feminist blogs

I would like to thank everyone at Feministe for allowing me to guest blog here this summer.  It has been an interesting experience, and I have enjoyed the conversations and the exchange of ideas.

This time for my guest blogging stint I decided to focus on privilege, because I feel that it is something that does not get enough attention in the feminist blogosphere.  Many of you asked the question of what do I do, now that I am aware of how the things that I do impact others.

Some solutions involve buying second hand. Never buy new what you can buy used. It removes you from the cycle of exploitation and is wonderful for the environment. When you must buy new, investigate the economic practices of the company in question.  Make sure that your hard earned money is not going to support unfair trade or labor practices.  Try whenever able to support unionized shops. Unions represent the best opportunity for critical changes in the labour market, and the union advantage means that workers are receiving a higher wage.  Try to think of ways that you can produce the items that you need in the home. Before WWII many of the items that we used daily were made in the home, and by returning to that you will once again benefit the environment, as well as remove yourself from harmful labour practices.  Consider participating in micro loans, so that women may start businesses in the so-called third world.  Finally, and this I believe is the most important tip, engage in conversation.  Never discount the value of micro activism. Each person that you share your knowledge with is one less person who is no longer ignorant of the impact that they have.  Stay informed and think critically because everyday actions mean a lot.  You have power and only you can choose how it is deployed.  Never feel overwhelmed by the task at hand because each action no matter how small has great potential to be a revolutionary act.  If you are interested in learning more about how western actions effect so called third world bodies may I humbly suggest checking out Tanglad...she rocks as a blogger and will help you to increase your understanding.

Well once again thank you for having me, and taking the time to make such critical commentary on my posts here.  Please feel free to drop by Womanist Musings where I will continue to post daily about bodies that matter and the ways in which isms interlock with each other.  I can also be found at Feminocracy. Thanks again, and I look forward to reading what you have to say.

Well everything old is new again.  I was reading Hoyden About Town when I came across a link for wet nurses. My initial reaction was WTF….seriously…not in the year 2008.  As a WOC the idea that you can, or should pay someone to breast feed your child is extremely problematic.  For those that aren’t aware, historically it has been white women paying, or forcing  WOC to act as wet nurses for their children. There was a time when breast feeding was believed to ruin a woman’s figure, and therefore rather than risk their sexual appeal, white women of privilege hired dark skinned women, or used slaves to nurse their children.  The other factor that made wet nursing attractive is the detachment that parents believed to be in the best interest of the child in the 1800’s and early 1900’s.  If a child was breast fed by the mother it was deemed that said infant would develop an unnecessary, and unnatural attachment. WOC were also seen as best able to bond with a child, as it was deemed that they had the same mental capacity.

The role of wet nurse reduces women to roving tits, that are available to hire.  For women of colour the association with mammy cannot be dismissed.  Women of privilege hire wet nurses because they want to continue working, and provide the best possible nutrition for their child.  That this is exploitation, so that they can achieve their goals is something that is not considered.  Women of wealth have a history of exploiting poor women to aid in reproduction and child rearing.  When feminists say that women can have it all, the answer is certainly yes they can, if they depend on another woman to do the labour that they are either unwilling, or unable to do.

Outsourcing reproduction, or child rearing is strictly the preserve of the rich.  That women are the ones equally participating in this exploitation is extremely disgusting.  While fighting to be recognized as equal beings in the public sector, reducing women to their biological functions in the private sector is counter to the progress of all women.  Between the rent a womb explosion in India and the increased sale of eggs, reproduction has become big business.

Once something becomes commodified it becomes subject to review and control. Women that are selling their eggs, or working as wet nurses must undergo medical testing and live a life of rigid control.  Their bodies no longer belong to them and instead belong to the family that has bought its capabilities.  Class, once again combines with capitalism to further curtail the activities of women and render them inseparable from the functions of their biology. This is a uniquely female oppression.

