More on feminism and class

(((heavy sigh)))

Aunt B. just wrote a great piece in response to Lauren's post, linked here on Tuesday at DEAD AIR. And then, talk about timing, I read about the upcoming WAM (Women, Action and Media) conference.

Hm.

If you need several months in advance to schedule time off, you won't be able to make it, will you? (It's next month: March 27-29th) That leaves out most women who work in factories or in retail. Possibly waitresses and bartenders also, but they tend to be a bit more flexible in scheduling.

How about cooks and chefs? Hotel workers? During Spring-break month? Are you kidding?

Who, then, is attending? Well, none of the people I have listed above, unless they have the seniority to request time off in such short notice.

Add in the considerable costs of lodging, meals, transportation to and from the event... and I think you get the idea. This conference isn't for WOMEN, it's for some women. And it always has been.

The conference is in Cambridge, MA. (Gonna let that location sink in a minute; gee, what else is in Cambridge?) Is that maybe a really highly-educated locale that some folks might find a trifle intimidating? For instance, I'm sure they check credentials before even letting you drive through... I've been told that if you have no college degree, they turn you back at the first few traffic lights. You've heard of racial profiling? This is educational profiling... they stop cars that look suspect (my ancient, oft-repaired Saturn with the flaky bumper stickers, for example, not to mention the South Carolina license plates) and ask questions:

Who is Judith Butler? Why is she so important?

What is "intersectionality" (in 25 words or less)?

Where was Joss Whedon born and how old is he?

Why is abortion the most important feminist issue?

Why is religion always unfeminist and evil?

When will you be receiving your advanced degree?

Possibly, there will be physical demonstrations required. You will have to be able to log into FACEBOOK (on demand), send TWITTERs and suchlike. At the very least, you will have to know how to text the person sitting right next to you.

And if you fail these very simple tests, they will absolutely send you back. Do not pass GO!

If you do manage to answer these questions to the satisfaction of the questioner, but speak in the wrong regional accent [1]--they will add a second round of questions:

How did you feel when your parents sold their summer house? Were you sad?

What is the highest price you ever paid for a piece of clothing? (extra credit: Did you worry that this might oppress destitute seamstresses in Mauritius, or do you feel this is a suitable method to keep the whole world gainfully employed?)

Have you ever met a person who was actually in prison? Were you scared?

Have you ever been inside a public school? For how long?

Is your BMI under 30? (if you don't know what BMI is, instant fail)

And if you pass these, yes, it just gets hairier; the final lightning-round. The disqualifying questions. These are the trick questions, because if you can answer them, you will also be turned away from Cool Cambridge:

Can you give directions to the Wal-Mart that is closest to your house?

What are "Baptists"? Have you ever met one personally?

I read about __(fill in the scandal)_____ in the National Enquirer.

Demonstrate at least one of the following:

1) loading-dock doors

2) retail pricing gun

3) soldering iron

4) cloth diaper changing, using authentic diaper pins

5) computerized cash register (selection of models provided)

6) Jacquard loom, or similar modern version

7) changing oil in vehicle

8) load and shoot the firearm of your choice

9) pole dancing

10) milk a cow, buffalo or goat

11) carpentry skills, including hammering several straight nails in succession

12) how to deep-fry french fries in one of those dangerously-sizzling deep-fryers (used in restaurants and fast-food joints)

If you can do any one of these, well, you ain't the media type. No ACTION for you!

After this rigorous weeding process, there is the possibility that you could STILL get in. If you do, I hope you wear the right clothes and have the right hair. (It should be easier, since all the unfashionable old ladies will have already flunked out due to the diaper/ oil-changing demos.) After all of that, you don't wanna get banished from Cambridge and sent to Southie for the wrong get-up, now do you?

The conference theme this year: INSIDE/OUTSIDE

For the first time this year, we’ll be exploring a theme throughout the Conference: Inside/Outside.

We all belong inside some communities or networks and are new to or feel excluded or alienated from others. The tension that exists between insiders and outsiders to any given movement, identity, industry or ideology can be destructive, but it can also be harnessed toward mutually beneficial change. At WAM!2009, we’ll explore both sides of this inescapable dynamic in our relationships, organizations, societies and movements.

Some people are more outside than others.

Although I am, ha ha, joking, I wonder how funny it really is.


