Dunbar-Ortiz Interview: On Male Supremacy in Revolutionary Organizations
Posted by Mike E on January 18, 2009
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Thanks to Celticfire for conducting this interview and sharing it with Kasama. We are publishing this piece because it touches on important matters facing the revolutionary movement. As is always the case, our publication does not mean that we endorse or share the views expressed here.
“I wouldn’t spotlight any one revolutionary organization as male supremacist during the 1960s and into the early 1970s, because they all were.”
“The general society continues to affect the conditions inside organizations, and there has been a prolonged assault on feminism, redefining it as choice, shopping, style, rather than an analysis of patriarchy, capitalism, and imperialism. And there is no real feminist movement, an organizing movement, just as there is no real antiwar or anti-capitalist movement in the United States.”
“Revolutionary organizations are few in number and membership is low. That must change for feminism to continue its work in creating equality and true democracy.”
* * * * * *
What were your experiences with explicitly revolutionary organizations, such as the Revolution Union in regard to male supremacy?
By “explicitly,” I take it you mean “self-identified” revolutionary organizations, since I personally would not consider the Revolutionary Union (or its present identity, RCP) to be a revolutionary organization. My first experience with a (truly) revolutionary organization was the African National Congress. While a history graduate student at UCLA in the mid-1960s, I was a founding member of the first, or one of the first, campus anti-apartheid organizations in the USA. It was led by two South Africans, one black and one white, both then affiliated with the ANC. I spent the summer of 1967 in London where the ANC international office was located, headed by a South African poet (black) who taught me more than anyone ever had about the history of the United States as a white settler country, which forms the basis of its imperialism. I was treated as a comrade and equal by all the South African ANC cadre, but they were all men. I argued with them about the role of women to which they would reply that the women were needed in the struggle at home, where the real struggle was. But, it was clear that future South African leadership was being trained in the international division (including Thabo Mbeki who was a student at LSE at the time and active in the office), and women would not be a part of that leadership. I was not yet a conscious or activist feminist; indeed this experience made a feminist of me. I forged arguments I had not yet even thought about. Feminist consciousness had been developing in me for the previous 4 years, from the time I read Simone de Beauvoir‘s The Second Sex. From her thesis, I learned that family and marriage, particularly the modern nuclear family, was the cause of woman’s oppression. I had been married at 18 and had a child. Within a few months after reading the book, I acted and left my husband. Up until that time, class exploitation and oppression defined my consciousness. Coming from a working class, and extremely poor, background, I had felt put down constantly, or I interpreted every put down as class-based. It was only in graduate school, beginning in 1964, in a nearly all male world (there were 3 other women grad students in History and no women professors) that I began to realize that nearly everything related to being a woman, preferential treatment from professors who hit on me, and discrimination by the misogynists (the majority); same with my fellow male graduate students who all had working wives who also typed their papers. So, I don’t think the experience with the ANC was the cause of my feminist angry that took hold in the summer of 1967, rather that being among real revolutionaries led me to the realization that there would be no revolution that lasted without the full participation of women, transformed women, not just females, rather the full participation and leadership of feminist women and pro-feminist men. I returned to the US to organize for that purpose. I wouldn’t spotlight any one revolutionary organization as male supremacist during the 1960s and into the early 1970s, because they all were; they all reflected the general society that was fundamentally male (and white) supremacist. I actually was convinced that truly revolutionary men immediately would realize that male supremacy would have to be eradicated once they were made aware of its harm to revolutionary projects. I was shocked when this was not the case, or not widely. I was shocked when revolutionary men who became pro-feminist were hassled by their male comrades. I was shocked when self-proclaimed revolutionary men refused to deal with male supremacy on the theoretical level in terms of how capitalism emerged, became dominant, and persists, that is, refusing to deal with patriarchy. I was horrified when these men accused feminist comrades of being selfish and bourgeois.
Have conditions in organizations improved since the emergence of feminist theory?
Absolutely, conditions have improved for women, mainly because many women have simply seized leadership and in doing so, changed the style of leadership and organization, more consensual, less hierarchical in decision making. There are still problems with women doing theoretical and intellectual work, especially writing and publishing. The general society continues to affect the conditions inside organizations, and there has been a prolonged assault on feminism, redefining it as choice, shopping, style, rather than an analysis of patriarchy, capitalism, and imperialism. And there is no real feminist movement, an organizing movement, just as there is no real antiwar or anti-capitalist movement in the United States. Revolutionary organizations are few in number and membership is low. That must change for feminism to continue its work in creating equality and true democracy.
What corrective actions should be taken?
Revolutionary men need to learn feminist theory and do a searching inventory of themselves in regards to their male supremacy; they should correct each other, and not leave it to the targeted woman to do so, although women should be encouraged and rewarded to calling out men on their behavior.
What can revolutionaries do to create a society based on gender equality today?
Develop strong women’s leadership. Set quotas that half of all committees, membership, organizers, officers, etc., must be women. In organizing, insist on these standards. In educational endeavors, emphasize feminist theory, the relationship of patriarchy and the rise of capitalism.
Rita Mae Brown said in the “The Last Straw” that class is more than Marx’s definition of the relationship to the means of production. She said class involves ones behavior and assumptions about life, and how one solves problems. Given that, what does a class conscious movement that seeks to end all oppressive behavior look like? How does it behave in the face of a world dominated by images of degradation towards women?
Brown used to tout a lot of notions about class, but ended up being a horse lady in Virginia. I think what you describe as her view of class consciousness is false consciousness. A class conscious movement will seek to end class, for working class people to have full access to all the good things in life (I don’t mean consumer goods), and the eradication of the rich and greedy.
What are your thoughts on Intersectionality1 How do you think – specifically Marxist revolutionaries should in view of Intersectionality, look at say, the principle contradiction?
Intersectionality is one of those invented sociological terms that sounds more profound than it is. The rhetoric of “race, class, and gender,” is really another way of structuring relative oppression, sort of like assigning points for degrees of oppression. I think it’s useless, and maybe worse retards real analysis. For upper middle class white people (men and women), class is the most difficult issue to deal with, so they often will rush to anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-sexist stances, which do not fundamentally challenge their class consciousness.
Bourgeois feminism sometimes makes assertions that all women are “exploited equally. How should class conscious feminists respond to this?
Bourgeois feminism is reformist feminism, and has, like other reformist projects improved the lives of women, including working class women. I don’t believe many if any reformist women’s organizations these days would say all women are exploited equally, but they do see that the commonalities of women’s oppression outweigh the differences. Class conscious feminists should organize, organize, and not respond to reformists, rather out organize them.
Is the Personal still Political?
Of course. In past periods, too many revolutionaries, including revolutionary women, attempted to “rise above” the personal, to claim that biography had nothing to do with behavior. In that way, we could act “objectively,” that is, coldly and without emotion, but actually acting out suppressed traumas and behavioral problems. That has changed for most engaged young people, but is still prevalent in revolutionary organizations. The women’s liberation movement had to raise the banner of the personal is political (although it was created by SNCC) because of the intimacy of men and women. It has been extremely healthy worldwide for women to be able to politicize the “personal.” * * * * * * Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a veteran activist and scholar, the author of Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War, Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975, and Red Dirt: Growing up Okie. She has participated in a number of movements and struggles around the world, including the women’s liberation movemen and the American Indian Movement (AIM), and has fought for self-determination among various people’s around the world.
Notes
1 Intersectionality or “simultaneity,” as the concept was originally articulated during the 1970s by the African-American feminists of the Combahee River Collective. First, the concept of simultaneity, or intersectionality, refers to the fact that multiple principles of social organization operate within the same social and institutional spaces in which we live and work in this country. The second point is that none of these principles of social organization (which can also be understood as forms of oppression and principles, or poles, of identity formation) operates independently of the others, but, rather, each operates interdependently with all the others. Another way of conveying the same meaning is to say that race, class, sexuality, and gender never exist in society or social situations in isolation from one another. Instead, the impact of each principle or form is always influenced or shaped by all the others. (Source)
Sole said
This is such an inspiring interview, thanks so much for sharing! I can’t contain my excitement at seeing this in type:
“Revolutionary men need to learn feminist theory and do a searching inventory of themselves in regards to their male supremacy; they should correct each other, and not leave it to the targeted woman to do so, although women should be encouraged and rewarded to calling out men on their behavior.”
It’s so important for men to bring themselves to feminist theory, much like it’s white people’s job to dissect white supremacy. It’s our job to investigate our own privilege, not to depend on others to do the work for us.
Carl Davidson said
With a tip of my hat to Dunbar-Ortiz, she’s left out one important group, the LRS, or League of Revolutionary Struggle.
The chair was a woman, as was a majority of the standing committee, and none of them were ‘white’, either.
I was on the CC myself, and I assure you, there were no hidden males pulling strings behind the curtains.
Which is not to say the LRS dealt wisely with the woman question all the time, or that male chauvinism didn’t rear its head from time to time. It usually didn’t get very far, though, whatever else you want to say for this group.
It was also, in its majority, comprised of minority nationalities. I was one of the 20 percent who was not a ‘person of color.’
Nando said
I have somewhat mixed feelings about this interview.
First, I think that the overthrow of male supremacy needs to be prominent in our political work and goals — and I believe that (for many reasons) that is objectively placed at the center of world politics in a way that is upsetting the old orders in remarkable ways, and that provide a deep potential current for the most radical revolutions.
and, I believe we need to “reconceive” how this struggle for the liberation of women is integrated into the revolutionary struggle for socialism worldwide. The legacy of the revolutionary movements is (as this interview suggests) very mixed. and there has been a powerful push to insist that the liberation of women is subordinate (to the liberation of the nation, to the unity of the working class, to the unity of the revolutionary organization)…. in ways that affirm that women are subordinate.
However….
I think that the framework of this interview (and Roxanne’s response) is problematic.
There has been a major thrust at times to shrink the liberation of women to the struggle over process and composition among organized revolutionaries. as if the setting of quotas for women in leadership will help solve the theoretical, poltical and practical problems of having movements that actualy carry through the liberation of women.
Reality is more complex.
First, it can be a paralyzing and narrowing thing to see solutions in formal strictures of organization. Our revolutionary efforts do not mainly hinge on each of us successfully ocnfronting our “own privilege,” or men in our ranks collectively confronting their privilege. It will hinge on our common understanding of our revolutoinary politics and analysis — of the importance of overthrowoing of male supremacy (in society, for real), and then (on that basis) building organizations that serve that.
In fact, there is a clash of two methods of analysis here.
One (the analysis Roxanne seems to be promoting) sees society mainly as a hierarchy of privilege where the oppression of Black people is the result of white people (and their privilege), and where the oppression of women is the result of men (and their privilege). And so the revolutionary process focuses on the denial (and repudiation) of such privilege.
But what disappears from this whole paradym is the system itself — a system in which male supremacy and the oppression of nations is (increasingly and globally) embedded withing capitalism. there are, of course, privileges — but they are not the engine or the cause of oppression.
Class is not just a structure of privilege (among many overlapping structures of privilege) — as roxanne seems to see it) — there is a global set of relations of production that serve a particular class (the monopoly capitalists) and are enforced by their armies and other defenders. The connection between capitalism and male supremacy is something to struggle through — at this level of analysis.
Men do, as sole argues, need to study the oppression of women (and take their place in the struggle against it.) Our movement needs to study, understand, and adapt the insights from many analyses of gender oppression (including various kinds of feminism, queer theory, and other schools of thought).
Certainly men are in many ways and times the direct enforcers of the oppression of women. But male supremacy is far more than men acting to defend their relative privilege.
but women’s oppression is far more than that, and men are not its only instruments. There are also major institutional and structural forms for this oppression. and there are also many ways in which women have become the instruments of women’s oppression (see, for example, mother’s-in-law in rural china, or the female guardians of clitorectomies in parts of Africa, or the dynamics of “mean girls” in junior high, and so on.)
This is not understood, or ended, by a simplistic theory of “privileges” between groups.
I am not arguing “overthrow capitalism, and women’s oppression will automatically go away” — the oppression of women has a relative autonomy, and the struggle against it has to be carried out in its own right. but that struggle is (or rather needs to be) consciously a struggle against the whole systemic structure of oppression (within the family, within the culture, withing the class relations, within the institutional functionings etc.) — and not viewed as mainly a repudiation of privilege by men (who are seen, in this view, mainly as privileged oppressors, not brothers within in a complex and stratified society.)
As a movement of comrades, we need to forge a strategy and a set of common ideas that will enable us to make a major historic contribution to the overthrow of male supremacy. This is a larger process — part of the work of reconceiving and regrouping. We need a political culture where people are empowered to speak, that does not replicate the larger society’s culture or ideas, that is (in growing ways) a model of the kinds of relations that are possible among people. but I don’t believe that is served by often petty and hostile culture of focusing on the individuals within our movement and their supposed relation to their own privilege.
I think our committment to overthrow male supremacy does mean things for our organizational views (our process)…
We do need to actually train communists and leaders from among those sections of the people who have been disempowered in this society.
We do need (ourselves) to transform — our thinking, our habits, our behavior — in line with our revolutionary goals.
We do need processes of candid comradely criticism (including over how our organizations view the oppression of women, and how these things are reflected in our organizational practices.)
But (i’m trying to argue) I am reluctant to view the solution to this as residing in this theory of “privilege” and rather simplistic assumptions about the ideological cost of such “privilege.”
Nando said
Carl’s example is worth working through, for what it reveals.
