Its all one big conspiracy

[yazz21]

Its only after all the transgender threads on here recently, that I've thought about feminism, and started looking into things. The more I read, the more I learn, the more shocked I am.

Its just like one massive conspiracy that I never saw. Now my eyes have been opened to it, I can't stop seeing it. (Not that I'd want to.) I see everything around me so differently. Just little things that all add up to keeping women subordinate.I never realised how much my behaviour, thoughts and actions is not innate, but things I've learned through socialisation.

I really wish I'd seen it all earlier, but for some reason I had this notion that feminism was just men hating women who were probably hairy and/or lesbians I wonder who benefitted from me thinking that.

I'm not sure what my point is really, but I feel really angry on behalf of women and really want to do something about it. However there are no feminist groups/meetings in my area, and I'm not well read enough to start one. Any other angry womenn here? Also if anyone could reccomend some books, so I can further my understanding. I would be really grateful.

I don't think there's neccessarily anything wrong with doing things to "fit in", whether it is shaving or wearing make-up or changing your name. What is important is that people acknowledge that socialisation exists, and while people may think they are freely choosing to do something, everyone is a product of their upbringing, community and society. Including the people who consider themselves enlightened individuals who go against the grain. I do shave various bits of my body and I changed my name. These are not completely free choices but it makes me feel happier to do so, just as your choice to do otherwise may bring you contentment.

Also I disagree with the word "conspiracy". It kind of suggests all men have sat down together to work out how they can keep women down. While there was and is a certain organisation about some aspects of discrimination, certainly at a legislative level among other examples, a lot of it is in everyday attitudes and socialisation which is harder but not impossible to change.

No-one thinks there's a Patriarchy Committee that meets to devise secret plots against women! Feminism would be a damn sight easier if there were - we could just assassinate them

But I think your posts about the fashion/beauty products industry show how deliberate it is in some arenas.

Taking another example, the government knows that the cuts they are making disproportionally affect women. They just don't care.

Industries know that the workplace are set up for men as the default (or for people with minimal childcare responsibilities). They just don't care.

The government, police, CPS etc know violence is gendered. They just don't care.

NI know they are discriminating against women with their abortion laws. They just don't care.

That is what we mean when we talk about a 'conspiracy'.

Buffy, I love it when you do stuff like that! I'm getting a free education

I'm always happy to get a free education off you Buffy, if you're offering! Don't think that's wanky in the slightest.

Scallops, they're using (and ignorantly reinforcing) gender to sell products thereby creating the multi-billion consumerist economy. It's not deliberately aimed at women, once againas you so eloquently put it, they just don't care that it is women who predominantly take the fall.

It does become so hard sometimes not to believe in a conspiracy. I sometimes think of it as not one but a million - or at least a hundred, since there are so few big corporations in control - conspiracies, in a loose shifting alliance, and it's primarily one aimed at making more wealth for the rich.

Oh I think in some instances nefarious planning does go on! How many posts do we get on MN about how companies don't want to employ women of child bearing age?

Mentioning again Susan Faludi's Backlash there is plenty of evidence of the fashion industry deliberating marketing and producing different (and in many cases, inappropriate or more sexualised) clothing despite the fact that smart black suits were the biggest selling commodity in the 80's for working women in the US. They did it for years, despite them not selling, until women practically had no choice. It's really hard to not think that is a conspiracy. Women you can go to work but only if you look sufficiently sexually appealing for men.

not one but a million - or at least a hundred, since there are so few big corporations in control - conspiracies, in a loose shifting alliance, and it's primarily one aimed at making more wealth for the rich.

Yes, that's my mental picture :) Their tasks are to leverage whatever they can for profit: to buy, create and exploit markets, and to protect their revenues. They're not in the business of social change but are sensitive to it, as long as they're in competition. If they lose a handle on what their markets will stand for, and what they want, a more alert competitor can overtake them. This why ground-level change can work ... as long as governments don't stifle that change (it can still work, but then a lot of people have to die.)

Money has no morals, good or bad.

GirlFromIpanema how long is "a while"? I became a feminist when I was 4 years old and required to share my beach bucket with the boys.

I'm about to be 51. And I'm still angry.

Ah, cross-posted with you, Buffy. Thanks for the new words

I think - from observation, not theory - that functionalism works through a series of conflicts. Changes usually (not always) happen with a pendulum effect: the protesting faction sets up a huge stink and wins, to the detriment of the static faction. Then this gets noticed, there may be a couple more swings each way, and functional compromise is reached. A handful of the original combatants are metaphorically burnt at the stake; sacrifices to the new détente.

Salvage, that adult did you an unwitting favour

In that case, my perception is that conflict theory better describes what really happens in societies.

It's not directly relevant to the oligarchy of commercial controllers/conspirators, because they will simply exploit whatever happens.

... although they'll often fight hard to maintain the status quo, changes to business models being expensive.

So, with regard to these 'loose' conspiracies, they are creating doubt or desire in women's mind in order to sell them stuff. In which case, do corporations have a vested interest in women gaining greater financial power? As does this put them in conflict with other areas of a patriarchal society that seeks to keep women down? Or is it possible to have both simultaneously?

If I want to sell more perfume or deodorant to women, I don't benefit from there being a gender pay gap.

"I tend towards thinking that conflict theory is a good way to imagine how things work, though I do notice that our culture is generally quite functionalist in a lot of the assumptions that seem to be made (which I think benefits people with power, and helps them keep their grubby mitts upon it)." That's a fascinating observation, Buffy, and it's got me thinking.

Yonks ago, I read an article by Michael Mulkay critiquing Robert Merton's sociology of science. Mulkay's thesis was this: Merton thinks he's describing what science does (Merton, incidentally was a functionalist). He offers up four "norms" governing scientific behaviour (communalism, disinterestedness, universalism, organised scepticism). These supposedly describe how scientists behave. But, Mulkay claims, when you look closely, there's a rather convenient overlap between these supposedly purely descriptive categories (descriptive of scientists' working practices) and the values a liberal capitalist democracy espouses as "a good thing". So in fact, they're not description at all, they're a statement of ideology, which rather conveniently lines up with the ideology of the people who hold the political and financial power and can give you/withhold from you your grant funding. (And furthermore when you look at how science does work - people become over-invested in their own research thesis, the peer-review process favours people from known institutions, etc. etc. - it really doesn't seem that Merton's norms are descriptive at all).

Your post made me think of this... it looks to me quite close to the plausible position that conflict theory is a better description of how society actually functions, but that functionalism is a good story to persuade the masses to accept, because it keeps them quiet, keeps them believing their turn will come. Conflict theory is descriptive, functionalism is an ideological sleight of hand placed on top of it to make the world seem a nicer, fairer place.

I have a general rule that if there are 2 competing explanations for a given phenomena, especially social, it will actually be the result of both and probably a couple of other elements as well.

Functionalism sounds like it allows for gradual evolution of ideas and culture, which does happen. Equally conflicts can drive events. There's room for both. If I'm understanding it correctly.

For functionalism, the gradual shift back into a nasty society with increased derogation (is that a word?) of the poor, disabled, probably those of different background, increased xenophobia, driven by media and politicians among ohter things. Conflict-driven change is just more obvious.

Trying to think of examples