The Big Picture: RW Wedge> Maintaining the Male Dominant Power Structure

[omega minimo]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4936790&mesg_id=4937831

From a GD poll thread: OP "Is the abortion debate about controlling sexuality?"

My reply follows. Related to the "Crux" OP previous in WR&I Forum. Btw, when all these issues are rightly unified in a new and successful human rights movement, environmentalism will be a natural companion issue. (Maybe this is why the 60's cry of the previous successful unified human rights movement was against "The Man"?)

:evilgrin:


Omega Minimo
31. None of the above-- Here is the Big Picture

(altho a few of the posts here are hinting at it: "divide" "control" etc.) (and AngryGirl #15 raises the Fascist aspect of control)

All of the RongWing wedge issues hinge on the same objective:

MAINTAINING THE STATUS QUO OF TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES AND DOMINANT MALE POWER STRUCTURES.

OK?

Women's rights, the Right to Choose, Gay Marriage-- IT'S ALL THE SAME ARGUMENT, FOLKS. Why don't all those groups get together and really kick some Republican, Christofascist hypocrite ass?

I raised this on a gay marriage thread and was told by the OP that gays and blacks were discriminated against in a totally different way than women are.

As long as these groups remain divided and focused on their own belly buttons, solidarity and success will not occur. A strong, new human rights and social justice movement will encompass all of these.

The difficulty is that some MEN have trouble seeing the forest for the trees. Their vested interest in the status quo (that they may not even be conscious of) prevents them from seeing the Big Picture.

The Powers That Be maintain their power through traditional gender roles and the existing social structure of dominance and control. Anything that challenges that structure is verboten. (Hitler used the Motherhood and Country schtick in his propaganda).

(IMHO this is a huge blind spot in the call for the "human right" to marry the same gender-- and the naivete may succeed or it may not. CA Legislators were thrilled when they passed a bill-- then the Austrian Dope vetoed it).

Thank you AngryGirl for pointing out:

19. Sexism = Item #5 in 14 Characteristics of Fascism

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

[LizMoonstar]

1. may i copy over my Firestone response in your thread?

I don't want to crosspost if you don't feel it fits in.

[omega minimo]

2. I don't know what Firestone is, but you are welcome

edit:
Oh yes, just read it.

[LizMoonstar]

3. keen, thanks; here it is

From the other thread, my reply:

this line of reasoning always makes me think fondly of Shulamith Firestone, at least as I understood her Dialectics of Sex:
Gender inequity is the root of discrimination, therefore it doesn't just affect women. And most men are not the problem, organizations (of any kind) set up to keep rich old white men in power are the problem. Most men are getting screwed by them too, it's just too subtle for them to see because they can identify with/idealize the ones doing the screwing.

My favorite radical feminist, because she reminds me that one can hate the patriarchy and love men without contradiction.

[omega minimo]

4. Excellent, thank you, I will look her up

I haven't read radical feminism-- its' JUST COMMON SENSE! :evilgrin:

As I answered this in the other thread, men are swimming in the male dominated fish bowl with us. They may not know the water is there. And they are confused/threatened when we are OPEN to discussing male dominance with them WITHOUT pointing the finger at them individually (which would be true in a discussion of race relations with open-minded dominant-by-birth-not-intention white people).

And when we hook up all these issues and create a sweeping movement, we will be addressing all the environmental issues also.

Why do we have to reinvent the wheel? The social progress movements of recent decades are so fractured now that we have to start from scratch?

[barbaraann]

5. My favorite anti-patriarcy quote is from Mary Daly.

paraphrased from a talk I attended:

When patriarchal Christianity replaced matriarchy the tree of life was replaced by a corpse on two dead sticks.

[omega minimo]

6. I see what she did there-- wit da huma'

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :smoke: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl:

[Finder]

7. I love attending her lectures...

but haven't been to one in 4 years. Last time I spoke to her she was working on a book about Amazonians which I can't wait to read.

In my opinion, her lectures are essential for all feminists/humanists. Also, I've noticed there is usually an equal amount of males if not more males than females in the crowd.

[Ally McLesbian]

8. Women's rights = right to choose = gay rights

Women's rights and gay rights are one and the same, and I really do want other people to know that too.

It's all about the patriarchy propagated by the Judeo-Christo-Muslim traditions. And here in California, it gets worse because the Far East immigrants bring their own Confucian traditions, which are even worse for women.

Under these systems, marriage is a hierarchy, with the woman existing only to provide offsprings for the man. Of course, sons are preferable to daughters (that's why in Asian countries, female fetuses are aborted in massive numbers, leaving a surplus of boys - the one type of abortion I will always oppose). This is a huge fall from the older matriarchal systems where women were pretty much equal partners, or even mysterious, by virtue of their ability to give birth and start a life.

Gay marriage is a threat to the patriarchy, because it destroys the hierarchy inherent in patriarchal marriages.

[bloom]

9. Statuary

This seems to fit in with this discussion. The symbolism of a statue of Pregnant, Disabled Woman among statues of Male Warrirors...


In Trafalgar Square, Much Ado About Statuary

By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, Oct. 9 - The new statue was bound to make a vivid impression in Trafalgar Square, a place as redolent of past military glory as any in London. For one thing, it depicts someone who is not male, not wearing a uniform and not dead.

But there's more. The statue, 11 feet 7 inches of snow-white Carrara marble, shows the naked, eight-and-a-half-month-pregnant figure of 40-year-old Alison Lapper, a single mother who was born with shortened legs and no arms. Ms. Lapper is a friend of the sculptor, Marc Quinn, who has said that Nelson's Column, the focal point of Trafalgar Square, is "the epitome of a phallic male moment" and that he thought "the square needed some femininity." But "Alison Lapper Pregnant" - juxtaposed as it is with the majestic figures of a king, two generals and the naval hero Lord Nelson - has fueled a sharp discussion here about art, the purpose of public monuments, and the appropriateness of displaying such a piece in such a singular public space.

<snip>

As they stroll around Trafalgar Square, passersby look at the statue of Ms. Lapper about as readily as they ignore the one of Sir Henry Havelock, a general who helped suppress the Indian rebellion of 1857. (He is also known for distributing Bibles to his troops.) If nothing else, the work succeeds - in the same way that Damien Hirst's shark-in-a-tank piece did in the early 1990's - because it is noticed and it gets people talking. Some like it very much. "I like the concept of having a statue which represents the less-represented part of humanity," said Peter Waugh, 69, a retired teacher from Birmingham. "Lions are all right," he said, referring to the four bronze lions that guard Nelson's Column, "but we've got quite a few of those about."

<snip>

In The Observer, though, Rachel Cooke praised the sculpture's "elegant proportions."
"By choosing to portray her naked and pregnant, Quinn has given us an Everywoman," she wrote. "You look at her face, her breasts and her swollen belly, and only afterwards do you wonder about her limbs."

When the work was unveiled, Ms. Lapper was there to see it, along with Parys, 5, the son she was carrying when she posed for Mr. Quinn. (She has been married and divorced; Parys was born after a brief relationship with a man who she said had tried to persuade her to have an abortion.) Ms. Lapper, a painter, reacted with jaunty cheerfulness to the sight of her naked marble self. "At least I didn't get there by slaying people," she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/arts/design/10traf.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

[catzies]

10. I say we all work together to pass the new ERA. Equal Rights Amendment

based on equal rights for all sexes.

It's overdue and anything less is unacceptable.

The 21st century's ERA. We can do it. :loveya:

http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/

[omega minimo]

11. (some) men shout us down here because they are afraid of women's power

Twisted