He takes Roxanne’s approach, and says (essentially) that if this is our measure of things, then we should look at his former organization (LRS) as a model and a bright spot.
Well, let’s look at that, not mainly to evaluate LRS (which is a pretty complex story) but to think about the relationship between line and process.
* * * * * * *
first, let’s zoom back for a second and ask: What was probably the greatest setback of women and women’s liberation in world history?
It was (if you stop and think about it) the restoration of capitalism in China (where quarter of humanity had been going through unprecendented social revolution).
In the chinese revolution, the liberation of women was a breathtaking (if still unfinished) process over the decades of socialism (1949-1976) — as is discussed in our previous series on the Cultural Revolution.
And the restoration of capitalism, after 1976, marked a bitter reversal of that. It kept some things that differentiates capitalism from feudalism — but reversed those “socialist new things” that were obstacles to the capitalist modernization (and political climate of counterrevolution) that the Deng forces unleashed.
I remember with some real anger how western journalists would go to China (after its “opening” to their kind) and their excited reporting that the sex trade had reappeared in Canton and Shanghai. It was not just that these journalists (as privileged men) were eager to buy women for sex (as some of them undoubtedly did). But it was far more class conscious: they often said that the emergence of prostitution was a key sign of the emergence of capitalism — and that the changes were deep, running to the very defining core of social relations, and that the whole legacy of Mao and socialism had (now visibly!) been overthrown. And soon came reports of female infanticide, and the denial of women property rights in the countryside, the rise of arranged marriage, the social acceptance of these old traditions and so on and so on… the restoration of capitalism brought with it (for reasons that need to be understood) the reversal of the liberation of women.
* * * * * *
Now back to Carl’s example:
It is true, that LRS was (deep in its bones) an advocate of the kind of process and quota system that roxanne is advocating. LRS formed itself around a political assertion of nationalism (among Latino and Black people, and within the communist movement) — and it attracted people who had a mixture of social democratic politics and a kind of “sectoral assertion” within organiational processes.
OK…. and did this process, these quotas, this approach to male supremacy, mean that the LRS saw clearly and correctly the effect of the 1976 overthrow of Maoism in China. No. their organization was formed on the basis of upholding the Hua guofeng coup (of 1976) and rejecting the idea that China had seen a setback at all. they were advocates of the changes Deng Xiaoping had brought — and at best saw the increased oppression of women as disconnected with the changes back to capitalism in China’s social system.
Yes we could organize ourselves with this formal approach to process. But I don’t believe the adoption of Roxanne’s analysis and proposals would actually have the effect of helping understand and overthrow male supremacy in society.
*****
I think the key thing is to form a revolutionary movement around a deep and radical understanding of women’s liberation — and on the basis of such a general line develop organizational line (including great efforts to train communists and leaders from sections of the people who are traditionally disempowered, etc.) The focus of the struggle against male supremacy is not our internal process or self-criticism — we do need to transform ourselves (yes!), but it is not the focus of the struggle. and isolated from a revolutionary politics, all the effects of a particular view of process mean little.
retired said
It’s our job to investigate our own privilege, not to depend on others to do the work for us.
That’s why I quit activism. It’s the bourgeoisie’s job to investigate it’s own privilege and they shouldn’t depend on me to do it for them!
Jeri L. Reed said
Roxanne:
I could write you 20 really long books on this subject, and include even male supremacy even in non-, semi-, or pseudo-revolutionary organizations, all about how they achieve it without appearing to do anything, and these days, then turn around and look confused, because of course, they are all the original feminists themselves, and haven’t done anything. It’s just you. But only if you were a magical therapist you could help me mend my life and my heart and my soul–and didn’t believe that I was the one who was crazy.
Revolutionary men, or non-revolutionary men for that matter, need to realize that making you into nothing does not make them something. They can memorize all the feminist theory they can find on the internet, and replay it back to you to display their superior intellect and show how “progressive” they really are, but it all comes down to the same old same old non-academic explanation.
Jeri
Tell No Lies said
Nando, having the correct viw of Hua Guo Feng didn’t ensure that the RCP was able to see the reactionary character of its line on homosexuality.
Quotas seem to me a blunt instrument that has unfortunately repeatedly proven neccesary. Do quotas in leadership bodies automatically produce good line? Well, clearly not.
But white male domination of leadership bodies seems to pretty consistently reproduce itself and not produce the sort of practical development of women and people of color leadership that a real revolutionary movement will need to actually make revolution.
Quotas can force otherwise smart white guys to come down to earth and face the real concrete practical obstacles that an organization is experiencing. Line is more than words on paper about international developments, it is also embodied in who we are and what we do. An organization that can’t overcome the tendencies of this society to propel university-educated white men into leadership is inherently incapable of leading a revolution, no matter how brilliant its line is on paper. This is not to say that this is simple question or that the response to it advocated by Dunbar-Ortiz doesn’t also have costs. The production of revolutionary theory is pretty specialized form of human activity and there are serious structural reasons why the relatively small number of people with the intellectual training to do it are disproprtionately white and male.
A primary task of any aspiring revolutionary organization, in my view at least, is to act as decisively as posssible to upset that dynamic and interefer with its reproduction and to create a new dynamic that produces a layer “organic intellectuals” that reflects in its composition the social forces it aspires to lead in the transformation of this society. Such a process is inherently contradictory but no less neccesary because of it. LRS, like everybody else, failed to unite a critical mass around a sufficiently revolutionary line, but it trained a hell of a lot more people of color as political leaders than any other group in the New Communist Movement as far as I can tell.
While Nando’s critique of LRS’s line on China thirty years ago is one that I basically agree with, I submit that there is a relationship between quantity and quality and that there is no road to a correct OVERALL analysis (not just on the critical events in China but on homosexuality and a bunch of other questions) that does not pass through a process that successfully produces leadership bodies that at least roughly resemble in their composition the peoples they propose to lead.
Zack said
Isn’t the RCP famed for promoting their chair’s importance on seeing the coup in China for what it really was? Sure this was a big thing when not a lot of others at the time were saying it, but as TNL points out, that doesnt absolve them from making other errors.
Perhaps the opposite can be said for the earlier mentioned LRS?
celticfire said
That’s true Zack. In fact, in my mind I’m still holding out that one day the current manifestation of LRS (or the still revolutionary members) will do a long self-criticism for their incorrect line on China…oh well, some day.
I agree with TNL that yes, quotas are blunt – but they also set up a standard and an expectation that things will be done differently. And situating white-male intellectuals in a revolutionary organization means we have to think of ways to be different and to approach it differently. Personally, I don’t think I’ve heard a better suggestion than the quota system.
Nando said
Thanks for responding, TNL. I’d like to bounce off your remarks, to hopefully clarify some questions.
I think a revolutionary movement needs to actively develop communists and leaders from generally disempowered sections of society. There needs to be an internal training process so we break with the cycle of “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” (I.e. where those with elite educations have a monopoly on intellectual skills and theoretical formation.) The process of leading a revolutionary movement needs to include youth and workingclass comrades — both because that is a component of such training, and also because they bring with them experiences and insights that are crucial. One of the problems of the RCP was an ossified “leadership for life” — and I’m not mainly speaking of the level of its chairman. There was a real generational problem, where new generations were not allowed to participate creatively in the creation and implementation of line at the leading level.
I think there are important ways in which socialist societies (after major revolutions) got some of their political character from the methods and habits of the revolutionary parties that led them. I think a revolutionary organization needs to model (in a number of ways) the kinds of progressive methods and relationships we want to see generally characterize society.
But…. I have often seen the assumptions of identity politics lead to a situation where the process of radical organizations was seen as the arena where their character was defined. And where the overall line and politics of the organization (where it stood, for example, on the overthrow male supremacy in society, among the people, in the formation of strategy) paled along side endless self-cannibalizing struggles over repudiating the supposed “privilege” among the radicals themselves.
TNL writes:
I think this is an important point. and it is worth thinking about, especially because its truth is often not so clear.
Now the issue is not just “automatically.”
The question for me is what is the basis on which leadership is chosen, and what is the purpose of leadership. There are all kinds of answers to that.
At one extreme, leadership is seen symbolic — as a source of symbolic “role models” for bolstering self-estime and encouraging empowerment. (So a Black man in the presidency is mainly seen as a positive thing for Black youth because of its impact on their self image — and the actual policies and politics of that new president are barely looked at.)
And, leadership is viewed as representation, where people (somehow) inherently “represent” their identity group…. so that the long-term interests (of women, or gay people, or workers, or…) are (somehow) better protected if members of that group are (by statute) given a quota of presense in all rooms.
And then there is the view that the crucial criterion of leadership is the ability for formulate and carry out an approach that can actually lead to the endgoals of revolution and communism.
I have (at times) been in an organization where the policy was “only female leadership” and where there were quotas for recruitment (“we have no room for more males until we have recruited more women.) And TNL is right that these approaches did not (automatically or otherwise) produce “good line” — and they in fact represented a mistaken approach to how women would be liberated (and was willing to sacrificed the leadership and line of our radical organization on the altar of process and formal “representation.”)
[Also to be clear: To me, line does not mean a series of positions. Like, “Do they have a good line on this?” or “Do you agree with their line on the elections?” To me, line means the same thing as “road” — it is short for your “line of march” — meaning “where are you going?” In other words, the issue for leadership is such overall or general line: it is formulating what our goals are in the most sweeping sense, and what road we are on to get there.)
TNL writes:
This is undoubtedly true. And it is worth thinking through. But I want to add that I don’t view this as just a matter of “the correct view of Hua Guo Feng.”
The issue there really was “what is socialism,” and “what does liberation look like?”
It is a rather profound experience to have people looking at major counter-revolutions (truly historic ones) and insisting that they are positive steps, and insisting that the changes will improve socialism. It is not just “did they get it right on some now-unknown and obscure figure of Chinese history.”
Part of what I was trying to get at is that (in the world to day) there really is a deep value in knowing the difference between capitalism and socialism, and actually taking a stand with socialism against capitalism.
Or put it another way, in this thread Carl rushes to embrace the question of composition as a measure of whether you have broken with male supremacy…. while in a nearby thread he and keith openly uphold the supposedly positive role capitalism is playing in the world.
And what I’m trying to get at is that on matters of male supremacy (and other major matters) our standards for judging ourselves (and others) can’t be mainly internal process, but has to be matters of overall line (overall in the sense that it embodies a basic, and firm stand against oppression and for liberation, including prominently women’s liberation.)
I did not choose to resurrect thirty year old line questions in this thread, Carl did — by trying to make a POSITIVE example of an organization from the 80s. My point was that it is possible to talk about the composition of the LRS leadership, without ignoring their terrible general line (their reformism, their support for the greatest counterrevolution in world history, etc.)
It would be wonderful if just having women in leadership (in specific quotaed percentages) produces a better line on women’s liberation. It would simplify many things. but it is, in fact, an illusion, one closely associated (in my mind) with identity politics. And it points our attentions (and our development of leadership) away from the matters that do produce revolutionary politics — and focus them on process and composition.
TNL writes:
These are assertions I would like to explore.
I have experienced (in the RCP) a movement whre there was almost zero accountability — where leadership often did not have to explain themselves, account for failures, face recall, or stand before the membership for evaluation. And there was almost no accountability to collective leadership bodies as well. Accountability was (basically) only to superiors.
I’m sure people have other experiences in other movements (Love and Rage? Slam? campus groups? SDS then-and-now? Panthers? CPUSA? Others?) And I’d be eager to learn from such experiences.
In organizations other than the RCP, I have seen where this blunt instrument of quotas has proven disasterous (over and over) — where it created a situation where leadership was chosen on the basis of identity politics, not overall politics. Where there was paralysis — because views were judged by the idenity of peole putting them forward not by their correctnesss. (“Who are you to question what the gay caucus or third world caucus is saying on this?”)
And I have seen where it served particular cliques who maintained themselves (in some destructive ways) by mobilizing internal “constituencies” in semi-permanent wars on other sections of the organization. (The CPUSA’s famous internecine “war on white chauvinism” after World War 2 was an early example of this, and was inseparable from their recoiling from fearless public work under difficult conditions.)
I think, as TNL indicates, there is a struggle to have leadership in revolutionary movements focus correctly on the challenges (and not just the practical concrete ones, but also the long range and theoretical ones) that the movement is facing. But I don’t think there are any organizational tricks that “force” this to happen, and I don’t think that compositional quotas help.
I am curious to hear what you are referring to here… and the basis on which you think it is reasonable to say “pretty consistently.”
First, it would be wrong to assume the leadership in the RCP was characterized by white men with elite backgrounds. And I think there is something revealing about any assumptions that the RCP’s leadership was white and male. It wasn’t. (And do you think that the RCP’s line on homosexuality was only formulated, articulated and promoted by the white men in leadership? Think again.)
As for the question of nationality composition: The problem of the RCP was not (i believe) a reluctance to train/promote Black and Latino to leadership — but a difficulty in recruitment. Where the RCP was able to recruit people who were Black and Latino — they were quite eager to bring them to leadership experience.
Because there are security questions around discussing leadership I will leave the general point standing without examples or details.
Second, if you look around the world at the Maoists movements, there is a phenomenon where they (as opposed to, say, Guevarism) sometimes have a high number of women in leadership (and sometimes in the fighting ranks).
