminists

Hillary Clinton

ERA

Antoinette Brown Blackwell first ordained woman

Obama equal pay for women act

M-TH: Assistants to your self-emancipation

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1998-March/007472.html Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Mar 20 09:26:14 MST 1998



Thanks for your thoughts Yoshie. Here's what pops into my mind.

Yoshie Furuhashi 03/19 5:38 PM >>>

Hi Charles,

<< - An Equal Rights for Women Amendment to the Constitution, revive = that campaign, in the form of a Bill of Rights for Women, as well as a general statement that women shall have equal rights with men. The Bill of Rights would include freedom and liberation to pursue and material enabling to provide for self-happiness,, education and joy; pay equity or comparable worth pay; reproductive, sexual and caring labor power and freedom for women, including fulfillment of all material needs for reproductive and caring and schooling labor; protection and safety from bodily brutalization= and abuse for women and children>>

Yoshie : "I am afraid that legal struggles of this kind have probably exhausted = their usefulness.

CB: What if it was not a constitutional amendment campaign ? What would be = the form of the non-legal campaign ? How about a legal campaign and a = non-legal campaign ? A positive aspect of a constitutional amendment = campaign is that it would have to be among masses of people. It is not = establishing a law by going through the elite of lawyers and judges. = Constitutional amendment is still a republican form, but closer to direct = mass democracy end of the spectrem as bourgeois democratic forms go . Of course, I like Lenin enough that I'm not against the legal and = illegal party. Both are welcome at the Boston Tea Party ( left wing not right wing that arose later - CB) of a new type, our = neo-Paris Commune. I would welcome a non-legal form of party of activity = and struggle. << - Improve mens' caring and nurturing labor skills, particularly child care skills. Programmatically and systematically men can learn more home economics and housework, how to feed, cloth, wash , etc. children. I know there are many men who are an exception to this generalization, who do a lot of housework, but in general it is an accurate generalization. This is especially important because women do so much wage earning too, doublework.= It is patently unfair and exploitative.>> <<- It does not follow that because women biologically get pregnant that they must do most of the childcare after birth., from infancy through schoolteaching.>> About the above two, I think that it is not simply the ideology of sexism that creates the unequal and gendered division of labor in social reproduction. Without equal participation and equal treatment in terms of wages and also special paid leaves for pregnancy + childbirth, women will keep earning lower wages, which will in turn perpetuate an economic 'rationale' for the aforesaid division of labor in care-giving. (And of course, the double burden in turn will reinforce women's marginality in = the labor market.) I think this is an issue that labor movements + marxists ought to foreground. I'm thinking whether or not what we are saying contradicts. I think I = agree with what you are saying. It is both the ideology of sexism (I = prefer "male supremacy") and the sociopoliticoeconomic fact of male = supremacy that creates the unequal and gendered division of labor in = social reproduction (and production). Does this understand your meaning ? = The two items you comment on are meant to specify both the ideology or = consciousness and the conduct (or being) which constitute a major part of = the domestic and reproductive male supremacy; and to suggest how they = should be changed (through practical-critical activity or praxis). <<- Total equality for women in political and leadership postitions, in government , religion, academe, business and all institutions of power.>> We had better begin with ourselves--within labor movements and marxist politics. Right now, government, academe, business, etc. are doing a much better job making use of women's labor and knowledge, including some women in leadership positions too. Agree. We need criticism/self-criticism. Well if we really measured it = business ain't doin' so good in this area. But geez, labor and marxists = should be doing much better than business. U.S's AFL-CIO nationally is getting better.=20 Marxists must organically relate women's liberation and workers' = liberation theory, and become known as women's liberationists the way they = have been known as workers' liberationists. The new "democratic centralism" in our party of a new type, must be = affirmative action with rational quotas (51%) for women in leadership. = "Democratic feminism" /and the new leninism.=20 <<-all-arouind anti-male chauvinism and anti-male supremacy , equality without identity. We want a unity and non-antagoniatic struggle of opposites. Something like what happens in dancing.>> I like your metaphor. But can you be more specific? The unity and struggle of male and female as a fundamental dialectic = of life is reflected by the art, ritual and culture of some dancing. Men = might be persuaded to surrender their dominance to an arrangement that = appeals to their species-being sense, if it is portrayed to them honestly = and "seductively" enough. Hegel might be able to help with the logical = beauty of it for intellectuals and Marxist males at our mardi gras of the = people. <<- Affirmative action with quotas. (quotas are reasonable and not arbitrary, by the way. Their quantification can also be made reasonable , not arbitrary)>> Can't agree more. Quotas are reasonable from the marxist point of view. Quotas are also great challenges to the myth of meritocracy. With all of the attacks on affirmative action, maybe the left should = counter-attack with proposals for affirmative action based on class and = economic status. The U.S. liberal, Warren Court was one vote away from = this about twenty-five years ago in a San Antonio school case. This = campaign would be especially fit for schools. The current conservative = U.S. Supreme Court would not be able to use its perversion of the Civil = Rights Amendments to actuate the racist doctrine of socalled reverse = discrimination , i.e. the main victims of discrimination today are men and = whites. <<- Men who conceive of this as "what's good for the goose is good for = the gander" feminism. This program is in men's self-interest as well as = women.>> For working-class men, yes. What do you think we can do to make this a generally shared premise in marxist politics? Make persuasive and seductive arguments on marxist lists. These = marxist males are smart enough to see that they will be much happier if = marxist females are happy. Marxist females are saying no justice , no = peace. When we surrender justice, what a happy , peaceful, party of a new = type, return to the garden at a higher spin of the dialectical spiral, = will we have. Happy marxists will do a better job of vanguarding the = revolution. Workers don't want stoggy, repressed leaders. <<- Men declare their surrender in the Battle of the Sexes.>> Men can declare it if they want to, but power isn't something you can surrender except in certain artificial contexts. Yes, the main thing is self-emancipation. Assisting it is secondary = aspect. A big part is getting out of the way of the Feminist Engine of = History. However, Fredrick Douglass did say "power concedes nothing without a = demand" . This implies that power does make concessions i.e. does make = surrenders in real contexts. =20 Charlie B.