The "most popular feminist contest" is a mug's game.

I disagree with pretty much most of what you have to say on this topic, but I appreciate your saying it nonetheless.

Feminist this, feminist that...but there's no real organized feminist movement in this country anymore, and I suppose we might want to occasionally step back and ask why this might be. You lay bare the logic, I guess, though in so doing, you almost give the game away.

If they succeed, they will doubtless make life easier for non elite working women. The old lefty in me hears the siren song. But the strategy has terrible risks.

And the risks to non-elite working women (and almost by definition, they would be, the last time I checked, the majority of women, no?) would be exactly what? That they might find themselves symbolically positioned as women/mothers/the feminized, even as they managed to improve their material lot? But as you must well know, they’re already both symbolically and materially positioned as women/mothers/the feminized...so an improvement in material conditions, even under the rubric of the feminine (under which rubric they already labour, after all) would be a net gain, so far as I can tell. The extent to which elite women don’t give a flying f*** about non-elite women is a prediction, if not a measure, of the extent to which non-elite women will refuse to identitify as “feminist.”

Also, what’s with the rational choice theory? If you really are an “old lefty,” as you claim to be, then you must realize that we are born into a world that is not of our own making. We can change this world, yes, but not each one of us on her own, and certainly not by recourse to the rhetoric of heroic individual effort. We do not sit down and rationally calculate, while drawing up our own unique, tailor-made individual 5-year plans. We muddle through, as social actors who are already deeply embedded in thickly-descriptive socio-cultural-economic contexts. You can work at changing the content and meaning of those contexts, or you can deny the relevance of culture and society while excoriating the “choices” of women as you set yourself up as national scold.

I have accused elite women of “making a series of self-defeating decisions about education, employment, and family formation.” And I told them to stop. I told them to take school seriously, don’t quit a job until you have another job and never marry a jerk.

And how is that tactic working out for you? Are they listening, all wide-eyed and shame-faced, while signing pledges to amend the evil of their ways?

I didn’t think so.

Posted at March 25, 2007 5:52 PM in response to A Tale of Two Workplaces

Eh. To be honest, if all this post makes you think about is "a woman's right to choose," then I have to wonder if you're really thinking hard enough.

Two brief points:

First, "choice" in the abstract, absent serious consideration of the relevant socio-cultural-economic contexts within which choices are made, is but an empty slogan, I think. We need to pay more attention to the menu of available options from which "choices" are made.

Second, it disturbs me greatly to see how the "choice" in "a woman's right to choose" now seems, increasingly, to intersect with the shallow, status-quo-oriented pieties and platitudes of that intellectually vacuous school of thought known as "rational choice theory." All is right with the world, and we don't need to change a damn thing, so long as we can say (and what scares me, frankly, is that some people really mean it, can really say this with a straight face) that people are "free" to "choose."

Or, to vastly oversimplify...Let's say I had kidnapped you and was holding you hostage on some unbelievably remote little island off the coast of Cape Breton or something (which I promise I would never do, but just play along, okay? at least for a moment or two, in this Hobbesian state-of-nature thought experiment, and let this admittedly extreme and overly-dramatic example serve to remind us that we are born into a world that is not of our own making [which world we CAN change, sure, but only if we look sharp and keep our eyes open, and beware the false prophets, not to mention the all-too-easy platitudes).

So anyway, I probably could cook you up a nice chicken stew (or, if you're vegetarian, a lentil soup or something), if enough pressure were exerted in that direction. But I'm lazy, and you're tired and hungry, and I'm not feeling the pressure. Instead, I give you the choice between eating a dead rat or eating some dead beetles. And you're really hungry, you must needs eat something, so you must choose between these two options. Personally, I'd recommend the rat, I got the recipe from the G. Gordon Liddy School of Paranoia and Cookery. But in any case, "choose" you must do, because you're so, so hungry, and, after all, you do want to survive, and more power to you.

Is it okay that I gave you that unpalatable "choice" between rat or beetle, when I could have, if sufficiently pressed, made you a chicken stew or a lentil soup? And given your extreme exhaustion and hunger and etc, did your opting for one or other of these two equally unpalatable options really amount to a "choice" in any meaningful sense of that term?

Just asking, is all.

Posted at February 19, 2007 8:52 PM in response to Tiger should get his priorities straight

A father should not have to bury his son. And without warning, too. This is unutterably sad.

I am very sorry to read of your terrible loss.

Posted at September 2, 2006 6:12 PM in response to The Lord Has Given, The Lord Has Taken - Bless be the Lord's Name?

Increasingly, there's an air of rhetorical desperation to the fear-mongering. Call me a wild-eyed optimist, but I (sometimes, not always) actually take this as a good sign. They can no longer count on the unquestioning acquiescence of a passive audience, which is why they are now forced to crank up the volume.

Yeah, that's probably way too optimistic.

Posted at August 11, 2006 12:09 PM in response to Who Is "Serious" About Terrorism?

What's terrifying is how easily you guys stereotype yourselves as utterly obsessed with partisan posturing.

Is that what you call terrifying?

You must be very easily frightened indeed.

Posted at August 11, 2006 7:35 AM in response to 9-11 Deja Vu

they'll point out that terrorism plots are foiled by good policing, not violent military intervention.

Perfect. This should be a key Democratic talking point.

Ah, if only Kerry had something like this back in 2004. Oh wait: he did. It fell on deaf ears, of course. But I think the American public is now ready to hear this message.

Posted at August 11, 2006 7:02 AM in response to Thank Goodness

I'm beginning to think that Mary is no actual "Mary from RI" but rather, the product of some sort of auto-generated spam programme.

Posted at August 10, 2006 5:08 PM in response to Extremists

Apparently, yes, that is how it works. Or fails to work, as the case may be.

Feeling safer?

Posted at August 10, 2006 4:07 PM in response to How Much Bush Stupidity Can We Take?

Since Canadians reproduce by asexual budding, it would be kind of pointless.

:) You tell 'em, boyo (or, you go girl, depending on your gender).

No, wait. Do you really think you should be giving away such state secrets?

Posted at August 8, 2006 10:04 PM in response to At the Epicenter

Wow. I mean, just wow.

Well, Peretz has lost his grip, and can no longer be deemed a member in good standing of the reality-based community.

(Oh, and, well done, Ned!)

Posted at August 8, 2006 9:19 PM in response to At the Epicenter