This was particularly true of the Peruvian Shining Path — for a number of reasons. Including the fact that men often left the highlands for Lima as migrant proletarian labor, and so many of the villages they left behind were heavily female. But it is also true that the leading core around Gonzalo was heavily female (from the beginning)…
TNL writes:
This is true as far as it goes. But it is deliberately vague on precisely the matters we are discussing.
Yes it is important to act “as decisively as possible.” Yes there are structural reasons why the work of theory draws forward those trained to do theory (trained within the surrounding society). And yes we need to make special efforts or we can’t conceivably lead a revolution, and yes those efforts happen within objective constraints.
But the exact question we are discussing is how to do this. And the formulation “a primary task” mushes the question here about the relationship of tasks. (By definition isnt there only one primary task? If you assert “A primary task among other primary tasks” then you have kinda left open the question of what, in fact is the actually PRIMARY task.)
Example: I have always studied military history. Political movements, the classes they represent and the soldiers themselves love leaders who bring victory. Rivals complained that Grant was drunk when he conceived his strategy for vickburg, Lincoln quipped that he wished to send a case of that whiskey to all his other generals. In other words, the primary task of leadership is not to be a role model, it is not to be represenational of an identity group, it is to lead and win (creatively, with the final goal in mind).
And, in fact, throughout the world there was a growing rupture (after the enlightenment) when military leaders where no longer being chosen because of their background, (i.e. their aristocratic identity groups) but because of their actual ability to fight, lead and win in the political cause of which they were the armed manifestation. (And where they were still picked by hidebound identity standards, the result was disastrous, as the trenches of World War 1 revealed.)
Similarly, it is something worth criticizing (in the cultural revolution) that people were characterized by the class background (of their parents and family), not by their actual stand and line. People were elevated to leadership in some red guard units based on the revolutionary history of their families and so on.
No. What is primary is precisely line — in the evaluation of people, and especially in the choosing of leadership.
That is not to say (as I started at the beginning) that the training of communists and leaders from previously-disempowered groups is not of great importance. It will (as TNL indicates) prove crucial in the success of any revolution — for reasons we need to unravel separately. But the basis reason it is crucial is that our kind of revolution, by its very nature, either enables previously oppressed people to rule, or else it is betraying its nature. If Black and working class people can’t learn the skills of independent analysis, revolutionary leadership and conscious initiative within our movement, then how can that movement be the vehicle for the self-emancipation of the people (and how can it overthrow the heavy weight of elites and their monopoly on all that)?
celticfire said
Nando writes some historically interesting and notable things such as the example of the “rupturing” with aristocratic identity in the selection of generals and selecting them based on ability after the Enlightenment period. And there is some correctness is his point about the GPCR selecting people with good “revolutionary” backgrounds instead of their political lines, and the mechanics behind that thinking.
However, Nando decidedly misses the point about quotas.
I haven’t had the experiences Nando has, and being one of those white-youth-intellectuals in SDS and other places, I know that there are a lot of problems with the over assumption that line is everything (like having no “soul” to borrow from Mao).
When there are expectations and standards in place such as what LRS insisted upon, I think that is an accomplishment. Nando pointed out that “there are important ways in which socialist societies (after major revolutions) got some of their political character from the methods and habits of the revolutionary parties that led them.”
This is true on an important level. If a revolutionary organization sets up standards, and wins state power, those internal standards are now societal standards. That is one importantant step in overcoming male, white, straight domination.
On the issue of line, I agree with TNL, that quotas come with a cost too. But I’ve been a part of collectives and groups that use quotas and still have healthy ideological debate and line struggle. It’s isn’t an either or question, just as democratic centralism isn’t either – it’s an either and question.
The problems with Nando’s two historical examples (the Civil War selection of generals and GPCR seleciton of people from revolutionary backgrounds) is that neither really deal with the question that we are discussing, specifically male supremecy. As the Chinese would say in the Maoist era, women are making progress, but that task in still unfinished. So we can’t say that the GPCR was the pinnacle for women’s liberation (not to say it was profoundly liberatory in nature, it was, but that there remains so much more to do!)
Bad lines can manifest from workers, peasants, women, men, etc. and will always require struggle against those lines. But male supremecy replicates itself in a fashion that unless it is consciously acted against in both formal and real ways, it will only be a good line on paper, as TNL correctly points out a lot.
Nando’s experience with the RCP is indicative of not really addressing this issue (as well as the national question in general, btw). Younger people and especially ones inclined towards theoritical work were drummed out of the RCYB. Here is a question for revolutionary organizations: when you get that good line, and if you attract youth, women, people of color – what will you do with them once you have them?
I kind of pick up a sensitive vibe from Nando’s description of his experience with the quotas “I have often seen the assumptions of identity politics lead to a situation where the process of radical organizations was seen as the arena where their character was defined.”
Okay…let’s talking about the RCP’s position on the Boston bussing, where the RCP tailed the white working class and ditched the people of color in the name of a correct line. Was the correct thing to do was not make the white working class feel their character was “defined” by their status, and really, what’s wrong with acknowledging that truth that white people are privileged?
There are areas I don’t agree with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, like her cursory dismissal of Intersectionality. However I think she is right on target about the need for formally setting standards of equality.
A friend who was a member of the RCP for years said to me once that had the RCP actually come to power, it would be disastrous because of their internal life. I think he was right.
nando said
Thanks for jumping in Celticfire.
Again: it is important to train leadership in ways that breaks with the traditional patterns of elite training in the surrounding society.
That is not the question we are discussing. Here are the three things I think we are biting on:
a) the specific matter of quotas for leading positions in revolutionary organizations (and the assumptions that underly that — assumptions about leadership, assumptions about privilege, assumptions about what depends on what).
b) the assumption that our process needs to involve (as a significant component) the organized and repeated search for “privilege” and its effects among our comrades (dividing and handling comrades by their membership in identity groups, and assuming that everyone’s outlook is deeply and inevitably shaped by relative privilege, and that ideological transformation requires such assumptions about privilege and its impacts).
c) A particular view of society (expressed in Roxanne’s view) where oppression emerges from a structure of privileges (class, national, gender) — not fundamentally from a social system (a class society) emerging on the basis of a particular property system (system of exploitation and ownership). This last part is the underlying difference of analysis that explains differences over the first two.
* * * * *
I am very interested in understanding the views of people who find quotas necessary, and (as you can tell) I have views formed by some experiences.
I don’t want to hammer you based on a single phrase, but I want to point out:
a) the phrase of Mao (and Maoists) is not “line is everything” — it is “ideological and political line is key.” There is quite a difference between the two, and your version is a bit of a straw man.
Your phrase saying “line is everything” — implies line is the primary matter, but it is also the secondary matter, and it is also the tertiary matter. In other words, it is simply “everything.”
But Mao’s line that “ideological and political line is key” says some thing different: That within a welter of different factors, within a thicket of important and determining matters, the question of the direction (our overall goals) is overall key. (as they say in Latin, it is the sina qua non — without that we have nothing.)
You can pay attention to many things, and handle many things well — but the key thing remains “what road are we on?” What is our final goal? Who and what do we serve?
My point around the 80s group LRS was precisely concerning “ideological and political line is key” — you can have a group that doesn’t know the difference between socialism and capitalism, that doesn’t know the difference between revolution and counterrevolution — as they erupt massively in opposition in the real world. And if you are not clear on “ideological and political line” in that overall way — then the other matters (however important they are in their own right) can’t dent that fundamental problem. If you promote women and working class people to leadership — but your organization is not revolutionary — then the first is negated by the second.
And i raise this because there has been a bit of sniping here in Kasama’s comments around Mao’s view “ideological and political line is key” and (in some of those comments, as in your comment) there has been a bit of misunderstanding — and yet we have not yet engaged this matter of “ideological and political line” deeply and head on. (“Ideological line” pertains to matters of ideas (worldview, class stand, philosophy, method, theory), “political line” refers to the matters of power (strategy, organization, etc.).
I am willing to (tentatively and provisionally) play the role of “defender” of that view in order to facilitate a digging into this question.
Put another way: Mao said (on mistakes): Everyone makes mistakes, sure. But you have to make sure you don’t make too many of them, and in particular you have to make sure you don’t make any fatal mistakes. And the question of “ideological and political line” (i.e. whether you are on the revolutionary road or on the counterrevolutionary road, OVERALL) is key… without that, the rest is silk ribbons wrapping shit.
And there is a dialectical relationship between your overall ideological and political line and these other matters. (In other words they are not separate…. they react back and forth on each other in ways that are a whole discussion in their own right. I.e. your internal organizational process both reflects and manifests your overall line, and reacts back on your overall line.)
Let’s be clear: I don’t believe that you overcome oppression by replacing previously dominant groups with members of previously oppressed groups — in posts still embedded in structures that are essentiallly no different from the old society.
The glass ceiling is part of male supremacy — but the shattering of the glass ceiling of capitalism is not the decisive moment of the overthrow of male supremacy.
The Soviet Union is a major example: very often in the Soviet revolution, the liberation of the working class was equated with the entrance of “sons and daughters of the working class” into previously closed spheres of society (science, academia, high government office, management of industry). As we all know Krushchev was the classic example of his generation — the son of a coal miner.
Throughout society the rise of “sons and daughters of the working class” (the generation born under the revolution) into posts throughout society CORRESPONDED with the conservatization of socialist society in the 1930s. And that was because the rise of workers to prominent posts (including by quota systems) was seen as decisive (in a way that it is not, in fact, proved to be decisive.)
And in fact the oppression of this world (and our society within that) is not understandable (as Celticfire says) in terms of “male, white, straight domination.” (This is the underlying and crucial analytical issue.)
This view (seeing oppression as a structure of privileges and sectoral oppressions) sees oppression very simplistically and mechanically — and (in a way that is fundamentally mistaken) confuses what are contradictions among the people, and what are contradictions between the people and the enemy.
It is not true that whites are (overall) the oppressors of blacks, and men are (overall) the oppressors of women, and that straights are (overall) the oppressors of gay people. And it is very simplistic to assume that a structure of corrupting privileges are the raison d’etre of oppression in class society. This is a sociology of identity politics, and is very different from an analysis rooted in historical materialism and materialist dialectics.
And there is a very reductionist view that sees the ideas of people as being fixed and shaped by their “privileges” in rather direct and universal ways. Ideas, politics and organizational dynamics (in individual people, in groups within our movmement) do not (in fact) arise from the underlying structures of society. that is why it is revealing (and wrong) for people to adopt the habit of identity politics (to preface every remark by “speaking as a [fill in the blank]” — as if the truth of our ideas and the proof our motives are fixed by announcing our identity group. (When I speak, I speak as a revolutionary communist, not as a a representative of some of the sociological grouping to which I belong.)
The relationship between experience, origins, ideas and behavior is is far more layers than these schema imply.
Sometimes (of course) men act as the immediate oppressors of women (meet the traditional family, and wifebeating etc). But it is not true that men (because of privilege) have overlying self-interest in opposing the liberation of women — and so their ability to be revolutionary does not rest (somehow) on the repeated confrontation of their own individual (assumed) privilege “as a man,” and on repudiating a supposed superstructure of individual ideas that is supposed to inevitably (and universally?) arise on that basis? It is such a “privilege only” view of the contradictions among the people — and is rooted in wrong non-materialist assumptions of many kinds. (Our ideas are not an individual superstructure, that arises on our own personal base of class position and privilege — that misconception is key part of this reductionism.)
this view also describes oppression in very individualized ways — privileging those forms of oppression where people act on each other as individuals (acting on their understandings and exploiting their unequal positions). And it (in turn) deemphasizes institutional and structural forms of oppression (which are actually, overall, principal in the working of class society and its oppression).
Example: liberals often act as if the main manifestation of racism is racist remarks by individual racists — when in fact the core of racism in our society arises from the larger oppression of a Black nation and the oppression of proletarian people (who are disproportionately Black) within the whole structure of the society — in ways profoundly institutional and structural. that’s why the good will of white Americans and the elevation of a few Black people into powerful posts has not ended the key dynamics from which racist oppression arise.)
Well, ok, let’s follow your thought, and make our examples specifically about male supremacy.
Hypothetical analogy: you are picking a general staff to wage a desperate civil war. Unlike Lincoln’s army, your army (because of its modern and communist character) stands for the emancipation of women. Its stand on rape and the abuse of women is uncompromising. It integrated women as fighters at every level. It seeks to train women as leaders, and imagines that this training will be precious after the revolutions success…. because those women are also being trained to lead and organize the future society and its further revolutoinization.
But into the discussions around this, Comrade Celticfire stands up and says (my invented dialogue!):
And so on…. isn’t that what “quotas for leadership” demands? Can you see the problem?
It took Lincoln years to find Grant (a general willing to fight, who was dogged on winning the war, and who understood the changing nature of war enough to break with previous thinking (and sensibilities). Should that process be shaped and constrained (for communists two centuries later) by a quota system?
And example of the issues of line involved: The confederate general Robert E Lee advanced from the slave state of Virginia into the northern state of Pennsylvania, hoping to shift the terrain of battle (and seize the initiative). When Union General Meade’s forces defeated the Confederates at Gettysburg, Meade sent a note to Lincoln that said they had defeated “the invader” and were driving him back to his own territory. Lincoln commented that Meade, fundamentally, did not understand the whole goal of the war — since by describing Lee as an “invader” for entering Pensylvania, Meade had already ceded Virginia to the Confederacy and was already speaking as if there were two countries. And that was, after all the very issue in the war, and Meade was conceding much to the Confederate view.