Poverty is a feminized condition, and as the economy continues to worsen how many women will make this choice because they need to feed their families?  A choice made within constrained circumstances is not a freely made choice. The companies that profit based in biology and reproduction, trade on the idea of female bonding to obscure the reality of what selling breast milk really entails, the predatory exploitation of the rich over the poor.  Historically the wet nurse was known to reserve her milk for pay, while her own child was forced to live on a substandard substitute.  Upper class women may feel empowered because they are able to mother and work, however what they are really doing is outsourcing labour, while diminishing the source of nourishment for another child.

For a family to function with even one member working a high powered career a support staff is needed.  It is not possible to work 60 plus hours a week and do the the laundry, keep the house clean, nurse and be successful in the working sphere, without having someone in the household to do the maintenance work.  This is why traditionally it has always been understood that when a man is in a high pressure “flannel suit” job he needed a wife.  A wife was as necessary to his success, as his education.  Even though the labour performed by women was socially discounted as recent as the 1800’s, a man could not even secure a business loan unless he was lawfully wed.  It was determined that a man would work harder if he had a family to support, without recognizing the ways in which the wife “he supported” made his labour possible. Today the same sort of situation exists, except now women are looking for their “own wives” as they increasingly embark upon careers that demand a more total commitment.

The advancement of some women on the backs of others is not progress, it is simply the perpetuation of past crimes.  Class and race play a central role in who is designated as ‘woman’ and who is recognized by their biological capabilities.  For women to achieve equality we need to stop serving the needs of the wealthy and embrace communal ideas that would elevate us all.  As long as woman are seen as a pair of roving tits for hire, or a uterus for rent, we will all be subject to the limitations that reproduction causes women.  Wanting a wife and being a wife are too very different things.  Internalizing patriarchy and using capitalism as a tool to oppress makes us guilty of employing the masters tools.  Freedom for all, means all women are more than the sum of our parts.

Cross posted from Womanist Musings

Hey you in the back row with the unacknowledged privilege, I am talking to you.  That’s right, I am pointing my long black finger at you. It is time to listen up and learn.  Privilege is an extremely loaded word.  Many will not acknowledge it, preferring instead to focus on their good deeds.  Privilege can come in many forms, you can have race, class, gender, western, cis, ability, etc, and it is important to recognize each and every single one of them, they are a part of your being and can not be halted at will any more than you can stop breathing.

I am black, western, straight, middle class, educated, and able bodied, all of these factors combined create who I am and colour how I view the world.  Had I been born elsewhere, and were illiterate and poor all of the comfort that I view as everyday occurrences would not exist in my life.  If I am hungry I walk into my kitchen. I can kiss my unhusband in public and know that the stares we receive are because of our racial differences, and not because of our sexuality. My education ensures that I will have a good chance at achieving and maintaining good paying employment, and it further empowers me to discuss ideas, concepts and ideologies from a detached academic point of view. This is who I am, and I own all of it.

Owning privilege is not about feeling ashamed, it is about acknowledging the benefits that one receives without having to work for them.  It is about realizing that people born to different circumstances will not receive these benefits as a consequence of our skewed understanding of worth and value.  It is further about realizing that no matter how many good and charitable works I perform, my body will always exist with privilege.  No matter how often I donate my time to food banks or homeless shelters, I cannot undo the class privilege into which I was born.  No matter how valiantly I advocate for fair trade, and  an end to things like the western fuelled wars in Africa, I cannot undue the damage that my government has done in my name.  As sickened as I am about the systemic inequalities that plague humanity, I am privileged and I own it.

It is not acceptable to say, I am not racist, sexist, homophobic etc and therefore any accusation of privilege is misplaced.  These privileges are encoded to the body before birth simply because of the society we are all born into.  We do not live outside of socialization we are the product of it.

To become defensive and immediately stammer, oh no not me, is a clear indicator of denial.  It is this very state of denial that allows privilege to maintain its insidious grip on society. One cannot actively fight against interlocking isms while continuing to deny the effect that they personally have on you.  How are you to convince anyone that inequality is systemic, if you as an individual continue to benefit without acknowledgement?  It is dishonest and begins ally work from a false groundwork.  It’s like saying I’m not racist because my best friend as a kid was black.  People see that kind of commentary for exactly what it is.

