feminism and gender politics are as explosive as it gets, and getting rid of sexism is as difficult as getting to the problems of racism. The classic argument is that gender feminism is a new ideology that developed as socialists devised new ways to promote their ideas following the fall of communism. Thus, the left wing tag; of feminism closely related to a Marxist way of thinking, totalitarian, and based on the assumption that men as a collective have erected barriers in society through which they can repress women.
By extension,the theory goes,policy makers, including the center-right, are guilted and seduced by the idea that legislation should act to restrict individual and economic freedom in order to promote gender equality.The dreaded equality of outcome.This narrative is simplistic, and evocative of conspiracy theories and shadowy NWO programmers. …. Susan Douglas critiqued in her recent book:
“In a similar way, Douglas keeps bemoaning the fact that women are forced to perform their gender on a daily basis. This is obviously true. However, she forgets to mention that men have to perform their gender identity just as much.** It is, of course, true that many people still erroneously believe that gender is one’s biological destiny, instead of seeing it for what it is, namely, a social construct. It is true that people who do not manage to perform their gender successfully are punished by society in a variety of ways. Stating, however, that this sad reality only has to do with women is extremely wrong. Men are forced to perform their gender just as much, and woe betide any man who fails to do so convincingly.” Read More: http://clarissasbox.blogspot.com/2010/07/susan-j-douglass-enlightened-sexism.html a
"This systematic coercion took many forms. Politically, the Nazi state intervened in the private lives of men and women, non-Aryan and Aryan, enacting laws and establishing government organizations that pressured inferior women not to bear children and Aryan women to do so. Economically, the state tried to undermine women financially and there were monetary rewards, as well as punishments, for Aryan women depending on if they would follow state policy. Socially, the Third Reich attempted to shape culture in such a manner as to mould women into Nazi ideals of motherhood. Clearly, these divisions are not isolated but overlap and influence one another in creating support of the Third Reich ideology of proper gender roles and separate spheres. Thus, the "superior" Aryan woman was subject to Third Reich political, economic and social persecution as she was forced to return to the private domestic sphere as "mother." --- read more: http://vicu.utoronto.ca/courses/semiotics/SIGN_Gender_Persecution.htm image: http://soreafraid.typepad.com/sore_afraid/2010/07/leaving-logic-and-reason.html
Although Douglas has been faulted and critiqued on many levels, the thesis of endemic sexism in society is valid, and central to an understanding of the mechanism of militarism/racism/consumerism that seems to dominate the aesthetic experience and is perplexing to the artistic community to expose and transform into a new current that would counter the “creeping fascism” that many feel has exasperated existing problems through pacification, in the same dynamic that sees us emerging from the financial crisis without dealing with the issue in a meaningful manner. Can sexism be equated with fascism?:
""Freda's in Fashion" is about Freda Prince, who is an officially HOT BABE. But she doesn't care! She just wants to be a trick druver or something, and makes mockery of her roommate, an aspiring model. Unfortunately, Freda has been "discovered", and is forced (forced!) into meeting with a famous model coach for model grooming. Freda's not keen..." read more: http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/2489170.html?thread=82367058
—Central to Nazi ideology was the belief that the problems of Germany the loss of World War I etc. were due to “ill reproduction.” Accordingly, the “solution” lay in reproduction based on a clear racial and gender order. This is why so much of National Socialist policy was geared towards reestablishing Aryan women in the domestic sphere. Aryan women thus entered the Nazi discourse as “mothers of the race” which is why the independent “New Woman,” symbolic of blurring gender roles, had to be destroyed. The Third Reich attempted to transform their “Mother” figure into a reality via social, political and economics means that encouraged all women to return to the home, and also pressured women of the “superior” race to procreate, while also trying to limit the procreation of “inferior” races. Read More: http://vicu.utoronto.ca/courses/semiotics/SIGN_Gender_Persecution.htm a
"But here's the other bigger thing. If the west gave a rat's tail about women's rights, it would also be in the Congo where women are being gang-raped daily in the fight for, among other things, the minerals that go into our iPods and mobile phones. It would not be in bed with the Saudi Arabian sexist apartheid state where women are chattel. It would not be bombing Afghan women and children, making the occupation worse and worse for them everyday." read more: http://thestar.blogs.com/broadsides/less_than_equal/
ADDENDUM:
I wish Douglas were honest enough to recognize that anti-feminist backlash cannot possibly be 100% manufactured by some mysterious and all-powerful forces that manipulate women into something they are nor aware of. I said it before but I need to say it again. What feminism has to do right now is recognize that the patriarchal system brings a lot of suffering as well as many benefits to both men and women. The kind of feminist analysis that presents women as constant victims of men and/or ‘society’ is outdated. More than any other cultural phenomenon, including the enlightened sexism Douglas talks about, this reluctance to include both men and women among beneficiaries and victims of the patriarchy is what has brought feminism into a dead-end. Read More: http://clarissasbox.blogspot.com/2010/07/susan-j-douglass-enlightened-sexism.html
http://thecaptivereader.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/enlightened-sexism-susan-j-douglas/
http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/2489170.html?thread=82367058
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Patricia Chong: Considering the vast amount of historical research done on the Holocaust and the Nazi regime, there is little in comparison on the genderbased persecutions that also took place. Inherent to Third Reich ideology was the designation of Aryans as the “superior” race versus Jews, Slavs, Gypsies etc., but also the designation of the male sex as superior . Nazism viewed biology race and sex as replacing “artificial” divisions such as class. This is why race and gender persecutions were intertwined as both were “rationally” based upon notions of biology as influenced by the ideas of Darwin and Malthus although their ideas were ultimately perverted at the hands of the Nazis. If Germany’s postWorld War I problems stemmed from ill reproduction, as the National Socialists believed, accordingly, proper reproduction, “based on a clear racial and gender order” was the solution . Women had entered the discourse of Nazi ideology as “mothers of the race” and had been found “guilty of racial degeneration” . This is why so much Nazi policy was geared toward the private domestic sphere of women, both Aryan women and non-Aryan. A double edged systematic persecution took place which discouraged so-called “inferior” women from reproducing, while encouraging Aryan woman to do so. A similar distinction is made by Gisela Bock in her famous essay, “Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization and the State,” as sexist racism versus racist sexism . Sexist racism meaning that non-Aryan women were “prohibited” from procreating because of their “inferior” race. Racist sexism meaning that Aryan women were urged to procreate as members of the “superior” race. However, Nazi propaganda geared to either inhibit or promote reproduction were one and the same:
"In an unusual example of Hollywood reverse sexism, this problem is rarely encountered when women are doing the choosing. Rosalind Russell prefers Cary Grant to Ralph Bellamy, Irene Dunne prefers Cary Grant to Ralph Bellamy, and in one that must have really stung, Carole Lombard preferred Fred MacMurray to Ralph Bellamy in Hands Across the Table. The Siren can think of two examples where she questions a heroine's taste, although in both cases there are extenuating circumstances. ..." read more: http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com/2010/11/advice-from-siren.html
…And the strongest pressure on such acceptable women to procreate, to create an orderly household for husband and children, and to accept dependency on the breadwinner perhaps came not so much from the continuous propaganda about “valuable motherhood,” but precisely from its opposite: the negative propaganda and policy that barred unwelcome, poor and deviant women from procreation and marriage. Read More: http://vicu.utoronto.ca/courses/semiotics/SIGN_Gender_Persecution.htm a
---"Judith Beheading Holofernes" "(Judith and Holophernes)," completed in 1599, is an early religious painting by the Italian painter Caravaggio. It is housed in the gallery of Palazzo Barberini, in Rome.--- read more: http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1401543
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