Lincoln was desperate for a general who understood the view that the whole country was the Union’s territory — and who was willing to “take the war” into the slave-regions. (And despite Meade’s victory, Lincoln quickly replaced brought Grant east from the Mississippi Valley to lead the war.)
In this search for a leading general, “ideological and political line key.” A huge part of the officer corp (including leading generals like McClellan) were infact Copperhead defeatists who thought the Confederacy should be allowed to secede and go their own way. (Leaving the slaves in slavery, and throwing away the chance for revolution).
Yes, unless it is consciously acted on. But we are discussing which “formal” ways are necessary. The heart of the struggle against male supremacy in china (the thing you call “real ways”) had to do with male ownership of land, the sale of women in feudal society, the way the division of labor was enforced in feudal families (which were fundamentally a production unit as well as a reproduction unit), female infanticide, footbinding (and other cultures of mysogyny) etc. And those changes would be produced and reproduced if there was not radical land reform (backed and enforced by the armed might of the workers and peasants).
Not this is not to say that it was not important to bring women into the heights of power — and this did (in fact) emerge in the later stages of the GPCR (in the criticize lin, criticize confucius campaigns) in part because the revolutionaries were also considering promoting Jiang Jing to the leadership of the revolution, and because the reactionaries were fighting Mao’s forces by unleashing rather shameless male chauvinist attacks on this revolutionary leader.
Well we support affirmative action (should have supported forced integration in Boston). And the RCP’s error about that is worth dissecting and understanding in a self-critical and fearless way.
But I believe we should not be simplistic. In other words (to put it crudely) we should not reason like this:
There is more to say on this…. but certainly a socialist state treats the masses differently than the U.S. federal state. And the revolutionary approach to eliminating national oppression is rather different from how the liberals led integration attempts in the 1970s. It is not just that we are even more consistent and insistant about applying these liberal methods. (Which are rooted in the liberal goal of “equality of opportunity” and have proven weak in their destruction of institutional and structural racism, and had inherent difficulty of mobilizing the oppressed of all nationalities for the needed transformations.)
Again there is more to say on this… but to say we should have supported the forced integration in boston does not mean (imho) that we should (therefore?) adhere to a system of quotas in the selection of leaders in a communist and revolutionary movement.
Yes, after the victory of socialism, the internal culture, habits, training, inequalities of leading revolutionary parties become a huge influence on the political culture of the new society. The reason I decided I no longer wanted the RCP to come to power was (rather sharply) influenced by the sharp turn (after Avakian’s coup) toward hostility and disrespect both toward the masses and the rank-and-file communists. It was ominous, and ideologically revealing.
But the key issue in leading and understanding a political movement is still “ideological and political line.”
And the identity politics that sees our internal process as decisive has a series of bad implications (for our strategy and practice).
Jose M said
I am learning a lot by reading this discussion. Keep it going.
Carl Davidson said
Just for the record, my post with the example of the LRS was not meant as an argument for ‘quotas’ as a method to determine leading bodies’ instead, I pointed it out to show that an all-sided analysis of the issue was not just of a preponderance of ‘white males’ or just ‘males’ in top positions. Problems like these are not readily solved by administrative means.
My own view is that the core leaders of an organization of this sort should, first of all, be the ones that have actually led, and are leading. This seems obvious, but in a great many case, the devil is in the details. It requires, for instance, actual assessment and evaluation of the work of individuals, both in leadership, and being considered for leadership. That in turn requires information to make the assessment, and a democratic political culture and style of work were such evaluations are engaged in honestly and thoroughly. I’ve seen ‘security’ concerns used to sabotage such methods so many times that I’m more than weary of it, and I’m one to pay attention to security matters.
I also like the ‘three-in-one’ method. In choosing leaders, we pay attention to the experience of veterans, the engagement of full-time workers, but also the promise of new and rising people.
This may also sound obvious, but it’s also important that leaders have followers. Do they have the ability to make ideas clear to many, do they excel at practicing the mass line, do they win people over and help move people forward. There is an art to leadership as well as the ability to grasp the science of society. It’s fine to have good ideas, but have the proposed leaders actually lead struggles and solved problems, both in the organization and among the masses.
When these things in mind, we also want to work affirmatively and steadily against the structures of white and male privilege too, but simplistic quotas won’t help.
Finally, and while this comes as no surprise, I don’t think one’s stand on the GPCR has all that mush to say about whether one has a grasp on what socialism is and how to get it, especially here in this day and under these conditions. Avakian opposed Deng and the ensuing reforms, and it didn’t help him, and now the RCP, one bit; the LRS took another path, but when the ‘crisis in socialism’ around Gorbachev blossomed, they couldn’t deal with it either. In both cases, long-standing and deeper weaknesses, much closer to home, came into play.
Jose M said
Carl:
It may not come to you as a surprise that one’s view of the GPCR has much to say on how they view socialism, but it certainly has A LOT to do with it.
If we don’t appreciate and understand what socialism means (and meant in the USSR and China) then we aren’t taking the precious lessons that those societies give us.
If there are people who believe that the capitalist counter-revolution in 1976 was a good thing, doesn’t that tell us a hell of a lot about their politics and what they saw a future society as?
No, neither of those lines you mentioned “hepled” the RCP or LRS in becoming actual political parties. But the RCP did have the correct view of this, and, correct lines do definitely become manifested in political struggle.
g. rowan said
Thanks to Celticfire for conducting this interview. I highly reccommend that folks check out Dunbar-Ortiz’s work (though I often disagree with some of it).
I feel like Nando is drawing a false dichotomy between quotas/process/privilege analysis on the one hand and principled communist line on the other.
The reality is is that there are sectors of the class that are privileged in ways that others are not. Men, white folks, “straight” people do receive real benefits as a result of those positions. They are also socialized by this system to act as enforcers of oppression against other workers in certain ways. This does not change the fact that the whole working class does have a fundamental interest in the overthrow of racist, male supremacist capitalism and the creation of a free society. We are not one big united class that hasn’t won yet because of the military power of the capitalists. We are divided (often murderously) along lines of race and gender and the struggle against patriarchy and male supremacy (including building the autonomous power of women and people of color) are essential in building a working class that can win and rule society.
On quotas-
I think this is tricky. TNL’s description of quotas as a “blunt instrument” is useful. It is certainly easy for these formal mechanisms to become tokenism and counterproductive. Yes, fundamentally a revolutionary organization needs to have good politics no matter what the demographics. We need organizations with a good analysis and strategy. However, from my experience, you can have a great politics around fighting white supremacy and patriarchy, but if your organization is made up of 80% white guys you still have a problem. No one is going to take your politics seriously. Lots of potential revolutionaries are understandably skeptical of joining white and male dominated groups. Also, oppressed folks have different experiences that do influence their politics and perspectives. No matter what my expertise on radical feminist theory, my women comrades are going to bring things around women’s liberation to the political table that I can’t.
I guess I just think that we do need to be highly conscious and intentional about the demographics of the revolutionary organizations we build. Quotas are a means to do this. I’m not sure that they’re the best way. These are open questions that we will answer in part through building organizations, movements and struggles in addition to discussions like this.
Again, thanks for having these discussions.
RW Harvey said
Debates around combatting male privilege and arranging quotas cannot come close to understanding and rooting out the deep-seated misogyny that provides the staying power for the oppression of women. By misogyny I mean the deep-seated, fear-based hatred and degradation of women.
If, as Engels pointed out, the oppression of women is the first, originary form of devalued Other-ing amongst humans, then even a solied class analysis, even classless society, may not be enough to uproot this profoundly reactionary form of woman-hating.
Something way more psychological, emotional, personal and messy is going on here and it would do us well to muck around in those dark, airless spaces in order to fathom misogyny and perhaps gain greated understanding of how other forms of oppression arise out of this originary moment, depend upon misogyny for their sustenance, and provide insights as to how and why other forms of oppression have such staying power.
naima said
one of the reasons andrea dworkin is so powerful, to me, is because she doesn’t speak of systems, at least not in the traditional (marxist sense). I am (re) thinking through what the system of capitalism is and means in todays world. i understand that there is systematic oppression and that there is a need to understand things (concepts, phenomena, systems) beyond what we can experience, to synthesize knowledge and in some way test it against what we know to be reality. I am constantly going back and forth on how this can be done- what is dialectical materialism, how can it be applied, how can we seek to be as objective as possible, what does this mean, etc.
that being said, andrea dworkin is so powerful because she speaks of reality. she may not have the correct understanding of the history of women’s oppression (although I’m not sure what that is) as she claims that women’s oppression was the first oppression, that we don’t know when it arose and that all other forms of oppression arose from it, but she understands and can effectively convey what it means to be a woman here and now in the world today and how fucking bad it is, in raw terms.
the more abstract, however “systematic”, the line we develop on women’s liberation is, the more it will allow men to get away from looking in the mirror and recognizing, yes, privilege and yes, chauvinism and yes, an oppressor (no matter how fucking “communist” you are!). if I, as a women, am still overcoming the physical and psychological abuse of a patriarchal (yes, also capitalist) system, looking in the mirror and still seeing the image that MEN created me as, then men are should still be recognizing this in themselves as well, in fact they will be until the day comes when we don’t recognize gender oppression as a concept, until it’s so far surpassed that we can’t even conceive of it.
the personal matters as much as, and is directly and indirectly related to, one’s theory on women’s liberation, no matter how theoretically correct it is. Right now, Nando has the authority to say what he does, with the confidence and “knowledge” he expresses, partly because of his (white) male position- this isn’t “identity politics”, this is reality. I almost didn’t write this because I have inherited this system’s values of a female bodied, female identified person and my opinion doesn’t matter as much- it isn’t as valid. I will be dismissed as emotional and unscientific for writing this by some, but these things effect the world in huge ways (not just me not writing, but women in general) and although they can’t be overcome by establishing quotas, lets not dismiss what can be done by recognizing more than “pure” line issues. It is my assumption that Nando and others who have such “mixed feelings” about the interview above, have them because this in some way threatens their supremacy and their privilege, although perhaps not consciously.
I dont think I fully agree with Dunbar-Ortiz’s ideas, as limitedly expressed above and I don’t fully disagree with Nando’s ideas expressed here, we do need to understand women’s oppression systematically, but au contraire, this means recognizing the ways in which privilege shapes our very conceptions, not ignoring this aspect. Mainly, there is a reaction to these ideas (expressed by Nando) that I am opposing and trying to look at where this reaction is coming from. Left to itself, saying privilege causes oppression is false (i don’t really know anyone who says this) but leaving it out of the picture will ensure much more oppression for female bodied and female identified persyns (and all non-male bodied/identified others) to come. An understanding of the complex interrelations of capitalism and sexism without an analysis of privilege and the personal, real everyday experiences of women on the daily will not suffice. Men do need to study feminist and queer theory and not the way typical Marxist “scientists” always have.
Dworkin says men… i can’t find what she says men can do to help the cause of women’s liberation at the moment, but I will and will post the link. for now just a couple quotes…
“Men who want to support women in our struggle for freedom and justice should understand that it is not terrifically important to us that they learn to cry; it is important to us that they stop the crimes of violence against us.”
and a couple pertinent ones, in the case at hand, i think:
“Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.”
“Men know everything – all of them – all the time – no matter how stupid or inexperienced or arrogant or ignorant they are.”
naima said
my apologies, my comment above is a bit out of context, nando has already responded to much of what I said above because my page was not “refreshed” from yesterday(?) I still stand by what I said but should respond to nando’s response to many of the ideas I was expressing before having read his comments to celtic fire (with whom it seems I am on a similar page)… I will do that as time permits
celticfire said
Nando:
I’m thinking of the example of the RCP, who had a white guy leader for life status, and trying to sell newspaper to people of color and them asking me seriously, “what does he know about us?” My opposition to the cult of appreciation sprouted from experience, not intellectual dilettantism. The system of cult of appreciation I feel on a lot ways automatically set the tone for “oh, there’s a white guy in charge.”
I liked Carl’s point about finding people that are already leading. And as a white guy that has participated in groups that use the quote system, I never felt like I was shut out or pushed aside for a token position for someone else. On the contrary, I felt like the collective spirit and method was raised by it, not hampered.
“I am very interested in understanding the views of people who find quotas necessary, and (as you can tell) I have views formed by some experiences.”
I find it necessary. Look back at the history of the CPUSA, read “Black Bolshevik” by Harry Haywood and tell me those experiences don’t cry out for some semblance of formal equality to overcome white supremacy.
Nando’s point about knowing the difference between socialism and capitalism is important too, but like I said earlier, it isn’t an either/or question at all. Nando makes the assumption that a quote system would block white intellectuals with something to contribute – I disagree. Mao was right the line is the decisive thing, but it’s (obviously) not the only decisive thing, if it were, the RCP was right about China, and managed to be wrong about a lot of other things (and TNL pointed out) and at least subjectively hasn’t accomplished more than the LRS did, only the RCP hasn’t dissolved or gone reformist.
Essentially I think there is three main things at play that decide this: composition, consciousness (that is, line), and culture, in the spirit of Ella Baker’s “building the road while walking on it.” If we are serious about breaking the chains of oppression then it begins here and now. Was selecting workers for the 3-1 committees “tokenism” or an important process of breaking down the mental/manual labor contradiction?
However difficult it is to swallow Nando, privilege reproduces itself, even in communist organizations. Consciously and mindfully structuring to recruit and nourish leadership from the oppressed will be a tremendous advance for our movement.