Understanding and owning privilege does not mean that you must live a life of shame or guilt,  it does however mean that you owe a debt that must be repaid.  For each advantage that you are given, you must at some point attempt to mitigate some of your unearned privilege.  This will never absolve you of said privilege but over time, if enough people equally dedicate themselves to mitigation it will lessen privilege through the changing of ideas of what it means to exist as a specific body.

We spend far too much time saying oh no not me, or feeling shame for things that are out of our control.  A dear friend once told me that she felt ashamed and guilty because of slavery.  I was actually dumbstruck for a moment before I responded, “you have never personally enslaved anyone, the issue is not history, the issue is how you continue to be advantaged because of history.”  This is central to the point that I am trying to make. No one individual can bear the sins of the world, but each individual continually recreates these sins by failure to acknowledge the degree to which we are socialized to accept that certain bodies are somehow less than.  There is no righteous person, only righteous thoughts, deed and emotions.

Cross Posted from Womanist Musings

Continuing on with the theme of privilege, today I am cross posting something I wrote in May.  I thought about writing and updated version but I don’t believe that I can improve upon my original commentary.

As a Woc I find myself often being pulled in two different directions.  White women often try to play the sisterhood game and remind me why feminism is important.  Black men are quick to remind me of the racism that we are subject to, as a reason why I should identify with civil rights movements, and or equity projects.  Both white women and black men always seem to approach with their hands out ( in friendship they claim) when actuality they are both looking for something.  It is never a neutral request, it is always a demand for solidarity, despite the fact that declaring so may be counter productive to my needs as a WOC.

I started this blog, so that I could finally say my peace. I had been lurking in the blogosphere for a while without commenting.  Now when I throw my two cents out there, I find that the response is always the same.  Black patriarchy will not own their privilege, and white women will not own their racism.  Neither party is willing to shut the hell up and listen for two minutes.  Yet they want me to be of use.  Yep I can just see myself making copies, coffee, filing, you know the important support staff role without any power or an actual voice.  That is exactly the role that black women have been playing in both movements since their inception.  Now there have been a few notable black women who have been strong enough, to be forces to be reckoned with.  They are the exception, rather than the rule.  Most of us just end up juggling identity politics trying desperately not to be swallowed whole.

Hear me when I say that WOC are not divisible.  I am not more black, than I am a woman. Both are essential to my identity and as such, expecting me to privilege one over the other for your benefit is selfish, and cruel.  The guilt baiting tactics have got to stop.  My body does not represent your proving ground.  If I choose to speak out about a particular subject, that does not mean that other is somehow less important in my life.  Racism may be my issue today, but sexism may take center stage tomorrow.

I love black men most unashamedly. You are my brothers, father, sons, and friends. Do not abuse this love by making sexist comments because we have the same culture.  Using words like ‘ho, bitch etc are just plain hurtful.  Expecting me to sacrifice myself continually so that you may achieve success does not uplift us a race, it uplifts black men.  You cannot refer to black women as ball busting shrews, and expect us to continue following along faithfully like obedient dogs, begging to be kicked, and beat down again.  We share a culture, but that gives you no right to exploit my labor, sexuality, body, womanhood or the essence of who I am for your amusement, or to enhance your self pride.  There are definite issues in this world when it comes to racism, but they will not be solved by “othering” black women.  Creating your own version of patriarchy does not uplift you, it only gives injustice, and bitterness to the ones that bore you.

White women have been my friends, and allies.  I have cried with you, and shared many instances of intimacy.  We have laughed, and danced in celebration.  But our friendship does not give you the right to silence me.  I have something to say, something you might even find valuable, if you could take the time out to listen.  You do not represent all women despite what the media has told you.  When Betty Friedan was writing the Feminine Mystique she certainly did not have black women in mind.  You see, we have always had to work outside of the home, and you in particular should know that, as we have been your cooks, housekeepers, and nannies.  Even today when you rush off to your womens conferences it is by enlarged women of color that you have employed as domestic workers.  It is our labor that provides you with the freedom to pursue your feminist agenda.  You want us to rail about injustice when a woman is kidnapped or otherwise abused, but where are you when black girls, and women go missing?  Where are your screams for media coverage?  Why don’t our assaults seem to carry the same kind of weight? Perhaps Lacie Peterson is the only pregnant woman to be killed by her husband?  Have I missed something?  Do black pregnant mothers not get assaulted to? We are united, and yet so unequal.

