Further materials towards a theory of the man child

[curryeater]

thenewinquiry.com/essays/further-materials-toward-a-theory-of-the-man-child/

Just wanted to put this here, nice piece

curryeater really interesting, much that I agree with and I have just discovered semiotexte which is really going to be useful for me

"Tiqqun knows and says what the Lifestyle section does or cannot: Today the economy is feminizing everyone............Tiqqun writes, ?one can only expect the cunning promotion of all manner of servitudes.? At times, Tiqqun speaks of this exploitation sympathetically. More often, however, they blame the Young-Girl for opening the floodgates by complying with her own exploitation, thus making it easier for control capitalism to make her attitude compulsory for everyone"

I take issue with this, the civil rights movement, the gains made by feminists during that time, all co-opted into and taken up by capitalism, women's sexual liberation exploited and subsumed into capital in order to make a fast buck, in cosmetic surgery, trafficking, lapdance clubs and pornography. Everything subsumed and repackaged and sold back to us. It seems that "Tiqqun" uses the analogy of the young girl for everything that is not progressive or radical, for what is weak and needy, desiring and naive. It plays right into that idea that women are nature, men are civilised.

Capitalism is making men superfluous to its needs but for one area, the commodity "woman" must have a market and men are the consumers. To what extent neo-liberalism can support non-productive consumers is questionable. The culture machine that generates and encourages sexism and violence towards women, makes men something analogous to the Jews that dug graves, extracted teeth and ran errands for the Nazis. It makes me think of working class people who twatter on about how wonderful Thatcher was. Of course the sexism and violence seems to contradict the fact that women now work, earn and spend but I would argue that what others call backlash is actually just inevitable. It is stoked in order to exploit, because that is what waged labour is.

If men are happy to stand by whilst women do all the unpaid labour and most of this "feminised labour" (is that a cover for work men don't want to do???) whilst they indebt themselves and literally consume women, will they not end up bankrupt, could it be that men are weak, needy and naive too?

gosh mini lots to think about there. Have just skim read but can't focus right now, will be back this evening.

Also liked this

text-relations.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-young-girl-and-selfie.html

In particular, Mini, not sure what you mean by this:

"Of course the sexism and violence seems to contradict the fact that women now work, earn and spend but I would argue that what others call backlash is actually just inevitable. It is stoked in order to exploit, because that is what waged labour is."

Do you mean:

violence against women is an implicit corollary to women's apparent economic independence - a sort of revenge against them for this; and this violence is stoked (by whom?) to exploit (whom?) and then - whose waged labour are you talking about at the end?

sorry to be thick

Shall have a read later of the second link, thank you.

I don't think that what others refer to as a backlash is exactly that, I don't think its revenge. I think its inherent and inevitable because of the way in which the productive forces shape social relations.

The way we perceive the characteristics of something is by acknowledging how it is in relation to something else. Does anything actually have innate characteristics? Are women caring, nurturing, pleasing and smiling? is that innate? or is that it seems so because we are conditioned to judge these characteristics against what we think of as masculine traits. I think that everything has its opposite or antagonist, so one thing changes they characteristics of another.

It would seem to be strange that whilst women are increasingly economically independent, we are at the same time being subjugated. On the surface of things it would seem that doing a job and being paid is a recognition of our work, except for one thing, it is an exploitation. Employers don't add value they appropriate it by paying people less than the value emodied in their work/product. The part that men play seems to be in mediating between capitalist exploitation and women. So women are coerced to want money, clothing, commodities, lip sticks etc, and men are there to ensure this process continues. So women make commodities but increasingly we are commodities into which we pour investment, through education, clothing, networking, paying dating agencies, selling sex and cultivating those traits that capitalism seeks to exploit. We talk about emotional capital, personal capital and think in terms of working upon ourselves so that we are employable, desirable, useful and socially valued. We are deceived into thinking that working harder, earning more (although not more) and buying things is an investment into our happiness. Of course happiness is impossible if you are the lowly tea maker not because tea making is inherently miserable but because its social value is its economic value and everything judged on those values are never equal. So women are exploited, sold, commodified and indebted, that doesn't sound like liberation to me!

Quite why men on the left think that women should get back to the kitchen is beyond me but when women define themselves only through paid work, I despair.

*the characteristics (should proof read)

I do not understand what this article is trying to say. I don't understand the book it is critiquing either.

well that's flippin odd, earlier I had a look at the semiotexte website and it was fine, now it says its been hacked by Hacked by CWSektor when you try to get to the site. Its Turkish.