~*~

[1] It goes without saying, NO identifiable regional American accent is good; optimally, you should sound like the people on TV. Non-American accents are a special case, though, and are mostly very cool, particularly British, Australian, French or German. The exception, of course, is if you are a non-white person with a Spanish, Island or African accent, in which case, an extra round with more consumer-goods questions and green-card inspections may be added. Since MIT is where the conference is happening, Asian accents will be overlooked just this once, but if this gets to be an ongoing issue and there are too many of you, Cambridge-border security reserves the right to change the rules any time they see fit.

[2] Regarding the above: Teh extra immigrant round will involve deciphering American slang, as well as demonstrating teh uses of "teh" in internet writing... when it's appropriate and when it is not. I'd advise you all to start studying NOW.

Odds and Sods: Stella Blue edition

Left: borrowed from the BBC.

Lina at Uncool brings us the very first Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy which really does rock, friends and neighbors. Don't miss it. Although from what I hear, Lina's already getting hits through the roof. And that's GREAT!

Go have a look, and open your eyes.

~*~

Plains Feminist has a great guest post by activist Ricky Baldwin, titled The Election and Progressive Politics, which started some rather interesting and politically-intricate conversations between me and Mr Daisy. Excerpt:

So I'm saying I'd vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination? Of course – if it seemed close in Illinois, [Ricky's home - PF] I'd vote for Donald Duck if he ran as a viable candidate. I worked on Hillary Clinton’s first campaign in New York because she was running against a rightwing nut. But I think you can tell by now I hope she doesn't get it. (I voted for Obama in the primary, just to minimize Hillary's delegates relative to Obama. My man Kucinich was out by then.) The policies of the last eight years at least must be repudiated, but a vote for Clinton doesn't really accomplish that all that well. Oh, I've heard all the arguments, most of which aren't serious. She's a woman – yes, and so was Thatcher. She's earned it (!) – and what have the American people earned? (Obama, by the way, has a much better record of working for the good and welfare.) Oh, yes, and speaking of arguments for Hillary that make no sense, there's one that needs special attention. I'll quote a friend of mine who's in charge of the excellent news service justforeignpolicy.org. After Hillary repeated Bush’s transparent lie that Saddam Hussein kicked out the weapons inspectors (the US withdrew them, preparing to bomb), my friend quipped: "Hillary, ready to lie from Day 1." Indeed.

Sure, she's familiar with all the (evil) people. She's comfy sending planes to bomb women, children and sick people for elite purposes. And she'd have no problem selling out health care or whatever interest of the poor/working class comes before her, if it helped her stay in office or in some other way. I'm sure her reputation as a ruthless negotiator is well deserved, and her corporate clients were happy with her, but is that a pattern we want her to continue in the White House? The world needs something very different, and it's up to US citizens – who are the only ones who get to vote, unfortunately – to get the most we can out of our government.

What we need, of course, is an immediate withdrawal of all US troops and reparations to Iraq and Afghanstan, unconditional release of all POWs and reparations to their families, closure and evacuation of Guantanamo Bay as well as the School of the Americas and all US military bases around the world. We need to stop backing Israel, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and other repressive states and instead start standing up for what we say we support – democracy – even if the results are not what we'd like. We need someone who will fight for single-payer healthcare, a living wage, free abortion on demand and gay marriage (if we can't get the state out of the marriage business altogether). We need the right of civilian review for every person who alleges mistreatment by any law enforcement rep. We need to put an end to corporate welfare and reverse the policy that corporations are people with Constitutional rights (it would probably take an amendment). And so many other things that we will not get. But we have an obligation, on behalf of all the less powerful people of the world, to get what we can. Our comfort levels as voters, our disgust, our desires to touch symbolic base and feel good about ourselves, are nothing beside the deep suffering that so many billions on the planet endure largely at the hands of a world order dominated by our government.

The good news is, the Dems have a decent chance of winning, and both at least promise to get out of Iraq – eventually – tho I'm sure they'll maintain that gargantuan military base there and the 'quagmire' will continue. I doubt either one would hack away at welfare much more – Bill did enuf – or follow Bush-Cheney on international agreements like the Kyoto Accords, etc. We might even get a decent land-mine treaty! But will we get another Kosovo in Sudan? Maybe Iraq has lefta bad enuf taste to prevent it, if we fight. And hopefully we can get someone decent on the Supreme Court in the next four years. (Four is about all we can hope for; we have to make hay while the sun shines, like the Republicans do and the Dems usually don't.)

At this point, I'm pretty nervous that all of this Democratic infighting, coupled with shameful media fawning over John McCain, will cost us the election outright.