I know that even as I am typing furiously away, it is the equivalent of blowing kisses into the wind.  Both sides are too myopic to see themselves as the exploiting soul crushing silencers that they really are.  Both are so busy confronting the evils of white male oppression, that they have ignored the ways in which they have become oppressors.  Well the milk stand is closed, and mammy is done serving.  Don’t tell me that you can identify with me, or understand where I am coming from, because you can’t.  Until you spend a day living in the body of a WOC, you have no idea what it is to occupy the bottom rung of the racial, and social hierarchy. Stop playing a tug of war with my body as though I am some possession that can be owned, and trained.  I don’t want to be your token representation of diversity. I am not some trump card that can be played at the end of the day. I know your game, I have seen it played, and you will just have to excuse me because I think I would rather get my ball, and go home.

Cross Posted from Womanist Musings

The audacity of whiteness never ceases to amaze me.  Some make the most obvious racial statements and then say, gee I’m sorry is my privilege showing. Well duh, of course it is and you damn well know it.  If it were not so tragic I could be amused by the constant apologizing for racial commentary, when the clear intent was to be racial in the first place.  Do yourself a favour and stop with the false apologies it only compounds upon the issue.

As a child most people are taught to think before they speak, but somehow, for some reason, when it comes to discussing bodies of colour, white people regularly experience temporary amnesia.   Of course it is assumed that POC will magnanimously turn the other cheek eagerly awaiting the next slap.  Why else do we exist but to take the sharp barbs and daily humiliations.

If you can’t get a job some Latino immigrant stole it from you.  If you cannot get into the college you want, some African American stole your spot due to affirmative action; or some “super smart” Asian who has no life but to study unfairly outworked you.  Are you falsely reporting a crime? Of course blame the black man, everyone knows they’re all criminals anyway. Want some land to pollute, find the nearest Native American, break yet another treaty and wrap it in small pox blankets smothered in their blood. Despite all of the privileges that white bodies are able to marshal if the slightest problem occurs it is always the fault of the body of colour.  We’re all equal until a white person feels disenfranchised. I know the drill all to well.

That POC exist without power relative to whites in western society is certainly not something that is worthy of serious consideration.  Privilege must be maintained at all cost.  If at any point a white person has found said privilege to be mitigated by class, gender, sexuality, or ability the problem is not the system which creates a hierarchy of bodies it is the uppity brown bodies of the world.

(Once again video problems please follow link for intended video)

Of course I can certainly see how fuelling wars in Africa could be beneficial to a small group of people and since no white people are generally harmed in the process no foul right?  Here is another thought…why should western governments be blamed for neo-colonialism.  Is it the fault of white run western governments that there are no people left to conquer?  How about those hot tamales?  South America makes an excellent playground and if Latina women are permanently damaged from the rape tourism that regularly occurs at least it is a way to halt our dangerous trend of Malthusian living.

In the generous post racial world in which we live whites continues to feel entitled to their anger at the minimal loss of privilege that they have experienced, yet when a WOC rightly speaks out about issues effecting our lives our anger is somehow overly aggressive or uncalled for. How dare we express even the slightest angst that we continue to remain about the bottom of the social and economic pyramid when white people have so generously given a few of us the opportunity to rise above poverty. See look at that one referential black over there, she isn’t angry, you just have a chip on your shoulder. I swear I know why black people live shorter lives…we are literally stressed to death.

Daily living within the social delusion of whiteness, refusing to sip the kool aid and internalize racism has made me a problematic body.  It may be gauche to publicly say nigger bitch but really it is not necessary when every action reifies the label.  I read body language just like anyone else and the defensiveness and the hatred are obvious.  Excuses are made and explanations are proffered but essentially nothing changes because white people cannot move beyond saying, oh I didn’t know that was racism, or that really was not my intent.  For a group of people who want to run the world you really do fuck up a lot.

