feminist blogs

Hi all, as you may have already noticed, posting has been rather sparse (read: non-existant) over the last couple of days. This is due to an exam coming up on April the 13th which will be quickly followed by a vacation from April 18th to the 25th. Unfortunately posting is likely to remain equally sparse until I return from holidays but then will resume at full tilt.

See you then!

I posted yesterdayabout the witch hunts of the 16th to 18th century and their role in ensuring that "science" as we know it became the dominant and authoritative system of knowledge by suppressing the existing system of knowledge of the wise-women -- a blanket term that includes healers, midwives, etc. who flourished in rural communities in pre-industrial Europe -- through propaganda and through a brutal terror campaign.

Here I'd like to expand a little bit on the witch trials as state -- or quasi-state -- terrorism.

I think one point about the witch trials and witch hunts of the 16th to 18th centuries in Europe that I haven't seen addressed very often is that the purpose of the witch trials was hardly to actually catch and kill "witches." There was certainly no attempt to distinguish "actual" witches from the falsely accused, and, in fact, most of the manuals on conducting witch trials and investigations explicitly presumes and calls for torturing the accused until they confess to being a "witch" or to kill them in the process. Either way, being investigated for witchcraft was virtually certain to end in torture and death for the accused.

Of course, anyone -- especially women -- could be accused by anyone and all it took was that simple accusation to ensure your death if you were subject to an official investigation of witchcraft because those trials always ended with the accused' s death.

Furthermore, that which was most likely to get you accused of witchcraft was to be an independent woman -- i.e. a threat to the industrial order of women remaining in the home and undertaking the work of social reproduction (defined in previous entry on this topic linked above) unpaid as a subsidy to capitalism -- to be a midwife -- control over reproduction, control of it, a non-"science" system of knowledge and way of knowing, an authority etc -- to be a woman and a healer -- same deal -- or to in any way be perceived as not conforming to the new social/political/gender/race order.

And, of course, since the arbitrary torture and murder of countless people -- mostly women -- served well to engender fear in the wider populace that to stick out as a non-conformist to the new order was to risk death. To be seen as less that hyper-vigilant and hyper-accepting of the new order was also to risk death.

Thus, the witch-trials constituted a regime of exercising coercive power over the population of Europe -- especially women -- by the torture and murder those less than hyper-model-seeming adopters and supporters of the cause in order to instill fear and conformity.

I believe that is conventionally known as state-terrorism.

This entry was precipitated by watching the film The Burning Times by Donna Read that examines the re-construction of the term "witch" from wise-woman to shriveled satanic bastion of evil as well as the phenomenon of "witch madness" which swept Europe and led to tens of thousands -- at minimum -- of women being tortured until they "confessed" to being a witch and then being burnt at the stake.

One of the interesting points touched on in the film was that the demonization of wise-women, midwives, etc. in that era reflects the demonization of a way of knowing and a system of knowledge.

To my eyes, this a very perceptive point. This was, after all, the rise of the industrial revolution and mercantilism-capitalism and along with it "science." "Science" as a system of knowing, way of knowledge and tool of ruling class influence through the power of being seen as "experts" wasn't simply predicated on and its own growth; for "science" to become the dominant and sole discourse on how to know the physical world, the body, etc. required -- as does the birth of most social structures -- the destruction of what went before i.e. the destruction of the wise-women and midwives who were an affront to everything "science" stood for. Firstly in that it was controlled by women, rather than men, secondly because it held a respect and connectedness with nature rather than viewing it as a passive vessel to be remade by the activity of men to suit their purposes, thirdly in that this system of knowledge showed women as intelligent, active, wise, independent rather than "emotional" "passive" "irrational" and dependent on the labour of men while labouring in social reproduction -- the physical reproduction of humans, their socialization, education, health and welfare, the reproduction of culture, ideology, etc. -- as free labour to subsidize mercantilism and capitalism and finally because it already existed, was respected, and conferred the status -- and ideological power -- of "expert" on those wise-women rather than on themselves.

Thus, to facilitate making "science" -- also liberalism and capitalism -- the dominant knowledge systems those wise-women had to be re-cast as "witches" and their system of knowledge had to be simultaneously brutally suppressed by coercion and discredited by a culture war so that when the dust settled "science" would stand unopposed and unquestioned as the "authority" and the only legitimate way of knowing.