There are many such changes that we need, and campaigns for any of them would be well worth our time. But elections will not get them for us – and this one may yet prove that to some of us. The work we need to be about is much less glamorous. It involves knocking on doors, talking on the phone when you'd rather be chillin, talking to people sometimes awkwardly outside activist circles, sitting in long meetings, speaking up "even when your voice shakes," tolerating quirky people with strange ideas, and sometimes a lot of study (newspapers, voting records, etc.). It involves some flexibility, too, especially when two or more good causes compete or conflict, and yet some focus to remember our basic purposes and the people who need change the most. Whatever we do, however we disagree, I hope we always keep them in mind.

~*~

And did I mention media fawning over McCain? I thought the media was supposed to be liberal? What exactly is GOING ON with the brazen McCain/media love affair?

Neal Gabler astutely takes on the subject in the New York Times. Gabler says "What is less obvious, however, is exactly why the press swoons for him." I've been confused by it for quite some time now:

Seeming to view himself and the whole political process with a mix of amusement and bemusement, Mr. McCain is an ironist wooing a group of individuals who regard ironic detachment more highly than sincerity or seriousness. He may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency — the first to turn his press relations into the basis of his candidacy.

Of course this is not how the press typically talks about Mr. McCain. The conventional analysis of his press popularity begins with his military service. If campaigns are primarily about narratives, he has a good and distinguished one, and it would take a very curmudgeonly press corps to dismiss it, even though that is exactly what a good portion of it did to Senator John Kerry’s service record in 2004. Reporters also often cite Mr. McCain’s bonhomie as the reason for their affection. As Ryan Lizza described it last month in The New Yorker, a typical campaign day has Mr. McCain rumbling from one stop to another on his bus, the Straight Talk Express, sitting in the rear on a horseshoe-shaped leather couch surrounded by reporters and talking “until the room is filled with the awkward silence of journalists with no more questions.”

The Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, citing the conviviality during the 2000 campaign, wrote that “a trip on his bus is, well, a trip.” And as the party master, Mr. McCain is no longer the reporters’ subject. He is their pal.

While other candidates have tried to schmooze reporters this way without success, what has made Mr. McCain’s fraternization so effective is that it comes with candor — or at least the illusion of it. Over the years, reporter after reporter has remarked upon his seemingly unguarded frankness. In 1999, William Greider wrote in Rolling Stone that, “While McCain continues examining his flaws, the reporters on the bus are getting a bit edgy. Will somebody tell this guy to shut up before he self-destructs?”

Imagine, reporters protecting a candidate from himself!

Indeed. I agree with Gabler that the media-crush has plenty to do with McCain's self-deprecating sense of humor, notably shared by his main cheerleader, my own Senator Lindsey Graham. Gabler continues:

This sort of disdain might be called a liberal view, if not politically then culturally. The notion that our system (in fact, life itself) is faintly imbecilic is a staple of “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report,” “Real Time With Bill Maher” and other liberal exemplars, though they, of course, implicate the press in the idiocy. Mr. McCain’s sense of irony makes him their spiritual kin — a cosmological liberal — which may be why conservatives distrust him and liberals like Jon Stewart seem to revere him. They are reacting to something deeper than politics. They are reacting to his vision of how the world operates and to his attitude about it, something it is easy to suspect he acquired while a prisoner of war.

Though Mr. McCain can be the most self-deprecating of candidates (yet another reason the news media love him), his vision of the process also betrays an obvious superiority — one the mainstream political news media, a group of liberal cosmologists, have long shared. If in the past he flattered the press by posing as its friend, he is now flattering it by posing as its conspirator, a secret sharer of its cynicism. He is the guy who “gets it.” He sees what the press sees. Michael Scherer, a blogger for Time, called him the “coolest kid in school.”

The candidates who are dead serious about politics, even wonkish, get abused by the press for it. Mr. McCain the ironist gets heaps of affection.

~*~

Feeling bloody resentful that I couldn't go to the Women, Action and Media conference this past weekend, like the 'big bloggers'--but I suppose them's the breaks. I comfort myself knowing several of the "right" people (people like us! haha!) were in attendance.

Please check out Brownfemipower's speech, given at WAM, which sums up certain concepts I have NOT seen mainstream feminism address in a good long while. Are we "citizens" first, or women first? To me, that's not a hard question, but I think it may well have shocked a few of her listeners. Go BFP! (Any other WAM commenters and contributors? Leave a link if possible.)

~*~

PS: Bob Weir is getting out the vote wherever he goes, and so should YOU!
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Listening to: Grateful Dead - Stella Blue
via FoxyTunes