Cross posted from Womanist Musings

Halloween is one of my favourite times of the year.  For one night you get to step outside of yourself and embrace a different side of your personality.  Unfortunately for girls many of the costumes that are available purposefully reinforce gender norms. Here we see the classic good girl/bad girl binary.  On a night when a woman or a girl could literally become anything, we are offered  more of the same tired cliches that are meant to discipline our bodies and behaviour.

Even when boys and girls are offered the same “type” of role, they are noticeable genderized.  What is it about having a vagina that automatically means that you must declare it the world by wearing a cutesy colour? Of course the little girl cannot have a gun because guns are for “real boys”. For a cowboy notices how white her clothing is? She is meant to “play” the role of a cowboy but the boy on the other hand, actually has the possibility of being a believable cowboy.  If both were transferred to a ranch, it is the boy who would immediately be accepted

Along with reinforcing gender norms apparently Halloween is also a perfect holiday for teaching racial appropriation.  It is not enough that we have decided that it is okay to name sport teams after Native tribes, nooo why not take that one step further and decide that we can play Native for the day for fun.  This is the perfect companion to the lie that children will perform at their yearly Thanksgiving celebrations, when schools conveniently omit the truth of the near genocide of Native peoples.

Why not compound racism with sexism.  North Americans have often romanticized the “Native Princess“.  She is always a sexualized being who is honoured for her capitulation to whites.  Isn’t it wonderful that for one day a year, women will get to slip into the tantalizing role of the  erotocized ‘other’.  These costumes are a mockery to the history of abuse, rape and murder that Native Women have been subjected to.  That these costumes are all worn by white women who were comparatively deemed pure and womanly when juxtaposed with the “squaw drudge“, makes this cultural cooption that much more awful.

When you go Halloween shopping this year, either for yourself or your child, take the time to think about the message that you are sending with the costume that you choose.  Though this is supposed to be a night of fun, replaying sexist stereotypes or displaying racial privilege by deciding to appropriate the culture of another, is not fun to the bodies that are being targeted.  What message are we sending our children when we teach them that recreating some of the worst aspects of our culture is nothing  but harmless amusement?

Cross Posted from Womanist Musings

Hair does not mean the same thing to white women as it does to black women.  Hair for us is a physical indicator of the ways in which we are different. It is no accident that the first black millionaire, Madame CJ Walker sold hair care products. Part of female beauty has always included long flowing locks, and for black women who have  gravity defying hair, that refuses to be tamed, this can be extremely problematic. To mess with our hair, is to mess with your safety; much of who we are is invested in our beautiful audacious locks.

Many of my childhood memories involve sitting at my mothers feet as she braided my hair for the week.  Every Saturday night I would unbraid my hair, and then my mother would wash it and braid it.   I would then put on my head tie,  and go to bed thinking of how pretty I would look in church the next day.  This is a ritual that most black women can relate to.

As a black girl growing in a mostly Greek and Italian neighbourhood, my hair often became the subject of conversation.  I was a curiosity.  People would  touch it, and ask questions about its care like my hair was some kind of pet dog.  That they were being racist, or treating me like some kind of exotic creature, never once occurred to them.

Today I am a grown woman with dreadlocks that reach to the middle of my back.  I love them, and they are an expression of my racial pride.  What many white people often fail to realize is that wearing our hair natural is a political choice on the part of black women. In a culture that constantly teaches that anything black, or associated with blackness is negative, to publicly wear your hair natural is to embrace blackness as a positive.  More often than not, when the media chooses to portray black women as angry or revolutionary, our hair is altered to its natural state even if the woman in question has straightened hair. The most recent example of this, can be found on the heinous cover of the New Yorker, where Michelle was depicted with an Afro and a rifle.

Natural hair equals revolutionary because it says I do not covet whiteness.  It says I have decolonized my mind and no longer seek to embrace the qualities of my oppressor.  It flies in the face of beauty traditions that seek to create black women as unfeminine and thereby undesirable.  My natural hair is one of the truest expressions of the ways in which I love myself because I have made the conscious choice to say that I am beautiful, without artifice or device.  It further states that I will not be judged by the yardstick of white womanhood.  My beauty is a gift from my foremothers who knew on a more instinctual level than we know today, that ‘woman’ is as beautiful as she believes herself to be.