While -- for the most part -- the brutal physical repression of knowledge systems outside the Western-liberal-capitalist framework of "science" has lessened, and now dismissal and ideological exclusion from the discourse -- as well as stripping the rights of -- non-Western ways of knowing has become the primary vehicle for attacking other knowledge systems. One quick example is that in neo-liberal intellectual property rights something is defined as patentable property only if it has been created by "science" out of "raw material" and has industrial applications. I'll note here that just as in the era of the Enclosure movement in Britain when the common rights of the peasants to the land were rendered non-existent within the discourse of the natural right to (private and only private) property when one applies their (individual or corporate) labour to it to change it and make it "productive" reflected the very same definition of common lands as "empty."

The result of this is that seeds that have been that knowledge passed down over many generations and held in common in many communities in the global South have literally been taken, changed negligibly by the application of "science" and then patented by companies in the West. For example; their have been tribes in the global South that have been using plants as medicinal for thousands of years, but they have no rights to that knowledge it is "empty knowledge" until someone takes the leaves of this plant and uses lab equipment to extract the active ingredient. It remains patentable by outsiders even though that culture had been using the same knowledge for thousands of years.

At least on the upside these cases involve much less state terrorism than was present in the witch-trials. I'll write a second post to lay out the argument that the witch-trials were a powerful and multi-purpose state-terrorism strategy.

(Full disclosure: Abigail happens to be my SO and we happen to share a mutual interest in radical politics of economic class, gendred class and racial class.)

Abigail takes up the issues surrounding the "conscience clause" for pharmacists:

i was about to say that job is a job and there are certain responsiblities that come with it. i knew this waitress who was a vegan and she served meat to those customers who ordered meat. why did she? because she knew that one; being a waitress means delivering food that is ordered to paying customers and two; if she refused she would be canned. i'm not saying that's right. but, i decided not to pursue a career as a vet or vet tech because i knew part of the job was putting animals to sleep and i couldn't do it. being a pharamist is to fill presciptions written by doctors for their patients. you have to go to school for this. it shouldn't be a big surprise. your personal, let me state that again, your personal politics have nothing to do with it. those prescriptions are written for a reason and they aren't any of your business beyound the filling and destrbution.

Go read the rest and in the meantime I shall rest for I've gotten nowhere near enough sleep in the last couple of days.

Need to finish some school work for tomorrow, but I'll have a couple of updates for tomorrow.

And thank heavens for that. It's my usual policy here not to link to an of the "big name" bloggers, but one of them holds a special place for me: Billmon.

In This entry he announces his partial return to blogging in his own words with the explanation that he has now accepted the futility of those words.

Of course, anyone who reads my blog knows my strenuous disagreement with the argument that words that fight the dominant discourse are futile. I happen to strongly believe, based on my politics, that fighting the conventional wisdom is paramount, be it in words, in actions, in organizations.

What I would say to Billmon is this: It may seem futile now, to compare the possibility of a progressive voice and action that will stand up to the conventional wisdom as remade by neo-liberalism and conservatism, and say "No. That is not how it is. That is not how it must be. That is not how it will be" but you must understand that this is a project in its infancy. For many years -- especially in the United States and the global North more generally -- we have been subject to a spectacularly successful campaign to rewrite the conventional wisdom -- one so successful because for possibly the first time in history it was a conscious one rather than the natural unconscious culture war of the dominant class in past eras -- but we have only seen the very beginnings of a counter-movement. It will take years and considerable effort to build a counter-movement truly able to push back against a campaign of 30 years from the other side.

And no, blogging is no-where near enough. Not at all. What I'd argue is necessary is the building of institutions to fight the culture war from the progressive side. I've often pointed to the World Social Forum as a potential model for this project.

The key, however, is to realize that this is not about convincing John Q Public that this or that policy or party or candidate is bad. The point is to rewrite the culture. To make our values the ones that are conventional. Do that and John Q Public will come over of his own volition.

Amanda over at Pandagon has a new entry that talks about the infuriating tendency for the responsibility for absentee fathers to be laid at the feet of women's "choices" rather than the bad behavior of the men in question. I strongly suggest you go and read her entry not only because it is quite good, in my opinion, but also because this entry responds to a comment over there. This comment exemplified many of the issues I've been referring to in my entries about how "Reason" is wielded as a weapon against women, minorities, and others who step out of the "conventional wisdom".

From the comments to Amanda's entry:

Your blog entry is truly a work of art. It resembles Marcel Duchamp's most famous work, and I intend to use your piece of the writer's craft in the most fitting way.

Over at Kevin Drum's site at the Washington Monthly, he has some female guest bloggers discussing why more women aren't in the op-ed pages or for that matter involved in well trafficked political blogs. I believe your post is one of the very best examples for why this is the case.

