dani ([info]_allecto_) wrote,
@ 2007-10-03 23:08:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
The size of the world
My world seems to be getting larger. I've just made three friends on lj (waves and smiles to the new comers), an old friend has returned to lj and I went to a the second conference meeting for the Women's Conference in the Blue Mountains and every time I opened my mouth, women respectfully listened and then... women agreed with me. I think I need to repeat that. Other women agreed with the things I was saying. I'm sorry it is just such a foreign thing for me to have happen in real life that I think I'm still reeling from the shock.

Women are incredible. I love them. Thank you to all the women who read my journal. Thank you to all the women who have the courage to create their own journals/blogs/websites. You, every single one of you, are brilliant. You are are all creating the light that is necessary to cut through the dark that men have dragged our world into. Love and peace to you all. You have rekindled my hope.

(Post a new comment)


[info]captainvanille
2007-10-03 07:39 pm UTC (link)
Rock on! I am glad to have been a part of the wave restoring that hope to you.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]_allecto_
2007-10-04 12:42 pm UTC (link)
*smiles and hugs*

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]she_evolves
2007-10-04 05:36 am UTC (link)
That is beautiful ;)

And I love when there is actual feminist solidarity. Absolutely love it.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]_allecto_
2007-10-04 12:44 pm UTC (link)
Me too!!! Except I'm fussy and call it sisterhood. Solidarity is a socialist word.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]she_evolves
2007-11-09 04:55 am UTC (link)
How do you feel about socialism? I happen to liiiike it, especially when integrated into northern European democratic states ;)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]_allecto_
2007-11-11 06:00 am UTC (link)
I don't like socialism. I don't like socialists. Socialism in Australia is basically a bunch of white middle class men who want to feel less guilty about their participation in capitalism. And from what I've heard it is pretty much the same story in the US. Socialists don't give a fuck about women. Nor do they give a shit about indigenous rights. I remember going to one Socialist conference. They had three indigenous men there. They all toed the socialist line, capitalism is to blame blah, blah. Then an indigenous woman stood up and yelled herself hoarse, telling it like it is. Asking why the fuck the wide-eyed, white socialist kiddies where going to Venezuela to learn about egalitarian ways of building community. Why didn't they look in their own back yard for their solutions? 80,000 years of Aboriginal culture. And these little white socialists are spending thousands to go to Venezuela. Everyone had clapped for the men, no one clapped for this amazing indiganous woman (except me). (And, by the by, Hugo Chavez is no friend to women, hugging the Iranian president Ahmadinejad a man who has much women's blood on his hands).

I also believe that a Socialist way of analysing society is wrong. There are two inequalities that radically pre-date capitalism: the sex caste system and the race caste system. Most socialist organisations believe that patriarchy does not exist. And the capitalism is the cause of what they call sexism (or sex-role stereotyping) and the cause of racism. How can that be so if both of these caste systems pre-date capitalism? Anyway, they usually believe that patriarchy doesn't exist and that women's oppression is SOLELY economic. This is seriously fucked in my opinion.

I also don't believe that any male-led revolution, predicated on male-inspired analysis of society is going to be all that beneficial to women.
Quoting Robin Morgan:
...radical feminism is not:
socialist (or Marxist) feminism. This is because radical feminists reject a politics positing: (a) that sexism is merely a by-product of capitalism, (b) that patriarchy, like the state, will wither away under communism, (c) that women automatically become free and equal snap! in socialist or communist societies, (d) that boring words ending in "tion" and "ism", written by white, heterosexual, middle-class, nineteenth-century European Jewish men (however bright or bearded), could actually constitute feminist theory, or (e) that imitating men could possibly be good for women.

The book that made me finally reject socialism completely was The Demon Lover: On the Sexuality of Terrorism by Robin Morgan when I read this:

It was reading statements such as:

"Violence is not the exlusive preserve of the exploiters; the exploited can use it, and what's more, should use it."

And:

"There is a violence that enslaves, and a violence that liberates."

And thinking well yes okay allright it's awful but I can understand it at least it's consistent and certainly reasonable - and discovering that the first was a quote from Che Guevara and the second from Bennito Mussolini.

In fact that whole book's exploration of socialist and leftist politics is shocking. It made me really understand why I was so uncomfortable hanging out with the socialist crowd, with their ideals and their wide-eyes.

I wrote here about how I felt about the fact that the most prominent socialist paper in Australia constantly reviews and applauds misogynist movies.

And here about why I left the male left and socialist politics behind.

Pretty much all of my favourite feminist authors have written about socialist politics and why it is bad for women. Catherine MacKinnon has, Andrea Dworkin has and obviously Robin Morgan.

Hey, if it works for you, great. But I personally don't think that Socialism offers much hope for the liberation of women.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Create an Account
Forgot your login?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…