“this view also describes oppression in very individualized ways — privileging those forms of oppression where people act on each other as individuals (acting on their understandings and exploiting their unequal positions). And it (in turn) deemphasizes institutional and structural forms of oppression (which are actually, overall, principal in the working of class society and its oppression).”
Well like Roxanne said, the Personal is STILL Political, and it would be a bad maneuver to ignore that truth. How men interact with women is something revolutionaries need to do some deep thinking about, not just write good books, statements, thesis, etc. but actually evaluate those relationships in their personal lives too. Yes, there is the larger institutional and superstructural basis for racism, but that is expressed in the individual.
On your hypothesis, it does sound like something comrade celticfire would say :) The problem is I don’t see the problem…demanding at least formal manifestation of goals seems like only a small step to me in the larger picture.
Standards and expectations of equality is not liberalism. Hiding behind the veil of a supposed correct “line” just might be though.
Avakian’s thinking, which I would imagine shaped many RCP cadre, is marred with fear of the masses and of the inherit democratic life that comes with genuine collectivity. Ideas, practices, behaviors, and lines are all open for criticism in such an environment. Revolutionary organizations should have whole sections of women who keep men accountable, and take corrective action against manifestations of male supremacy. There is absolutely nothing liberal about that!
celticfire said
Naima:
“the line we develop on women’s liberation is, the more it will allow men to get away from looking in the mirror and recognizing, yes, privilege and yes, chauvinism and yes, an oppressor (no matter how fucking “communist” you are!)”
Good point!
Green Red rev said
This is a complex matter that you need to think deeper about, before giving anybody – man – or woman – any right to rule!
The whole concept appears to show a confused “Marxist – erc.ist” perception. Men and women are not seperate entities.
be it girl or boy, woman “format”s the children’s brain.
GO in any culture. Have you seen the famous flyer Shit happens?
Why – why in each and every society and culture, the first vocabulary poping out of people’s head about a problematic matter and difficulty of life is the shit word?
Simple. When you are smiling, played with and all that, you are the jewlery of life! Of course she loves you since, darn, she waited so long since you …. fell down out of the true heaven where food was free and the whole world was – you were almost weightless at some point floating in liquids… and the free music of heart boom boom boom of mother, was coding your formated disk called brain.
She loves you but, to keep the society clean she grants you your first negative experience: you shitted. Bad girl/boy/something in between.
YOU cannot do that in MY HOUSE….
And I might be extremely exploited by my husband, but I could ask him to buy us a new TV, or authomobile, or this and that…
Why? since my neighbour, she has the new this and new that….
So let the men go kill each other over what the money can buy and I won’t call his sexual relation with me as RAPE !
Talking about women’s exploitation is as long as presuming the man is the Doer, and the woman is the Done object.
Bullshit. If you don’t want to be attractive, why should you spend this hours of day’s times and house’s budget on Make Up? Why do you look at yourself so much? Why based on media’s propaganda first your shirts gotta get shorter to show your belly button?
Why do you love to walk with your skirt or this or that so everybody looks at you but, YOU CANNNOT TOUCH THAT, until you TREAT ME RIGHT.
And we can write miles and miles of stories about prostetituion, as if it is any particular profession different from other jobs.
Do you mean that porno model is more exploited than Coal Miners of which, in capitalist China where there is a sixth of the world’s population, over 80 percent of the world’s coal miners dying per year are suffering? But let them die! They are not as sacred as WOMAN, or for that matter Mother Marry!!!!
Evelyn Reed of Socialist Workers Party in her writings – how much is true who am i to say – proves pretty much that the Housing Design is Woemn’s creation. Animals were domisticated not to be eaten by them by giving them free food that men were hunting for…
Men is nothing more than an extension of women itself.
Capitalist state is the continuation of an intuitive contradiction within matter and, Living Matter called Life with DNA. And different roads of evolution, they have met different results. For example, is Rape unnatural? Of course it is obscene, it is a crime since, it puts future security of the target female in tremendous crisis when not supported by favorite – that means clean enough, enough money making, putting cologn you like and shave here and there…
So maybe when getting pregnant, with the help of law we’ll keep him bringing food….
But look at nature:
Chimps, Seals etc. have one male polygamy with x numbers of the females at the shore. and another young one comes and says ” OH OH OOOH OOHHH” and the master big one barks back OOOOOHHHHH OOOOOHH” and the young one runs away, and the mutcho man immediately mates with that that particular female… In chimps man rules females as wifes (they’re all Moslem!) but the youth do Collective Rape. Female looking for food or other doings in the valley is Group Raped. Good or bad you call it, the essence of Darwin Doctrine is the following (that’s my saying per se:)
WITHOUT VARIETY THERE IS NO EVOLUTION.
And god knows how many kids of how many women by chance or by their own misdeeds had been by somebody rather than their dad.
Until I think it was 1993 or 4, Birds were looked upon as saints since hand-less male bird would produce the nest for the female to “love” him. And of course she’d be presumed as faithful innocent Mother marry but, it was discovered something like 30 percent of eggs were fertilized by other male birds.
Essentially, women’s resistence for mating is not to be left without support in time of maternity and, for Hygiene. To make sure no disease gets from a person to another. In an article about people who are still living is a sort of Huntig and Gathering period in Amazon, they had examined and seen how vulnerable females can be in getting diseases since, their organ is inward and, ready for parasites to plant themselves.
In medical university, many girls who were meant to become nurse, doctors, surgeons, were asked what sort of husband they are pursuing. Almost without exception they wanted a doctor, surgeon and somebody who makes more money. For what? You damned greedy feminist thing. (nothing to do with Roxane Ortiz of course.)
Of course half and half men and women are needed in leadership. But women/men/all the rest/ ought must understand there are two different sorts of production;
Production for want
and production for need.
Supply and demand, and commercial uses homo sapiens instincts to want Mac computer and I Pod (that must be WHITE of course … )
Production for need, with least industrial pollutant usage and most natural body work (instead of paying Jenny Craig and 24 hours) is the way revolutionarie communists should go.
Nutrition and Reproduction are the two fundamental drives of all living beings.
Lots of make up and kinky clothing is like taking great foods near nose of a hungry homeless (not a crack head) and be pleased with their being turned out with their hunger. But of course, don’t touch this.
Women and Men are both responsible but, patriarchy and feminism (general mainstream) are two variation of – two sides of the same coin. In Iran of course we cared for our women’s rights and of course nobody wants their women like the ones at Taliban times. But do they always have to dye their hair to the color of gold?
Adrienne said
I’d just like to make a few general comments.
The societal relationship between women and men has been and is being transformed in most westernized nations, and when women suggest that the situation isn’t changing for the better, it seems very wrong and unfair, in my view.
While this transformation in how men relate to women in an overall sense, and how they view our intelligence and abilities may not be happening as quickly and completely as many of us women would like, the fact is, the tide IS slowly being turned. If anyone doubts this, they need to spend a little more time around younger men and women, and question them about their views on equality between the sexes. An enormous number of them really are leaving the past behind — and so should the rest of us.
Dunbar-Ortiz:
I dislike how she diminishes the achievements that an enormous number of women have fought so hard for, and how breezily she seems to be asserting that the feminist movement of the entire twentieth century was “bourgeois” and “reformist” simply because the struggles haven’t been lead solely by women of the left. Personally, I don’t give a rats ass whether the army of women who involved themselves in the feminist movement thus far have been politically incorrect, because I deeply appreciate what all of those women did manage to achieve on behalf of the rest of us (both communist and non-communist).
I was getting the distinct impression when reading the above interview that while Dunbar-Ortiz wants to dismiss much of the feminist movement, she actually shares quite a lot in common with the viewpoints of many women of a certain age who fought some of the hardest battles of their generation. Battles that I often feel they don’t even realize they won! Or at least fired the opening salvos on battles that are still being played out.
What ALL of these women did (are still doing) has affected a gradual transformation and many significant changes that women who have followed after them now enjoy, and even take for granted. Unfortunately however, they often tend to diminish their own achievements by refusing to view these transformations and comprehensive changes as true victories. I think that’s a big mistake.
Are all the battles over? Not by a long shot.
Is the societal transformation complete? Hardly.
Do a whole lot more changes need to take place? Definitely.
But, to act as though huge numbers of men (both socialist and non-socialist) have failed to come a very long way in their consciousness in a relatively brief period of time is to thoroughly short change and insult them. In fact, women’s consciousness has also been transformed through those years, as well.
While relentlessly combative attitudes held by previous generations of feminists were once vitally necessary to take on the fight for women’s equality, holding onto attitudes of bitter anger or permanent victim-hood are not the kind that are going to help to propel the feminist movement forward TODAY, in my opinion.
I make these comments as a mature woman who was only a child when women who are a generation older than myself first took on the feminist fight in real earnest in America. During the years I was growing up, I clearly saw and admired the difference between the attitudes they held and what they were trying to do as compared with the widespread attitude of complacent second-class status that was more common to women of my mothers generation. So, while I deeply admire these women’s many achievements, I also think it might be time to begin cutting men at least a little bit of slack.
I am speaking generally here, of course.
When I read this it made me laugh out loud:
Oh sure, that’s real likely! About as likely as getting a man to consistently remember to put down the toilet seat in the bathroom. About as likely as getting a man to want nothing more than to articulate his deepest emotions and feelings for hours on end. :^)
Do a searching inventory of the privilege they’ve been born into simply by being born male? Well, this doesn’t seem like it’d be a pressing intellectual priority to any man I know.
Honestly, we should not hold our breath waiting for the majority of men on the left to actually learn feminist theory — and furthermore, I don’t think it is truly necessary. A great many men (socialist and non-socialist) have already begun to regard women as their equals, and the reason for that is because women have come such a long way in how confidently and fearlessly we think and act in relation to men.
As we stand here together in the new millennium I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of women in westernized nations really do view ourselves as the equals of men.
The way I see it, women should naturally to call men out on bad behavior and/or blatant misogyny wherever and whenever it occurs. Yet in this day and age, I also think it’s wiser to do so in a way that won’t immediately insult a man who may already have come a very long way in his thinking. And in a manner that doesn’t dismiss just how far our society has already evolved for the better. In other words, I can’t help but think that often it may be feminist attitudes and behavior that needs to undergo a slight adjustment at this point in time. One that would reflect the solid fact that we will absolutely no longer put up with any of that totally antiquated and regressive crap that previous generations of our elder feminist sisters were forced to contend with.
The truth is, because of their many hard won victories, we thankfully no longer need to keep heaping quite so much shame upon men, or must automatically be so nastily aggressive about issuing our demands for full equality.
Jeri L. Reed wrote:
I agree 100%.
Yet, isn’t the reverse true for us as well? Reducing men by hanging the label of permanent oppressor on them while we continue to issue our firm demands for equality won’t make us into something, either.
Personally, I admit that I really like and admire the male of the species overall. Sure, I know they can frequently be autocratic and overbearing and insufferable at times, and too many of them still need to learn that we’re every bit as valuable and worthy of admiration as they are, but I’m still very glad they’re around. In fact, I’m certain I’d find the world incredibly boring without men in it.
I see this kind of pain written out in such stark terms, believe that it’s real, and feel overwhelmingly sorry that any woman has ever been made to feel this way. Yet, I want to honor that kind of pain by seeing women become fully capable of moving totally beyond it.
I think we just need to keep pushing forward, taking our equal place in society on every level, because we know that is exactly what we have always deserved. And I also believe that as women keep moving forward — unapologetically and without any reservations — our collective attitude will naturally continue to inform and transform the men around us. Indeed, in this way we’ll give them no other choice but to respond to us accordingly.
Perhaps some of these opinions will now bring on howls of outrage by some of the people commenting here, but I honestly believe that what I’ve said here is true, and needed to be clearly stated.
green red rev said
Of course men should respect women Adrienne, and in fact anybody hating others by prejeduce as a counter progressive and social interest of all is plain as the sunshine.
And of course women matters ought to be taken into – some people refer to it as anarcho syndicalist – way lead on. But on what level? Having women rights in the US doesn’t change a bit of fact that the good looking shirt made in Pakistan could pretty much be made in places where there and young women, child labors. Doesn’t that need a real revolution on a world scale and particularly belly of the beast?
But about being equal:
I don’t think people can become Equal as solid pieces of flesh and bones but, Egalitarianism is an infinitive trend that ought to be our ongoing lives before, and after, revolution.
But talking about being equal answer this.
A woman calls another woman a girl. That sounds fair? hey girl….
now imagine a man calling another man boy. that doesn’t bring more youth or anything better. It could very well be translated as Master calling Slave.
Woman, girls holding each other hand….. up to hugging somebody else’s child are looked upon as civil women. when men do any of the above they’ll be called gays and child molester.
Beat the hell out of your boyfriend without leaving a trace on his skin, 911 takes him for 5150, case of a crazy guy.
How about a woman complaining about man’s behavior?
All that has happened for woemn in the US is not really one way rights given. Probably if honorable Simon De Bouvar was alive she’d call it raising the price of women’s body. But with all due respect, I deny the women as object perception as the key. Object, commodity are relative titles given. But if somebody dont’ want to be called a commodity then why must lots of them still do make up or go on tangant and become punk or everything else?
The day that a better well doing women in the US invite this othe guy to a cup of tea or wine but, if he must buy it all, it is only relative betterment of their income money to spend it on what may be necessary, or may be not.
Women and Men are Apples and Oranges. You cannot force them become something else. They should act civil egalitarian manner.