Let me 'splain something to you.

If you read the following statistics barren and devoid of any misogynism:

• Nearly 24 million children (34%) live apart from their biological father.
• Nearly 70% of black youths don't live with their father.

and your conclusion is that the writer means that,

"It's come to this. I don't even see much of an effort to put together an argument that fathers are more important than anything else in a child's life in the Brand New American Patriarchy. It's just a fact. Apparently, the magical Father Rays that emanate off your dad make the difference between criminal and college grad."

then I would suggest you borrow or purchase at your next available opportunity a book on Logic. If you think that the statement "Nearly 24 million children (34%) live apart from their biological father." implies a "Brand New American Patriarchy." then you have lost any hope of maintaining a reasonable discourse. If you think that when the writer says "Nearly 70% of black youths don't live with their father." that the writer means "magical Father Rays that emanate off your dad make the difference between criminal and college grad" you may have lost (or due to the presence of uterus, never had) the skill of critical thinking.

Naturally, you reserve your bitterest outrage over the well-meaning though perhaps poorly worded imploration of a daughter of a deadbeat dad, law school graduate, and syndicated columnist (apparently, in your mind, this writer is so outrageous as to suggest on the one hand that children in fatherless homes are destined to non-college educated prisonhood, but somehow managed to get an education herself, How Hypocritical of Her!) When she writes "But what strikes me most is not my father's pathology, but rather my mother's poor choices — a reality that society doesn't properly acknowledge or combat." you seem to think she means that rape victims should be thrown in prison. I tend to think that what she means is that young girls shouldn't makes poor choices like getting pregnant by alcoholic high school drop-out scuzballs, but instead should be taught and encouraged not to make these poor decisions.

The reason why my interpretation of what she means is not your interpretation of what she means is what causes me to just tune out your blog posts. Perhaps this is why you are an irrational conflicted doomed to die a withered lonely old hag completely enmeshed in your womynhood spinsterdom, while I remain a cynical rational male, destined to weep at the inequities of life. I guess we all see reality through our own prism, but I gotta say your prism is pretty cracked up.

Bastardly yours,

Troy Will

See? I go on and on about "civility" "reasonablity" and "rationality" as weapons wielded against those who stray outside of the dominant discourse people it was precisely navel-gazing screeds like Troy's I was talking about. Leaving aside that Tory's uncritical self-characterization as "objective" "rational" and "reasonable" are entirely without basis considering the level of anger, emotionalism and subjectivity present in his shrieking screed, it is interesting how he presumes the entitlement of defining "rational" "objective" and "reasonable" and how the definitions he uncritically assumes are wholly consistent not with any solid philosophical, ontological, or theoretical basis or in actuality poses any rigour what-so-ever, but instead merely reflect the assumptions of the "conventional wisdom"; the very substance critical thinking is designed to question.

Now responding to the commenter:

If your own critical thinking skills were slightly better you'd perhaps question the the framing this article creats. More precisely you'd consider the implications of framing the issue of single mothers as one where the presence or absence of the biological father is presumptively the fault and responsibility of the "choices" of the mother.

You'd perhaps question why the issue is framed in such as way as to immediately absolve absentee fathers of any responsibility for their own actions. After all, it isn't incumbent upon a man to take personal responsibity for their own actions if women are responsible for not having a relationship with that man.

Perhaps you'd also question why this frame is precisely reversed in the case of men who are made fathers "against their will" by "conniving" women. They aren't admonished to make better choices, instead they are seen as the victims of the horrible actions of "conniving" women.

You might also ask why the vastly increased poverty rates of single mothers are treated wholly uncritically as a fait acomplit, and in fact as a poor reflection on the fitness of women who become single mothers without questioning why it is the case that single mothers are many times more likely to end up in poverty than single fathers, or dual-parent families (dual incomes? pay disparities? lack of social support for childcare such that working and parenting are extremely difficult to combine without getting "mommy-tracked"?

You might read The Price of Motherhood by Ann Crittenden which notes, based on data, that college educated women who become mothers face a life-time reduction in earnings of over a million dollars.

You might also see how making women responsible for the deplorable behavior of men they are involved with, rather than holding the men in question accountable for their own bad behavior is an obvious parallel for the treatment of rape cases in the dominant discourse.

Hell, you might even consider the source of your own sense of entitlement to define "rationality" "reasonability" and "objectivity" not only in such a way as to automatically include yourself, but also in such a way as to automatically exclude Amanda's post without having to go to the trouble of actually engaging her points or ideas.

