beth > Recent Status Updates

The third chapter of this really is chef's kiss, it all comes together so beautifully, like poetry... I particularly like Fourier's crisis of plethora.

Already there is a preoccupation with lawfulness, or maybe it’s better to say order, and what it is that motivates people to adhere to the norms of their society versus what motivates them to transgress them. I haven’t read much about the book before diving in, I actually bought it ages ago, but it must be something like this

'He proves ... that civilization moves “in a vicious circle”, in contradictions which it constantly reproduces without being able to solve them; hence it constantly arrives at the very opposite to that which it wants to attain, or pretends to want to attain, so that, e.g., “under civilization poverty is born of superabundance itself”.' (Fourier)

'To the crude conditions of capitalistic production and the crude class conditions correspond crude theories.'

Re-reading with notes.

Re-reading this, but making notes this time.

‘They had to work and they wanted to work; yet no one else wanted them to, neither the employers they had to deal with nor the male workers they had to work beside nor the men whose beds they shared. If they kept working, they were humiliated at the office, assailed in the shower stalls, and beaten at home; if they tried to obey the social signals and go home, they would starve.’

Reading and working on the essay, "The Marxist Doctrine".

All psychology and psychiatry students should have to read chapter twelve of this book about how their profession was used against women in the ‘80s…

Hoping to finish this in the next few days.

Discusses how many female New Right activists were not models of feminine passivity themselves. I’ve often thought their reliance on feminists and increased opportunities for women was a revealing paradox.

Really interesting part about how the New Right saw the importance in trying to control language as a means of managing debate/succeeding over their enemies (feminists). Trying to control the accepted definition of words such as ‘equality’ and ‘opportunity’ were important to them.

Really good parts in here on the cosmetics industry, but especially about how a focus on quasi-medicinal skincare products were just as corrosive to women’s self-image.

I suppose the Fatal Attraction phenomenon was the Gone Girl of its time, in that a fictional story was used to try and smear 'real' (made-up) women in the press.

'But this homage to feminine passivity was cleverly packaged in activist language, a strategy that simultaneously acknowledged women's desire for autonomy and co-opted it. The New Traditionalist, the ads said, was an independent thinker who "made her own choices" and "started a revolution."' You still see this a lot today -- it reminds me of shaving ads.

Crazy how often the press spread lies about women's supposed behaviour that then actually led to the behaviour happening... eg concocting that 'women who chose business careers found they weren't able to prioritise family' (imagined women) and then the number of women applying to business schools the next year would suddenly lessen after a decade of growth... awful.

'To make a fuss about sexual injustice is more than unfeminine; it is now uncool. Feminist anger, or any form of social outrage, is dismissed breezily—not because it lacks substance but because it lacks "style."'

'Household income would have shrunk three times as much in the decade if women hadn't worked in mass numbers. And this fact dealt the final blow to masculine pride and identity: not only could the middle-class man no longer provide for his family, the person who bailed him out was the wife he believed he was meant to support.'

'In reality, the past decade's economic pains most often took a disproportionate toll on women, not men.' Most women entered worse-paying jobs in positions with few male competitors.

'The economic victims of the era are men who know someone has made off with their future—and they suspect the thief is a woman.'

Important to note: that population of men were not the ones driving the backlash though. Those men were far more affluent. The poorer men were its audience, ready to internalise the backlash's messages.