At 11:50 15/10/2006, Yoshie wrote:
On 10/14/06, michael a. lebowitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I think it might be more appropriate to say that capitalism has
created conditions which have strengthened the struggle against
patriarchy (which is, of course, not to be confused with the
selection of individual women to carry out capitalism's dirty work at
the top). So, is it that societies attempting to build socialism
haven't created such conditions? If so, why?
The question of women's leadership and the question of improving
conditions of women aren't the same question.
Yes, but struggles to improve conditions (of workers, blacks, women)
produce leaders (of same), no?
Leadership
Qualities that leftists have trouble thinking straight about are
qualities that encompasses ability, ambition, charm, charisma, etc.
These are qualities of which some leftists say they disapprove and
about which other leftists are silent, but those are the very
qualities found in men who rise to the top, especially on the Left
outside the West, which are tacitly recognized by all (though
sometimes explicitly denied by some). Those are qualities that, if
found in women, are regarded as troublesome rather than awesome.
Very true, but I regard this last point precisely as a product of
patriarchy whereas you appear to limit the latter concept to
practices within kinship networks
(thus excluding its generalisation within cultural norms including
those supporting not only an unequal division of labour but also the
definition of admired gender qualities).
Patriarchy
For my purpose, I define patriarchy as a prevalent condition in a
premodern society in which extensive kinship networks that entail
mutual obligations define individual lives, in which patriarchs have
power over both men and women in their families (or in their clans),
and in which older women (usually after childbearing) have power over
younger women. That's a condition that can be eroded or destroyed
through socialism or capitalism or Islamism or secular nationalism or
whatever that brings about urbanization, proletarianization,
transformation of the family structure from extended families to
nuclear families to single lives, etc. The destruction of patriarchy
doesn't automatically lead to gender equality, though. Much of the
remaining gender inequality after the end of patriarchy comes from an
unequal division of labor, in which women shoulder much of care-giving
labor (taking care of children, the sick, the old, the ill, etc.).
--
Still, let's get back to your original question--- the
absence of women in the leadership of societies attempting to build
socialism. Was/is there something systemic that thwarts the emergence
of women as leaders in these?
in solidarity,
michael
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Currently based in Venezuela.
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