Now that would be some critical thinking.

Posting has been lighter than usual lately primarily because I was working on an essay for a social science course. I chose to write my paper on extending the concept of 'market civilization' from the work of Isabella Bakker and Stephen Gill from referring specifically to neo-liberalism to a broader framework for understanding capitalism. My intention is to post this essay in PDF format here for those that are interested without weighing down the blog with technical entries that require a solid background in neo-Gramscian political economy. Instead, I'm going to put up the PDF for those that are interested while discussing some of the issues and ideas brought up in the paper in an accessible way (I hope).

The basic idea of market civilization as put forth by Bakker and Gill is to conceptualize the global elite -- essentially the primarily white, male, owners and managers of trans-national corporations as well as members of groups like the Trilateral Commission, International Chamber of Commerce, Bilderberg Group, and World Economic Forum -- restructuring of politics, society, economics and culture -- neo-liberalism -- as an attempt to create a new world-order where all aspects of life are increasingly made market-like (marketized) be it in terms of being increasingly exposed directly to the vicissitudes of the global market -- see: the global push to reduce or eliminate social insurance and assistance for workers -- in terms of having their lives increasingly monitored under the auspices of demands for transparency -- see: the increasing monitoring of recipients of state assistance, the increasing collection and use of credit, health, and other data by private businesses including in hiring and firing, extending or not extending credit and at which interest rates, etc. -- also in terms of re-privitazing the cost of social reproduction -- that is, the costs associated with the reproduction of human beings, as well as the reproduction of society and culture that is seen in reducing health benefits, social support for childbirth and childcare, attacking public eduction, etc. -- and also in terms of increasing commercialism and individualism as well as trying to create the belief that there is no alternative to neo-liberalism and that all of its critics are "irrational" "unreasonable" "silly" etc.

The idea, then, is to remake world-order in ways that increase marketization and thus are good for global elite capital accumulation.

One key to this concept is that it is not put forth as an immutable deterministic law. This process is theorized as being undertaken by human agents -- in this case the global elite -- and as meeting with varying levels of resistance. Furthermore this isn't being attempted in a monolithic way, instead many varied approaches to realize market civilization are attempted at different global locations, amongst different economic, gendered and racial classes. It is one of the drawbacks of the nuanced view of neo-Grasmcianism that complexity inevitably results, unfortunately. You can't just say that its a matter of some deterministic historical law inexorably pushing this program forward.

I really like this framework. I think market civilization is a very useful concept or framework for the neo-liberal project of the last thirty years. However, in my paper I extended this concept. I extended it by saying, rather than simply applying this concept to the current historical moment and to the specifically neo-liberal project, this framework should be extended to considering capitalism over its much longer history dating back to England from the 16th century onward with the enclosure movement and the industrial revolution.

I think it makes sense to do this because I think that since its very beginnings capitalism has seen the dominant class -- i.e. white (excepting national dominant classes in non-Western countries and even there their is much evidence of white-er standing in for white) male owners of the lands and businesses (i.e. the capital. The things used to make things for consumption) -- trying to remake world order (or civilization if you prefer. So long as the term includes the totality of existence i.e. producing and distributing to meet the needs of people, reproducing physically and reproducing society, culture, politics, power, etc.) in marketized ways that are essential to capital accumulation.

For instance, capitalism at its inception required a great number of people to become "workers" in the sense of wage-labour, something facilitated greatly by the enclosure movement that got the peasants off the land and annihilated their ability to produce or socially reproduce themselves as well as their culture -- the very idea of common rights was destroyed for example -- as well as by philosophies such as utilitarianism, liberalism, etc. that argued for individualism, economic progress, destroying the "outdated" ways of thinking.

Or for a more modern example, commercialization and consumerism were necessary for mass-production to make any sense in the U.S. in the post-war era. People had to be convinced to spend spend spend and to forget their previous culture. Culture had to become pop-culture in all its branded glory.

Because of this, I think that there has always been pushes by the dominant class (of whatever historical period or moment) to increase marketization. Of course the nature, means, exact goals, and success of this program has varied widely over time. This is a key point. My extension of the concept does not in any way toss aside the nuance of Bakker and Gill's version, it doesn't say that this has been an over-arching historical process an inexorable as gravity. The variability of this program over time depending on historical circumstances must be emphasized. That nuance isn't being brushed aside, rather, I'm just saying that increasing marketization has been a persistent goal even while the specifics have been varied because of historical circumstances.