Theory of the young girl www.amazon.co.uk/Preliminary-Materials-Young-Girl-Semiotext-Intervention/dp/158435108X

and a PDF of it here zinelibrary.info/files/jeunefille.pdf

This is interesting too www.radicalphilosophy.com/web/rp177-shes-just-not-that-into-you another critique of it.

What I am finding so interesting about this is the fact that it seems to make sense of how every aspect of our lives is being marketised, how people are not just driven to buy but are being made commodities.

Mini, sorry to be off topic for a sec, but do you by any chance know anything about what is going on in the swp right now?

No I don't, I'm not a member curreyeater why?

Women are starting to feel what it is like to be a man.
With the exception of the top (richest) 20%, the majority of men are nothing but a commodity that can be easily replaced.
You are supposed to just get on with it.

Majority of people that get exploited are men and they are supposed to get on with it.

You fail at something and you will be discarded like a piece of shit stuck on a shoe.
No wonder men die sooner.

I'm going to print the PDF off and read in bed, I struggle to read from a screen when it's longer than a few paragraphs.

well arsenaltilidie are you saying that men are superfluous to capital? superfluous people are other to those that are exploited. Capital can't tell what sex you are, its only interested in what you produce and consume. Unfortunately for women new technologies have meant an opening up of opportunities to earn because earning a wage is exploitation, consuming creates extortion because capital is still accumulated to fewer and fewer people, what ever sex they are.

This is why its so important to build progressive movements with men........so it might help if for once they wind their necks in and stop bleating but what do they do instead, they set up MRA groups and try to silence women. oooooh they say "it must be my wife that oppresses me with all that spending power she has" now if that were true, we'd see thousands of men being trafficked into the sex trade, their bodies made cartoon like, their appearance scrutinised and their liberty curtailed by violence.

'This is why its so important to build progressive movements with men'

I am looking forward to seeing the responses to that comment

Disagreement. Lots of.

What do you need men for? Thought that was what MN feminism was about.

Mini, I was just asking because you seem to be a feminist leftist - thought you might have a take on it - as I understand it (not at all in fact) there is a split occurring in the SWP over their inability or unwillingness to put their money where their mouths are with respect to women's rights. I think there was an accusation of sexual assault that was badly mishandled and the more feminist-aware within the party are taking issue with this and their general feebleness in that area.

That Nina Power piece is interesting - have you read her book? - she is interesting on the woman as self marketed commodity

I agree Buffy, what is needed is for at least some men to contribute, if many more do then those that don't support the liberation of women will be out on their own.

Curry, yes I have read a bit about this a few months back. It seems that the SWP is rather undemocratic, they have a central committee and it is all very much "our way or the highway" Selma James spoke about it, she seemed to think that left wing groups should develop internal systems for dealing with sexism and even serious complaints right up to and incl rape. I was quite shocked.

I'm still ploughing through the raw materials. "let's be clear the concept of the young girl is not a gendered concept. The nightclub-going jock conforms to it just as much as the second generation North African girl" I guess the author is making the case that the piece is not gendered or race specific. The figure of the young girl seems to be all people but especially women who have been exploited, not just at the level of their labour and conscious actions but at a more profound level. So far its quite interesting. ,thank you Currey

The reason I thought it would be a controversial statement is because men are the oppressors. How can feminists align themselves with those who they percieve are keeping them down?

I can come in here and say ' yes, I believe in equal rights, equal opportunities, equal status in society for men and women' until I am blue in the face. There are many feminists who will not accept that, because I am a man. Someone on here has mentioned the 'Not my Nigel' mindset that some feminists accuse other feminists of having. That is where I see the issue.

HTH.

How interesting, namechangeguy. Really interesting. I see you are talking about something completely different from that which this thread about, and I am going to nod and look interested in it for 5.7 seconds so that I can then bluntly change the subject like a needle scratching a record and bore on about ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME YES YOU ARE FASCINATED AREN'T YOU YES ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME

I don't see all men as oppressing all women. And I'm not keen on using the line "check your privilege" in every paragraph, I must be a very bad feminist. I'm also irritated by the use of term "the patriarchy" when we can't name the reason. It seems lazy because patriarchy is a theory which isn't grounded and it is aHistorical. It isn't useful to say that all men are privileged and all women subjugated because of patriarchy. It makes it sound like a secret organisation. But then we might all be feminists but we are not one homogeneous lump, which is why its great to talk.

Mini, I could not agree more. But I think those views that you mention are at odds with much that is written on these pages (FWR). How do you (i.e. we) bridge that gap? If you remove the concept of a patriarchy from feminism, what is feminism left with?