But in heart I am more concerned about that girl from Jordan or the other one in Kurdistan of Turkey or the other one in Pakistan that when somebody raped them, for the family’s honor, instead of chasing and beating the hell out of the inhumane dude who did it, they kill their own sister/daughter. That is beside the fact that many, in Iran and other countries go for surgery to regain their “virgin” status.
And the ones in north of Africa (including sometimes in Egypt) who literaly disfigure/cut off the outter, pleasure related parts of women
War against local matter needs war against imperialism both in culture and in economy;
yo said
can the moderator please take “red green rev”‘s first comments off?!!! women are not rape objects. these comments are completely offensive and ridiculous.
“Lots of make up and kinky clothing is like taking great foods near nose of a hungry homeless (not a crack head) and be pleased with their being turned out with their hunger. But of course, don’t touch this.”
“Chimps, Seals etc. have one male polygamy with x numbers of the females at the shore. and another young one comes and says ” OH OH OOOH OOHHH” and the master big one barks back OOOOOHHHHH OOOOOHH” and the young one runs away, and the mutcho man immediately mates with that that particular female… In chimps man rules females as wifes (they’re all Moslem!) but the youth do Collective Rape. Female looking for food or other doings in the valley is Group Raped. Good or bad you call it, the essence of Darwin Doctrine is the following (that’s my saying per se:)”
This is social darwinist bullshit.
it would only give legitimacy to this “argument” to disect it.
Green Red rev said
You are entitled to your thought as I am.
Social Darwinism! Let’s also go and arrest Mike Ely for his first letter hey?
Nobody came here to justify competition or survival of the fittest. Taking things in face value is mechanical thinking
Facts are facts. If what I have heard in this society, in my second language, is incorrect, debate it please. If certain phrase I’ve misunderstood, correct it.
But if you want to cut somebody off, since its offensive finel; I’ve been called from Sand Nig… to anything else.
Every other day or month, for petty things, (No, I don’t have a car and use mass transportation) we might face people who think while being equal, they are certainly more equal.
This she or that he calls us Mother f – - — I tell them back:
Am I your father? Never dated your mom or mine for that matter and, never had a car to honk in front of anybody’s building.
But in all that, with all due respect of Women, Blacks, there is also Men, GLTB…. and people of every othe color too.
And in and of it all it is a struggle against ownership and capital.
If you cannot truly answer the deep matters brought up in the second one, you don’t have to cling on to the earlier one to be censored. Just ask for me to explain, or, explain it for me, please.
As far as where i may be coming from, read about what sort of people has been and/to an extent still is our sort of leader:
http://www.siahkal.com/english/part1.htm
We only happened to not to have a Chairman and a revolutionary guerrilla woman led our positive struggles while some stinky revisionist Male Chairman of a Majority sold our country to pro Soviet and the Islamic Clergies.
But still, I preferred to hear something like Sister Comrade Ashraf Dehghani re whose torture the above article is all about. Or Ms Comrade… (And due that in Communist Party of India (Maoist), also read about Marriage Tradition in the Communist Party of Philippines
And for 20 years I never had the slightest idea that the both Bader and Meinhoff (sic?) were women revolutionary of a sort in Germany since, no one named them as Mr or Ms this or that.
Dialecticians don’t buy the mainstream dillusions to pretend there’s equality by calling all the same way but, ought to know more, to put the man/woman/etc. in their past/present/future places to understand them for what they have done or could do.
I am not endorsing Wilhelm Reich doctrine. Lenin already drew line against the concept of Drinking a Glass of Water as well but, I look into things not only in x thousand years of human society. And looking at animals is to try to understand ourselves but, looking at our history, and what humanity is doing, calling us anything more than animal, right now is sheer idealism. We are animals and, trying to become Human with a different value.
frizia roger said
Thanks very interesting post, good info.
Green Red rev said
And remember, beside Sociology, there is Anthropology. Is that Social Darwinism?
On “Lots of make up and kinky clothing is like taking great foods near nose of a hungry homeless (not a crack head) and be pleased with their being turned out with their hunger. But of course, don’t touch this.”
I mean it. Feeding whose egos do people, female human beings do by spending uncountable amount of capital on things that are not essential?
Is it to feel powerful? That many will be wanting some and setting all males to rip each others hearts to win those self exhibitionists?
Do you really know what HAMAS and Hezbollah are fighting for beside Palestine?
Read Holy Quran. They are looking for this Eden land where there are uncountable Hoories (Female Angels) and Ghelman (Pretty Boys) for the Islamic great fighter to do what with – plus rivers made of Honey and Milk.
Feminism, Sexism are to me variations of within Capitalist roaming. and by the way, Yo, you happeh to be a representative of women’s culture to find it offensive? I sat with Ms X who is of our own kind and when debating, said go ahead and write what you really feel.
And I had to see tens of women from all walk of lives who, in South California, would rather stand for Hillary Clinton, rather than Obama. Or even, the Republican since he has a Woman Vice President.
To me, if you cannot keep your man steady in the house (be it White House or any where) sure you’re no good for ruling any darn country.
But what about her silence? Was she dating somebody else too, or her Victimization justified her Opportunistic getting involved in elections to become a Senator?
If those are the horizons of capitalist feminists, they only are the other side of the coin of Taliban brutal system that was putting women in tons of dark materials under direct sun. Only greed and expectation have risen for the few lucky women to do their best and make their men to exploit the rest of the world.
Statistically, check proportions of women who are Pro War and Pro Peace.
Men and Women both have lots of weakness and counter productive qualities. These are chains on our mind and bodies by the system. But no party is perfect saint or a sinner. Those are all words. When it comes to Special Economic Zones being built in Third World countries, when the National Geographic’s some years ago article admitted/revealed like 5 percent of the world in North America are using 25 percents of the world energy, that all means each person in the US (in theory) is worth Five Human Beings of Africa, India, etc. Be it male or female. I am looking to see how much responsiblities they can take and, what sort of party they might build.
With all due respect to Yo, and other readers
Carl Davidson said
Goodness, how did we get here?
Sounds like some of you got a lot of pent-up anger over something to deal with, Start by dealing with ‘oughts’, ‘musts,’ and ‘shoulds,’ which is the source of irrational angers. Replace them with ‘it would be better if’.
In the meantime, Darwin’s theory is ‘natural selection,’ meaning the lines that are best able to adapt and reproduce are the ones likely to prevail, other things being equal, ie, now asteroid crashing and bringing about great extinctions arbitrarily.
‘Survival of the fittest’ as in the tougher and stronger is a distortion of it, and when applied to societies, by those who saw ‘the white race’ as the strongest, in turns Darwin into his opposite, among other reactionary things.
Yes, we are animals, and our behavior, even as evolved, has some biological roots, to this day. But we are human animals, homo sapiens sapiens, and language gives us not only social selves, but also self-consciousness, and with it the ability to make choices in an open future, or at least futures that are partly open.
We don’t have to remain prisoners of old ideas. But as some of the above indicates, deconstructing some of them can take a while.
zerohour said
“On “Lots of make up and kinky clothing is like taking great foods near nose of a hungry homeless (not a crack head) and be pleased with their being turned out with their hunger. But of course, don’t touch this.”
I mean it. Feeding whose egos do people, female human beings do by spending uncountable amount of capital on things that are not essential?
Is it to feel powerful? That many will be wanting some and setting all males to rip each others hearts to win those self exhibitionists?”
This is the same puritanical impulse underneath the idea of the hijab for Muslim women: men don’t want to take responsibility for their own desires, so it’s women’s bodies that must be repressed. Expressing it under the guise of revolutionary politics makes it no less objectionable.
“To me, if you cannot keep your man steady in the house (be it White House or any where) sure you’re no good for ruling any darn country.
But what about her silence? Was she dating somebody else too, or her Victimization justified her Opportunistic getting involved in elections to become a Senator?”
Really? Are women’s ideas governed by sexual intrigue and manipulation rather than a capability for rationality?
What’s liberating about this way of thinking?
irisbright said
Green/Red-
The idea that women cause men to ‘rip eachother’s hearts out’ by looking beautiful (or just existing) is the same concept that forces ‘tons of dark clothing’ on women. Men are sexually aroused by women, so it’s the ‘exhibitionists’ fault, and they need to cover up.
Pardon my language, but what the fuck are you talking about? That is extremely reactionary, if that is what you think. The politics of self adornment are extremely complex, and women don’t deserve condemnation for wearing make up or jewelry, or certain kinds of clothing.
Mike E said
[moderator note:]
Yo wrote:
I strongly disagree with a number of things Red/Green said.
Our policy: We remove the posts of reactionaries and trolls (routinely and quickly), but do not remove comments from non-trolling participants of the thread (even if we may believe those views are backward).
If some of red/green’s views are backward (and I personally think they are), i urge you to engage them (as Iris has started doing above).
Also: let’s be aware that we are often discussing with comrades who come from different cultural contexts where social matters may have been posed, discussed and resolved differently (including among leftists) than they have been here.
I am not arguing for relativism (i.e. that we can’t make strong arguments of right and wrong). But I am arguing for mutual respect and some patience. (Not simply banning ideas that are clearly offensive — and known to be beyond the pale — in your context.)
Mao used to say, “Blame not the speaker but be warned by his words.”
A good explanation of why such views are wrong will not just benefit Red-green, but all the hundreds of people reading this.
If you have any questions about this moderating policy, lets please discuss it in our “moderating thread” on Kasama Threads.
n3wday said
There are others, but I’ll focus on the comments zerohour pointed out.
“On “Lots of make up and kinky clothing is like taking great foods near nose of a hungry homeless (not a crack head) and be pleased with their being turned out with their hunger. But of course, don’t touch this.”
I mean it. Feeding whose egos do people, female human beings do by spending uncountable amount of capital on things that are not essential?
Is it to feel powerful? That many will be wanting some and setting all males to rip each others hearts to win those self exhibitionists?”
“To me, if you cannot keep your man steady in the house (be it White House or any where) sure you’re no good for ruling any darn country.”
I think it’s important to point out that the struggle against patriarchy is a joint venture. The responsibility of both men and women.
We are humans that exist individually within a much larger matrix of social relations. As a result oppressed people often act on and reproduce their own oppression, in many more cases than not unintentionally.
Yes, often women will dress in provocative way, spend lots of money on make-up, etc. But, if we want to understand this we have to examine the social relations that such behavior emerges from. We live in a society where women are treated as objects, and are devalued on the basis of their appearance, attitude, and innumerable other factors. It’s only natural that in many cases they will internalize such behavior, because they have been born into a society that generally requires them to do so.
I’ve had many conversations with women about these subjects, and the emotional responses that occur are intense and often very painful. I’ve had friends who literally starved themselves to fit some ideal about what is “pretty”. When asking one of them about it, she nearly broke down in tears and told me she felt she couldn’t stop, and that the pain of not eating was less than the mental anguish she suffered from feeling ugly and worthless. Her female roommate even encouraged the behavior. These phenomena cannot be understood as individual choices made by atomized agents who are separate from the greater body of social relations that encompass our society. To think so is just plain reactionary.
And in the opposite context, I’ve seen male comrades with good intentions (myself included), act in ways that were clearly patriarchal and reactionary for the same socially conditioned reasons. Ever talked to a woman who was saying something important, but you weren’t listening because you were fantasizing about her? Ever seen watched a guy listen to a group of people talk, and only respond to other men’s ideas, even if the women in the room voiced the same opinion first, even multiple times?
If we want to understand oppression, we have to understand the social context from which it emerges. And we need to differentiate between oppressed and oppressors. Reactionaries and those with good intentions. Those summations should guide how we approach these issues. And yes, we should treat our approaches differently depending on what sex, race, or any other category a person fits into, because the actions that emerge have their roots in different social relations.
“Oh sure, that’s real likely! About as likely as getting a man to consistently remember to put down the toilet seat in the bathroom. About as likely as getting a man to want nothing more than to articulate his deepest emotions and feelings for hours on end. :^)”
Really? Are all our actions so deeply rooted in self-interest?
Tahawus said
This is one of the more valuable threads I’ve seen here, particularly in this moment. Hopefully it isn’t derailed.
My thinking lies in between Nando and TNL on this. Ideological and political line is key, and when that point’s lost to identity politics there is often a deeply conservatizing suction pull downward within an organization. The example of a radical org that turned to focus on composition of leadership over politics ironically ending up supporting a white male in office, and then dissolving entirely, comes to mind. Among self-identified revolutionaries, maintaining leaders from marginalized groupings is vital, but the same standard isn’t applied to bourgeois candidates it ends up supporting? I realize this isn’t always the case but when who gets to speak gets valued over what is said, it follows that a lot of bullshit is said and followed.
On the other hand the RCP says line is key, but not everything, however in my experience there seems to be mostly an obliviously token (using this word deliberately) effort to bring youth of color and women into positions of leadership. While there have been some meaningful and important attempts it seems that the RCP has been only able to keep POCs in its orbit momentarily and in the periphery. I think this is a result of a number of errors including, as Nando pointed out, the ossification of leadership that has locked a generation in command and also as Mike Ely explores in the 9 Letters, the lack of a drive to build a partisan base in proletarian neighborhoods. There is also the particularity(!) of the RU’s origins organizing white workers around supporting the BPP. But something has to be said of the lack of some formal administrative means to specifically promote leadership from new sections of people.