Today I have the confidence to loudly proclaim no you may not touch my hair.  I am not an animal at a petting zoo.  I will not be your path to the exotic. Even worse than the ones that ask, are those that assume that they have right to touch me without permission.  I believe that part of this urge stems from the fact that black women like so many other WOC, have historically been denied even the smallest forms of bodily autonomy.  While white women were covered in multiple layers; corsets, floor length dresses etc, no honour was given to our desire for modesty. The black female slave at anytime could be forced to disrobe for the pleasure of her owners.

Today white people still feel that they have the right to our bodies.  It can be a small act like touching our hair without permission, to a heinous act as serious as sexual assault.  In each case it is an assault, and an affront to our bodily integrity.  My blackness and your curiosity does not give you the right to touch me.  I don’t care if you smile while you do it, or whistle Dixie out of your ass.  My body deserves just as must respect as anyone else.  In answer to your question both verbalized and assumed, NO YOU MAY NOT TOUCH MY HAIR.

Trigger Warning

(EDIT: Video embeding issues once again) Please check this link for  video.

Recently I have authored a few posts about spanking.  This issue continues to weigh so heavily on me in part because I myself am no stranger to the belt, and because I truly believe in the right of all living beings to be free of violence.  Spanking a child is a violent act and any attempt to justify it is just denial.  Children are amongst the most powerless in our society.  They are considered to exist without bodily integrity and cannot legally act on their own behalf.  Parenting by its very nature is authoritarian, and this has lead some to believe that they have right to strike a child in the name of discipline.

Some parents repeatedly refer to a lack of spanking as a failure to discipline. This spank or no discipline argument is a ridiculous strawman and they know it. How do these parents believe that things like groundings, and timeouts came into practice in the first place?  There is also such a thing as rewarding positive actions to create a desire to continually perform behaviour that is socially acceptable, and responsible.

When parents assert to legislators that they are taking away their right to parent/discipline, what they they are seeking is to maintain authoritarian control over children.  Our offspring are of us, but do not belong to us.  In a society in which many feel powerless, parenting is one of the few areas left where people feel that they have the right to complete control and ownership.

Some continue to hide the desire to wield power over another by calling spanking an act of love.  It is encouraged that the child be told that they are loved after each incidence of violence.  What does this teach the child but to associate violence with love?  How many women fall into abusive relationships after being abused themselves as children?  This occurs in part because they understand violence as being part of loving someone.

What hurts me the most, is that there are not more pleas that base love as a supreme act of teaching.  When you reach for your child their reaction should not be to shrink  away with fear.  We don’t exhort parents to model the behaviour that we wish children to perform.  It seems our entire focus is rushing them from one event to another without actually communicating about life and sharing lessons.  We can schedule play dates, but sitting down and critically engaging with children is something we simply don’t have time for.

Children are not robotic individuals that can be programmed to obey on command. Part of the process of growing is testing boundaries, and making mistakes.  To be punished physically for maturing in the natural process impedes personal growth.  It teaches a child that they are not worthy of respect. If we can socially decide that beating an animal is wrong why can we not decide that hitting a child, the fruit of our wombs is equally wrong?

Cross Posted from Womanist Musings and Feminocracy.

Beauty as power is something that is taught to every young girl. Common adjectives that are used to compliment girls often refer to how pretty, sweet, or kind that they are.  Very seldom do we reward girls for their intelligence, assertiveness, or passion.  As a child becomes a woman she internalizes the idea that is what is most valuable about her, is her physical appearance.  That this is something that will decline in value, often keeps young women awake at night; plotting the best way to take advantage of the small window of opportunity that beauty as a source of power offers.

Feminism has engaged with beauty on many levels. Some feminists feel that performing beauty even to gain personally is internalizing the male gaze.  Others feel that the daily ritual is a sign of their autonomy in that they actively chose which beauty procedures that they will adhere too and which they will reject based on personal desire.  The debate between the lipstick feminists and the I will not subject my body to social discipline feminists has been waged since the 1970’s.

