Thanks Rebecca - quite. I'd like to add that the discussion didn't
just suddenly change to be about female desire: it always was, from
the beginning, as was pointed out repeatedly by a number of people.
At 10:25 PM +0000 1/6/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>Women got a worse deal than males, that I
>agree with, but it doesn't mean that all men were free to speak.
Gender and sex as social forces in fact know no class, but operate
across all classes. That complexity is what I meant by saying that
hierachies work along many vectors: which obviates any simplistic
linking of class with gender (which is itself kaleidoscopic rather
than just a binary male/female thing), or (I think) any simplistic
division of class into Oppressors and the Oppressed.
The irritating thing is that neither should obscure the other, they
are easily used as mutually illuminating tools of analysis, but in
practice people seem to think that only one model can be operational
at the same time. And unfortunately the issue of class conflict has
often been a mode of pushing women's movements to one side, as
illustrated by Marx's dismissal of the economic value of traditional
women's work (child rearing, housework &c), a value which has only
recently begun to be quantified. From de Tocqueville on to the 60s,
there has been a concern to free Man while keeping Woman in her
place: ideals of freedom were dangerous when they got into the wrong
hands.
Best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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