iwearglasses [she/her]

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  • 5 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
Cake day: January 25th, 2021
  • iwearglasses [she/her]towomenby•FLBC January Book Discussion - Feminism for the 99%
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    4 years ago

    Particularly when they give pretty specific numbers (“80% of climate refugees”).

    Exactly!

    Otoh many of my female friends in het relationships still end up being the biggest and/or only emotional support for their SOs. Which I think is unhealthy for them both.

    This is a very interesting point and one I've been thinking about quite a bit of late. I've been seeing positive developments online in this regard (such as the She's Not Your Rehab movement or /r/MensLib on Reddit) and I find it quite exciting.

    Women and sex centering men: Yes, this is something I’m struggling to reconcile for myself too! I’m interested in reading more nuanced takes

    That'd be brilliant, yes. I'll keep an eye out and see if I can come up with a couple suggestions for March :)

    Racialised people: The way I understand it is that it’s basically another way or referring to POC but the emphasis is not on self-identification but on the fact that they are treated as non-white.

    This makes sense, thanks!

    GMO seeds: Could you say which bit it’s from?

    Yes, sorry. Postface > Crisis of social reproduction. About two thirds in. When I first read it, I thought they were just against GMOs and I felt like I was being dragged into tinfoil-hat territory, as if you were talking to somebody seemingly normal and they casually mentioned they believe in chemtrails. But I've just asked my husband about it and he's told me about this: Monsanto sued small farmers to protect seed patents, report says, so this might be what they were referring to.

    Once again, so happy for your comment!!

    So sweet. I really hope this book club takes off!

  • iwearglasses [she/her]towomenby•FLBC January Book Discussion - Feminism for the 99%
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    4 years ago

    So happy you posted, I've been waiting for this post all day! I've never been in a book club and I'm perhaps a bit too excited, haha. Also, thanks for the effort you've put into this post. Really good summary! I'll tackle your suggested topics first and then I'll discuss whatever's left of what I wanted to say which doesn't fit into your three points.

    General impressions of the book

    I found this book pretty inspiring and I did learn some things, which I'll discuss below. One thing that caught my attention and I didn't like was the absence of stats/data to back up phenomena they discuss. Not that I don't believe their claims; it would have just been nice to see some numbers or sources. It happens in many instances, but one that I highlighted for example was when they say that the crash of the mortgage market disproportionately hit women of color, who suffered the highest rates of eviction. Like I said, I don't doubt this was the case, but I would have liked to see some percentages. However, I understand that the book is a manifesto and that manifestos have a different purpose altogether (namely, appealing to people's frustration and getting them excited about a project, and that it did!).

    Thoughts on liberal feminism vs leftist feminism/feminism for the 99%

    I LOVED this distinction. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that this was my first time reading feminist literature, and reading the introduction where they discuss "leaning-in" feminists versus working-class women who have to clean up the shards left by the former after all their glass ceiling smashing filled me with absolute joy and inspiration. It also helped me break down some internal conflicts I've had regarding this topic in the past. I remember the time I was watching a youtuber who used to do mostly beauty-related videos. In this particular video, she was sharing some financial advice and she disclosed that she owned several flats in London and was a landlady. I felt disgust. I find landlords parasitic. But then I wondered: shouldn't I be happy for her? She's a woman. Not only that: she's a black woman living in the UK. Why don't I like this? I honestly wondered whether this reaction of mine was just good ol' internalized misogyny. This book has helped me understand that this reaction was perfectly reasonable, given that I'm a working-class woman. Landlords screw over people like me, and the fact that some of them are women doesn't make it any better.

    Thoughts on social reproduction

    I have to say that this is the topic that I understood the least, or that got me the least engaged. I think it's because I live in quite a role-less, or role-inverted, household, but I'd love to learn more on this topic. I also loved this quote:

    Proclaiming the new ideal of the "two-earner family", neoliberalism recruits women massively into wage labor across the globe. But this ideal is a fraud; and the labor regime it is supposed to legitimate is anything but liberatory for women.

    I liked how counterintuitive this point is from a feminist perspective, and how some conservative individuals could read it and find themselves agreeing with it.

    Miscellaneous thoughts

    • I'd be interested in reading more about how liberal feminism has led women to agreeing to sexual behaviors that don't benefit them. This quote in the book caught my eye: exhorting "self-ownership", neoliberal discourses pressure girls to pleasure boys, licensing male sexual selfishness in exemplary capitalist fashion. I'm yearning for a school of feminism that isn't all "fuck a lot, pretend you're into kink and selling nudes is empowering".

    • I loved reading the bit that mentions lesbian and gay support for the 1984 British miner's strike. I'm going to try and learn more about this in my own time, because I'm very curious as to how the miners felt about this. Mining is such a macho microcosm in my mind that I wonder if they were confused or just grateful for their support, haha. (Edit: currently looking this up. There's a Wikipedia article, a book and a movie about it!)

    • There's a phrase they use often which I didn't understand. What does racialized people/women mean?

    • I was confused by this part: Finance capital [...] proliferates consumer debt [...] which it uses to discipline peasants and workers , to keep them subservient on the land and on the job, and to ensure that they continue to buy GMO seeds and cheap consumer goods at levels well above what their low wages would otherwise allow. What's wrong with GMO seeds?

    February book suggestion

    So happy you suggested Women, Race and Class! No joke, I was going to suggest that book because I've been meaning to read it for ages but somehow lacked the motivation.