What is beauty without the finery and the flash?  Each season the fashion industry deploys an army of models to inform us how to best maximize on our feminine whiles.  One simply cannot be caught wearing the wrong shade, or sporting a purse that is the wrong size.  On the other side of the equation, you have women that are blissfully unaware of the fashion trends and dress for comfort over style.  These are the “utility women,” who find power in thwarting the seasonal call to the mall.  Utility women take pride in dressing only in what makes them feel comfortable, while at the same time voraciously attacking their dolled up sisters as patriarchal dupes.

Back and forth the conversation goes. You’re a patriarchal colluder says the utility feminists.  Well you’re lazy, jealous and don’t realize that autonomy can be found in many different ways retort the lipstick feminist.  Normally I would refrain from calling two groups of women engaged in conversation a cat fight, but what else can you call it when both sides display such narrow minded western privilege over beauty and clothing?

What neither of these groups ever seem to want to acknowledge is that whether or not your purse cost 500$ and has a DKNY label, or it is a 35$ Walmart find, both are participating in the impoverishment of women globally.  The problem is larger than whether or not you are dressing to please a man.

According to The Feminist Majority Foundation, “Women make up 90 percent of sweatshop laborers. Women are paid as little as six cents an hour and work ten to twelve hour shifts. In many instances overtime is mandatory. In some cases, women are allowed only two drinks of water and one bathroom break per shift. Sexual harassment, corporal punishment, and verbal abuse are all means used by supervisors to instill fear and keep employees in line.

Many of the companies directly running sweatshops are small and don’t have much name recognition. However, virtually every retailer in the U.S. has ties to sweatshops. The U.S. is the biggest market for the garment industry and almost all the garment sales in this country are controlled by 5 corporations: Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Sears, The May Company (owns and operates Lord & Taylor, Hecht1s, Filene1s and others) and Federated Department Stores (owns and operates Bloomingdale1s, Macy1s, Burdine1s, Stern1s and others).

Several industry leaders have been cited for labor abuses by the Department of Labor. Of these Guess? Clothing Co. is one of the worst offenders - Guess? was suspended indefinitely from the Department of Labor’s list of “good guys” because their contractors were cited for so many sweatshop violations.

Other companies contract out their production to overseas manufacturers whose labor rights violations have been exposed by U.S. and international human rights groups. These include Nike, Disney, Wal-Mart, Reebok, Phillips- Van Heusen, the Gap, Liz Claiborne and Ralph Lauren.

When women who are middle/upper class engage in a debate as to whether an article of clothing, or makeup is suitably feminist what they are ignoring is that they are  in a position to engage in this particular conversation, because they exist with class privilege.

A woman who is making less than 1USD per day does not have time to concern herself with whether or not patriarchy is informing her clothing choices.  This woman must deal with trying to provide subsistence for herself and her family under brutal economic slave labour.  Her class location informs her position, as the realities of her daily lived experience extinguish the angst that lipstick/utility feminists engage in.

Regardless of your position regarding performing femininity through make up and or  clothing, what cannot be denied is that any purchase within our capitalist economy is predicated on the exploitation of women.  The cult of I blinds us from the reality that in  our debate about agency and autonomy, we are completely obscuring the degree to which we personally are responsible for the impoverishment of others.  Class position we posit is based on meritocracy, but I must ask, who works harder than a sweat shop labourer?  Though feminism is a movement to end oppression against women, often times the failure to acknowledge privilege leads to the marginalization and exploitation of the most vulnerable within our society.  Class division is not a  flight of fancy, and to ignore the ways in which the Cult of I, turns us into oppressors is to decide unilaterally that only certain women matter.

Cross posted from Womanist Musings

The more I find out about this colluder, the more I fear.  Not much commentary needs to be made excpet to ask is anyone else overwhelmed by her experience, and policital positions?   Palin is about as pro woman as Rush Limbaugh, and that is saying something.

EDIT: Clearly no matter what I do I am not going to get the video I want to embed and therefor I am going just going to point you here to view it instead.