I find extending this concept useful because it gives a way of looking at capitalism over its entire history in line with a lot of neo-Gramscian ideas [Wikipedia has a good non-technical article on Gramsci here] that manages to make conveying some of the nuance of the framework much easier. I think it's easier to understand that you can't just look at production (i.e. "the economy") while ignoring social reproduction (as noted elsewhere, this term includes physical reproduction as well as socialization, culture, the socialization of risk, education, and ensuring that human needs are met) and ignoring the role of ideology (I've discussed that at some length here) and the role of human agency in terms of the agency of the dominant class and those that resist because all of these things go into making civilization. It also helps to make sense of the nuance of this view in that it gives a frame that connects all of these areas in that all of them go into making civilization.

For anyone interested the PDF is here and is released under the creative commons licensee as stipulated here.

This post was inspired by my unadulterated outrage at a rape trial that Pinko Feminist Hellcat posted about today:

The defense keeps trying to blur the line between consensual sex and rape by painting Jane Doe as a slut. That's nothing new, sadly, and it's discouraging that so many people out there are stupid enough to buy it.

It's just too bad that the defense was hinting about Joey Cervantes, a kid who claimed he had sex with Jane Doe. Oh, no, not that! Even if it's true--and he's the only one who's telling this story--it doesn't prove that Doe wasn't raped. If anything, it proves that she has no problem with having consensual sex, that she's had lots of consensual sex without crying rape, and that the videotaped gang rape was just that--a videotaped gang rape, and not a "sexcapade." We are not talking about an accuser with a history of falsely reporting rape.

To summarize the case: A videotaped gang-rape is being defended as "consensual."

The outrageousness of this oft-used defense is perhaps best put into relief by comparing it to cases of theft. Imagine that someone steals something of yours and that you call the police.

Now, imagine that when you go to trial, the defense argues that you gave the defendant whatever he took, and that in fact, you have a history of giving gifts in fact, the defense might even imply that you are generous and give gifts to everyone.

Now consider the likelihood that *anyone* would believe that just because you give gifts that you are incapable of being stolen from and that you must have given what was taken as a gift, because, after all, you are "generous."

Mostly everyone can understand quite clearly that simply because you may be generous and give gifts to many people in no way implies that that you gave whatever was taken from you or that you are incapable of being stolen from or that your propensity to give gifts has anything at all to do with whether or not the item in question was stolen by the defendant.

if you think this is a bit of a stretch, let me extend my example slightly to clarify. Imagine that not only did this person steal -- lets say your laptop -- but that this laptop was found in their possession. This would be considered some damning evidence as it proves they have your laptop and as you've said, they stole it. Well, if we're going to continue the analogy, the fact that they have your laptop would not be considered evidence that they stole it from you, after all, given your past history of "generosity" you probably gave it to them.

Besides its just your word that they stole it against theirs that they gave it to you! Why, you probably just regret giving them the laptop and made up this story to get it back!

Sounds pretty ridiculous right?

Not in rape cases, of course. That their is evidence of rape is considered not important because the defense virtually always argues that just because their is evidence of rape doesn't mean anything! After all she's a slut and probably consented to having sex with him! She even has a history of having consensual sex! That slut! I mean, in the end it's just he said, she said and you can't rely on her charge, can you? I mean, she probably just regrets it and made this story up!

And so the ridiculousness of such a defense is made clear.

I'm not likely to be able to do much in the way of blogging today due to a paper related all-nighter. In the mean time, though, I thought I'd share some links to entries that are so good I wish *I'd* made them (hence the "so and so blogs so I don't have to" meme) heh.

Morigaine at Media Girl has this righetous piece on social security:

Bill Maher famously says that the problem in America is that everybody is looking forward to the day that they are wealthy. He's right. People vote to protect the fortune they're going to win in the Lottery. Of course, actual lottery winners are a statistical anomalie, and actual winners usually end up poor again, or at least miserable, but they aren't thinking rationally. They aren't thinking at all. They are "having faith" that things will work out. This is important:

YOU will Never be Wealthy enough to matter to the Republicans

That kind of wealth is old money. You have to inherit it, and you have to be raised in the social structure that supports it. No lottery and no scholarship to Harvard will get you into the realm where you will benefit from Republiican policies. It doesn't matter how hard you work, how lucky you are, you will never be that rich, and you'd better wake up and vote like you know it. These lying bastards will steal the bread out of your babies' mouths if you let them.

Nice. I must say I do love some sharp, accurate, and powerful invective.