If revolution only needed to be made on the Al Gore (and I do believe the Internet is a deeply underutilized and unexplored medium for revolutionary politics, as this site so fortunately demonstrates) then identity wouldn’t matter. But we are not faceless avatars in the real world, politics is more nuanced, complex, more vibrant and vital than simply what worldview are under the sway of. There is culture, as a real vehicle not only in the way politics are learned and struggled over but in *what* politics are in the mix. People came to the US in many different ways, and that matters. These are real obstacles that are reproduced within every pore of class society and need to be earnestly and boldly addressed. While it is not true that disempowered people will simply dismiss a group of old white male leftists, there is unavoidable truth to it. And I am not speaking as a person of color, I am speaking as a revolutionary communist.
Green Red rev said
[moderator note: this comment, and subsequent discussion of Red/Green's views on women has been moved here to its own thread where it can be elaborated and disputed in its own right.]
umlaut said
The theory of quotas that celticfire lays out (not necessarily the only such theory) is ass-backwards. It rests upon the assumption that if you have an organization with leaders who “look like the people,” then the people will follow them. But who chooses these “leaders” in the first instance? The idea that you can apportion the trust and appreciation of the masses by selecting a rainbow of identities to represent yourself to them is shallow and patronizing. In fact, I think it has to be definitive of patronizing. Simply because these “leaders” have “real” decision making power is meaningless if they are not the leaders of the people themselves, freely chosen by the people (and not necessarily through the formality of a vote).
The problem with revolutionary organizations is not the race or gender of their leadership, it is the inability to organize amongst and for the oppressed. In many cases this inability is a simple refusal. When communists learn how to facilitate the struggles of the oppressed by giving them the tools and leadership they need to flex their political muscles, while also inculcating a revolutionary horizon, then we will have created real roots amongst the oppressed, or at least certain portions of that exploited population. Only with these kinds of roots, and only with revolutionary line and ideology playing a role in developing the combativity of the masses, will the masses themselves generate leaders that “look like them.”
Leadership of the scale that we are talking about is not something that is decided by a handful of people voting on who gets to represent the people. [That is the method of the "Founding Fathers," the difference being the reflection of universal suffrage.] It is, at least in part, something that the masses themselves put forth as certain figures rise to that position in the struggles of the people. The main thing for leaders is that there be people willing to follow, and this doesn’t come from a quota, no matter what color your skin, or what kind of underwear you wear.
Sometimes it seems as if people think that if we could just take Malcolm X and put him at the head of a “revolutionary communist” organization, then all of a sudden black people will flock to us. Bullshit. Black people will come to revolution when we show them that they can gain state power through our strategy and theory. The reason they turn their backs so quickly today is because Obama is clearly the closest and most promising road to having a hand on that state power. Or so they believe…
It is the same for all people. If you can show them a way to self determination, they will follow you. Sometimes it takes a little more convincing than in other situations, that is, more examples of success and legitimization of your theories, before you can win a section of the people over. The biggest difficulty is taking the first step.
I would also note that the reality of dealing with these issues of identity oppressions is much more difficult than this easy-way-out quota nonsense. That is, people who sit on opposite sides of these social symbols have to do the daily work of coming together and communicating a new way of living. “White” people can’t expect to assign a quota and wash their hands of it, and “people of color” can’t expect to simply criticize white privilege and be done with it. No, something far greater is demanded of all of us in developing a multi-racial, multi-class, revolutionary movement. Maturity and sacrifice would be a good start.
Adrienne said
N3wday:
It’s kind of hard for me to respond to your question since don’t know if you’re a man or a woman, comrade. If you’re a woman and you live with a man (or men) who never forget to lower the toilet seat, and who are happily interested in talking about their feelings for longer than say twelve minutes or so, without trying to change the subject, then I have to tell you that I envy your incredible good fortune. If you’re a man who is consistently capable of these things, do you have any idea how incredibly rare and special you are among your species? :^)
Btw, I was actually attempting a little lightheartedness when I made the particular comments you responded to — hence the smileys.
Green Red Rev,
I can’t speak for all women, but I put on my make up to boost my own spirits at the start of the day. Probably similar to how many men shave the whiskers off their faces, or neatly trim their beards, I should think.
Men who don’t like that some women choose to wear make up will just have to learn to deal with the fact that a great many of us won’t be dictated to on such matters. I also wear what I want to wear, and wouldn’t want to be dictated to on this either.
If being a socialist means I’m supposed to look ugly and wear a drab and shapeless bag everyday that seems really silly, not to mention, depressing.
nando said
Clearly, there are many ways in which male domination is expressed — ways large and small.
But i think we need to be also clear which ones we think are large. When our discussion starts to revolve around “whether the toilet seat is up or down” — I think that it has slid into an assumption that the key issues are the interpersonal relations between the people right around us. If that were our focus, it would be a troubling thing.
I am (just to be perfectly clear) not arguing (a) that interpersonal relations are not important to the oppression of women generally (the family and family relations is one major arena and instrument for that oppression), and (b) I am not arguing that the struggle over relatively small matters (in the household) can’t be a form for getting at important political matters (including on how revolutionaries manifest their politics in the present).
But while saying all that: The oppression of people does not mainly reside in “how we treat each other,” and our struggle against that oppression does not mainly advance through transforming how we treat each other (or transforming how we think about the oppression).
A million girls and women a year are sold into sexual slavery along the pacific rim (in circuits that developed from the bases of U.S. occupation — and circuits that often extend into the U.S. itself).
The shattering of small farm economy in Mexico has transformed the lives and expectations of women in that country, hurling many of them into U.S. cities to work and face persecution.
Huge sections of women (of all classes) in the U.S. experience rape in their lives — and move daily through a society where intense mysogyny and objectification are considered normal and a right of men.
And a hundred other examples could be added to these.
We need a movement that can uproot this. forever. We need a movement that can rally the forces that hate it, that can reveal the linkages between this oppression and this capitalist system itself. That can speak to and mobilize people (both men and women) in a revolutionary venture that intends no compromise on such matters — and sees this as close to its defining core.
And we form organization to serve that (not mainly to be comfortable, welcoming places for ourselves to nestle, or weather this world).
We need a movement where young women find themselves trained and encouraged to transform the world. Where the casual disrespect they encounter everywhere else is not reproduced among revolutionaries, and where people can get a glimmer of what is possible.
It saddened me to read Adrienne’s casual disbelief that men (not even revolutionary men!) could be won to women’s liberation — or that they could be active participants in a process that fought to uproot male supremacy.
Adrienne wrote:
The measure of whether men can be won to women’s liberation becomes the process around us. And the difficulty of working that out becomes the basis for laughing at the very idea of uniting for something higher.
I understand how difficult it is to work out equality between men and women (even revolutionary men and women) under capitalism. It is a tenatious, infuriating, sometimes disappointing process.
But I don’t think we should equate the two, and judge our potential in such ways.
We can build a movement that will shatter male supremacy — one that wins over many men to that cause, even while for many reasons women will be its driving force. In the real dynamics of real struggle, there will be some men who play a quite advanced role in the struggle for women’s liberation, and some women who play a notoriously backward one.
* * * * * *
We must understand our goals — and from that derives our forms of organization and fight for revolutionary standards among us. It would be sad if we looked at the sometimes troubled details of man-woman relations among revolutionaries (and the truly horrific conditions that sometimes define man-woman relations elsewhere in society) and on that basis felt despair over whether we can get from here to there.
Green Red rev said
Re this very thread,
from Workers World Party with all their good doings and New Alliance Party to others they presumed presidential candidates gotta be both female, and black.
To justifiy his policies, Bush put Ms Rice in position. That’s mechanical. Not all women of color become Katheleen Cleaver.
No Ka Adrienne, I didn’t mean to that extreme you mentioned that is depressing and silly either.
But what I endorese are people like the following, to take leadership for the rest:
http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/india-remembering-anuradha-gandhi/
Late comrade Anuhrda Gandhi was an Indian Woman.
She did fight for women’s rights in India
She also did Marxist analyzing of Dalit – the untouchables of cast – for Indian revolutionaries and served as the Central Committee of the CPIndia Maoist.
nando said
There is a discussion to be had of “interests.” (What they are, how contradictory they are, how we discern them, how we connect people with them.) Are reactionary views among the people the result of “false consciousness” or an outgrowth of material corruption? Or what admixture of the two?
But I want to kick it off by saying this:
What is “in your interest” is not simply there to be seen and grasped (as if we were brushing dirt from a buried bone that we can hold and examine in our hand).
I don’t think interests are simple. People have passing, momentary, and often petty interests. And they also have higher, long-range and historic interests. All of them are “material” in some sense. And even that brief description is far to simplistic.
Do men have an interest in oppressing women?
In some ways, yes, of course, obviously. It is not without reasons that the founders of communists talked about husbands and fathers as “the bourgeoisie within the family.” But i think we should also see that overthrowing all oppression (including the ancient stubborn subordination of women) is “in the interests” of the most deeply oppressed — all over the world. That is an easy thing to say — but something clearly hard to transform into the practical politics of building a new world.
Clearly the communist movement has often had a simplistic view of interests (of a kind we call “reductionist”). But I have to say that there is something rather breathtakingly (even uniquely) reductionist about the way interests are viewed in that analysis rooted in structures of privilege. Men are simply the oppressors of women, white people are simply the oppressors of black people, straight people are simply the oppressors of gay people and so on…. and the relations among people (in that false and crudely linear view) are fundamentally hostile — and in fact (in this view) should be hostile.
Consider the stark and revealing remark from Naima :
the linkages are assumed to be utterly linear and direct:
Those with relative privilege (however petty such privilege may often be) is assumed to be directly defining of someone’s ideology (i.e. men’s ideology is, of necessity, chauvinism), and their position as men means they are (inherently and fundamentally) “oppressors” — and any idea that we are revolutionaries, communists who are fighting all oppression is mocked as the worst illusion, and (more likely) the worst attempt at deceit.
No we are all shitty little beasts who fuck each over and glory in it.
To me, it seems pretty stark that such thinking completely confuses “contradictions among the people” for “contradictions between the peole and the enemy.”
Mao writes:
By contrast Naima view sees the world (and demands that we all see the world) as an ugly Hobbsian war of “all against all.”
There are, in that view, (apparently) no larger and unifying interests (that can be a basis for winning people to a fight against all oppression). And (apparently) asserting that people have higher dreams, interests and plans is just a sick lie.
* * * * *
And i just want to note (as a side point) the hostility this quote expresses toward abstraction — and the scare quotes around “systematic” — implying that focusing on anything BUT the ways people directly torture each other is bullshit.
Adrienne said
Nando:
Oh for pity’s sake, I guess it’s totally out of line to try to make a joke around here? Look, just forget I ever said anything about the frikin’ toilet seat!
You really have completely misunderstood what I was trying to say. I know damn well that men (most especially socialist men!) ARE and HAVE ALREADY been won to women’s liberation, and that they are increasingly becoming very active participants in uprooting male supremacy — by treating women as their social equals. I mentioned that this may be happening at a slower pace than many feminist women would like, but it is happening nonetheless. Indeed a large number of my comments were made in defense of this very fact.
However (in my view), this hasn’t occurred because men have been going out of their way to make a careful study of feminist theory, or because they’ve done “a searching inventory of themselves in regards to their male supremacy.” (Not that they can’t, or shouldn’t, or won’t ever decide to do so.) No, the reason for this is because of the women all around them. Women’s attitudes about themselves and what we’re capable of have been undergone a hugely significant transformation over many years — and you (males) have naturally responded in kind. Really, it’s an organic change in consciousness that has been taking place.
My point was that whether men in our society choose to study feminist theory, or truly scrutinize the history of male privilege, women shouldn’t expect that this is what definitely needs to happen before many more positive changes can possibly occur. Moreover, I think that if women simply keep pushing forward, the momentum will keep taking our society exactly where it needs to go — toward true equality.
No comrade, the basis for laughing comes out of being human. Out of recognizing that nature has created a few distinct differences in certain traits and tendencies that can be observed in men and women. But laughing at these few differences doesn’t mean (and has never meant) we can’t unite for something higher.
nando said
Adrienne writes:
Yes, I really had not gotten that meaning from what you said early.
And it is important (as we apparently agree) that men can be won to women’s liberation, and that we can unite for something higher.
It is important to affirm because it is controversial — (as parts of the discussion above confirm).
You write, “I mentioned that this may be happening at a slower pace than many feminist women would like, but it is happening nonetheless.”
Let’s agree on this too.
I feel like there has been actually backward movement on this… where many “correct verdicts” of earlier times have been undermined (in society, among progressive people, and even among revolutionaries).
One example is that offensive against abortion has left many people defensive, and even many progressive people repeating the view that abortions are inherently a sad event, and a difficult choice and so on (conceding much ground to the guilt tripping of the right, who in fact are often a huge factor in making the use of abortion as birth control a “difficult choice).
Another is the pornographication of sexuality in the U.S. — where (in ways no rational mind can imagine) this society has introduced sexuality in the lives of almost every child and adolescent through the warped lens of universally available pornography. There is a great deal of controversy (even among revolutionary people) over whether the objectification of other humans (the treatment of other people as sexual objects for self) is inherent in the oppression of women or whether it is (instead) simply inherent in human sexuality and gratification. Is there a revolutionary sexual morality? What are the outlines of new sexual mores that will emerge and be adopted by a new revolutionary society? How are revolutionary approaches different from the liberal “anything among consenting adults as long as no one gets hurt”?
One thing that strikes me about the Obama inauguration is how dead the sixties now are. This is a moment when the political battle lines (within the BOURGEOIS political arena) are no longer marked by the trenches of 1960-75 — and where the generations now defining politics have little memory or adherence to the framework of that previous “Event.” The reference points and assumptions of the 1960s (for both Right and Left), the context that period gave to touchstone questions — those things are no longer defining.
And so, I agree with you that the support for women’s liberation is advancing more slowly than we would want (meaning revolutionaries and communists, not just feminist women). But I also think this is not a question of just pace — of how rapidly or slowly we are advancing toward known and agreed goals. I think our goals are in play (around women’s liberation but also the defining and ending of racial oppression). I think old assumptions have broken down (among revolutionaries) and are producing new controversies.
And I think if we were all just to articulate what we think women’s liberation is, what it would look like, what an accompanying revolutionary morality would be, what intimate relations would look like in a post-capitalist, post-USA society…. I think just describing what we each think would produce exclamations of surprise from all sides, as other comrades would blurt out, “You think that?!”
In fact, at some point we should do that, of course: not assume we all know what we mean by “women’s liberation,” but share and listen, and then engage more deeply.
n3wday said
Just a side note:
Sometimes it’s really hard to understand whether someone is joking through text (because you can’t hear voice inflection). Often times I’ll do the smiley face character to demonstrate a range of things like, “Here’s a light criticism, but it’s not a huge deal =)” or to say, “I think this, but we’re still comrades! =)” etc. So, if we misinterpret you, don’t take it too seriously, we’re just trying to understand, respond, and deepen the debate!
Also, so you know where I’m coming from, I am a male. I come from an area with a lot of anarchists folks, who are very serious about interpersonal relationships. So, much of my thinking has been influenced by that, even though my mindset is still clearly rooted in a different ideology. I’ve been at music shows where men requested that other men move a few steps back so the generally shorter women could get in front and see, been pulled aside in activists circles (by women) and told since I was entering that community and interested in this stuff, there are some things I should think about when relating to people of the opposite sex and organizing, given pamphlets on women’s theory to read, etc. It’s been part of my collective training to take that stuff seriously, so it didn’t appear as that radical of a proposal to me (even if I on a personal level am 100% good at acting on what I’ve been taught, hence my allusion to that in a previous post). Some of it I have criticisms of (relating to the way that stuff was implemented), like the hyper focus on building ‘friendship circles’ and ‘safe zones’ while losing focus of the greater goals, but I think it’s still in many ways been positive.
Away from side notes and back into the other stuff later.
Mike E said
A note on humor:
We need it. We need to laugh at the enemy (weapon of wit), but we also need to laugh at ourselves (meaning laugh over the foibles of our movement and also of the people themselves). It is revealing when movements are unable to see themselves with any ironic distance, and I believe it is a measure of their ability to integrate criticism.
And of course, there are moments in human life (and struggle) when humor is hard — when events like Gaza weigh heavy on the heart, and it is hard hard hard to feel anything but sober determination and urgency. And this is especially true when our movements themselves are directly being tested and raked by repression — as will certainly happen to any radical movements that emerge in this country as well.
We need to “take ourselves seriously” — in the sense that the people are suffering horribly and we are part of taking responsibilities for that. And we also need to humor (and not just as a “weapon of wit” against our oppressors, but also as a way of acknowledging and transforming our own foibles. (We all need to transform, the people themselves need to become “fit to rule” — and humor is one way of prodding each other, of mocking our own weaknesses, of remembering that we have far to go and much to learn).
That said: Humor is hard to do well. N3wday points out (correctly) that written communication (and our online back and forth) sometimes has trouble conveying humor — since we don’t see facial expressions and voice inflections. True.
There is something else: Sarcasm (as a form of humor) requires a common sense of what we believe.
If I say sarcastically “Sure, communists eat babies. Right.” Many people here on this site will know that this is sarcasm, and a dismissal of the charge as absurd. But there are other people (who have read the accounts of cannibalism by peasants in the Russian civil war, or whatever) who may not know if I am joking or I am confirming something horrible.
That means that sarcasm and parody often requires an established community — with a common language and sense of itself.
And this site (which has a quarter of its readers outside the U.S., and which draws people who have never before heard revolutionaries and communists talk) can not be assumed to yet have such a common sense of itself.
At times, people have jokingly responded to something great by writing “o, snap. just sick!” And i wonder what our readers in India think.
We have green-red who comes from a culture in the Mideast or South Asia — and who believes that the differences between men and women are very large (and perhaps fixed), and that the struggle for equality involves a struggle for mutual respect acrouss the gulf of those differences. There are people who grow up in cultures where it is assumed (and taught and believed) that men’s sexuality is a ferocious and barely controllable force, that can be triggered by exposure to women’s presence (even the display of their faces! or of their leg!), and that the modesty of dress is a precondition of civil engagement between the sexes. And generally, people “on the left” in the U.S. see that as the argument of rapists — and as something intolerably backward and as a proven untruth.
So when our discussion embraces and encounters such difference of summaition — the assumptions necessary for some forms of humor are sometimes absent. And it becomes hard to casually joke (especially in a sarcastic way).
Green Red rev said
For all those interested to know, the word sister is required common way of calling women comrades aomng Naxalite guerrillas in India.
Level of more like China under Cultural Revolution clothings could be considered ideal since, we are for the cause, not for whatever else.
But what do you think we “backward” ones think about theirselves? After Mullahs killing uncountable number of our sisters and brothers and in particular the women first rapen uncountable times, since Quran says something about untouched girls have one way ticket to Heavens, it makes it much harder to be a man and, not feel inherently guilty of existence .
Anti War demonstrations in the US, when seeing individuals dancing for themselves – No Commnet.
About demonstrations, not me, but a friend from south America said and I wholy agree it looks like Cannivals.
Hey Steve, I haven’t you since – eh – we were bombing what country – that demonstration that we met at. Sure, let’s chill out and smoke some pot after rage against machine’s concert. KPFK is gonna have a table there and…
This is not immagination. This is what’s been seen.
And the mainstream left do have characteristics of a business rather than anything eles.
We said all things, now here and the buckets. Put money in it.
How would you expect some to look at the US left? With self denial?
Mike E said
Green-Red writes:
During the cultural revolution, there was recurring discusson (among communists outside china): Are the sexual and cultural mores now common in china univeral socialist mores, or are they specific outgrowths of Chinese culture.
My view has been that they were outgrowths of socialism in China — and of the contradictions around these sexual matters within China.
I can’t imagine that holding hands in public would be seen as overly demonstrative affection in the U.S. (the way it was in china).
As for Green-Red’s comment “we are for the cause, not for whatever else.”
What does that mean? We are “for the cause,” and so are against being attractive in public? We are “for the cause,” and so anything sexual is not “for the cause”? What else gets ruled out when we are “for the cause”? Fiction? Cards? Dancing? Alcohol? Biking for fun? Exercise?
Also think of the phrase that the kinds of clothing worn in China during the Cultural Revolution “could be ocnsidered ideal.” Are there forms of fashion and culture that are “ideal”? Where does such an ideal arise from (how is it shaped? how is it decided? by what standards and norms?)
I think we will not have such transnational ideals from one socialist country to another. Certainly in the Soviet Union the “ideals” were rather different (around sexuality), and (from what i have heard) they were rather different in the liberazed zone of Yenan (under Mao) from what they were in some other, later, periods.
Perhaps Green-Red thinks the chinese standards of a particular period are “ideal” because they coincide with his own (rather subjective and culturally specific) notions and tastes? Do you think that people will wear the same clothing as china when socialism hits Jamaica? or Guam? Or hawaii? I suspect not.
Do you think that Scandinavia (when it is socialist) will be as reluctant to have public nudity as Shanghai in the socialist days? I suspect not.
Adrienne said
Nando:
But don’t you think that social progress has always faced the problem of certain amounts of backward movement occurring after major advances have been made? I think it’s because human beings tend to be extremely fearful and apprehensive when radical changes start taking place in their society. And of course those in positions of power and authority are going to automatically fear and dread any significant loss in their ability to dominate and control the thoughts of others. Having grown so used to wielding complete authoritative power, they will always lash out as viciously as they can when faced with an ever expanding segment of society who is being slowly but surely transformed in their consciousness, and who begins to view all of their ideas and viewpoints as stale, outmoded and expendable.
Yes, the offensive against abortion is a very a good example of what I was saying. A huge majority of the anti-abortion crusader organizations are run by a bunch of sadistic and tyrannical old men who are absolutely petrified of women they cannot control. So women who fought for and/or support the idea of women having autonomy over their own bodies and futures have to automatically be denounced as “immoral.” These old goats have been cloaking themselves in “God” and “religion” and “sanctified tradition” for years — but to their insanely irate and loudly vocal consternation, the pious angle isn’t really working all that well these days.
Ultimately they will lose, because the vast majority of women (and an enormous number of men) don’t want men dictating what a woman’s future can or will be any longer. Thus, outlawing medically safe and sanitary abortions that have now been available for thirty-five years becomes completely untenable. These crusaders can quote scripture and rail until they’re blue in the face, but they simply aren’t going to take women back to the bad old days of dangerous and painful chemically-concocted abortions, or bloody coat-hanger atrocities, and senseless, unnecessary death.
But just for the sake of argument, let’s say these men did somehow manage to get abortions made illegal again as they were in the past. The fact is, feminists (of all political stripes) simply wouldn’t go along with that. Even if it meant we’d all become outlaws networking and setting up clinics in private homes. This nation would probably end up having to jail an ENORMOUS number of women — and men too! And of course, that would only galvanize a lot of other women and men to become feminist-outlaws.
This gets right back to what I’ve been saying in this thread — our society has simply come too far in it’s consciousness to turn back now.
I don’t know… I guess I’m just not that uptight about sexuality. Let’s face it, pornography is almost as old as dirt (and definitely more of a male fascination than a female one), and I don’t think we’ll ever completely rid society of it. Personally, I don’t view sex as something bad or dirty anyway. In fact, I think treating sex like it’s something to be ashamed of only fetishizes and submerges it unnaturally, making people a whole lot weirder about the entire topic than they probably should be.
As for kids and adolescents — in Europe they’re exposed to a hell of lot more than they are in this nation, and it doesn’t seem like their minds have been twisted or warped to me.
My opinion: inherent in human sexuality. And men are objectified by women, too. Furthermore, a lot of you must know that this is the case — which is why you never seem to mind demonstrating the fact that you can effortlessly lift heavy objects. :^)
This seems like a topic that needs it’s own article.
I have to say though, the idea of “outlining sexual mores” sounds like it may take at least some of the fun out of things…
Indeed. But isn’t that how it always is, and how it’s always been? Life doesn’t stand still for any of us.
To me, women’s liberation is women achieving true equality with men. By this I mean that we won’t have to force ourselves to act like men, or think like men in order to be accepted and fully respected by men. In fact, male privilege as outlined by history will not be the yardstick women will use to measure ourselves by. We can and will act and think like women — respecting the fact that our intelligence, ideas, opinions, ingenuity, and true worth has been too often excluded from any real consideration. Men will hopefully begin to understand that this world can become a better place when female voices are heard as clearly as their own have always been. The imbalance will become balance. All of humanity will benefit.
Green Red rev said
“Level of more like China under Cultural Revolution clothings could be considered ideal since, we are for the cause, not for whatever else.”
Hi Mike. Ideal, I meant a direction toward, not an absolute. To me Communism is also an ideal that can never staticly be achieved. It is an ongoing trend we ought to take but, due to the multi factorial equation of peoples’ mental, physical, appearance, etc. differences, there never – in my own view and prove me if I’m wrong – will come an absolute equality gained on level of class, race, sex, etc. oppressions. I sure did not mean the Holding Hand part and rather, why don’t you let me explain it with this following unclear satatement:
As for Green-Red’s comment “we are for the cause, not for whatever else.”
We are for the cause, I meant production for purpose, not for luxuary. Clothing for shilding body from various factors of ecosystem be it coldness, sun rays, etc.
So, there trying to less focus (not banning) luxury in every walks of life, including clothes is what I meant by cause.
The system of capitalism is cold hearted Supply and Demand. Go see what will people buy, advertise it, and sell it. Let some feel bad and force their relatives buy the thing. Mom, I need this Pink Back Bag. Dad, buy me that Shooting killing Play Station, spouse (according to whichever has more income, including GLBT couples), buy this new Digital TV since neigbors say getting a box is not enough and it is not classy.
One thing that seems extremely sad in this particular society is that people of every class have the brainwashed assumption that poverty is shameful so, it doesn’t matter how you get your hands on money for self/family; just do it.
But as said somewhere else, i look at this blog as discussion, where my/your/everybody’s thoughts come, wrongs get righted by other comrades, rights get adopted and so on. Presuming that – Kasama will form a party at some point, even as a far sympathyzer, of course on the matters – at least me – will present the party line, not what I’ve shared to see its validity or invalidity.
Hi Adrienne, your 47 talk with comrade Nando is very comprehensive. They not only are crazy anti abortion people but worste, to stop a doctor or nurse they shoot them too. Just considering that certain family or invividual impregnated individual does not possess means of feeding, educating and upbringing the child, or many other reasons, and then forcing them to do antique dangerous deeds like using a cloth hanger tool is absolutely inhuman. And one of the ways to get even with these people who claim they are standing for the words of the lord, i.e. god, it is fair to expose how corrupted the ministers and Catholic priests and reverands often turn out to be.