I think it is more a question of class society. No one can achieve full human status in a society that not only distributes its resources unequally, but what also has criminalized self-knowledge of what true independence looks like. Capitalism has destroyed our autonomy, destroying our ability to take care of ourselves. People need access to very basic things: food, water, shelter, support from others. In our society, corporate America has taken away our knowledge to care for ourselves and has substituted factory commodities and corporate work in order to make profit.
If women are ever to be free, we must see that our freedom is linked to others’ ability to be fully autonomous. Right now, we rely on a broken system that makes us dependent on the system (i.e. toxic industrial food, health care based in treating symptoms not causes, debt, gas to run our cars to get to our jobs, commodified housing). And because women are a stigmatized social group within this system, we are seen as incapable of taking care of ourselves unless we are linked to a man in some way (husband, boyfriend, father, boss, etc.)
As a first step towards autonomy, I think we, as women, need to unite as women, as a gender class. We also need to unite with anyone else who shares our goals. For so long, we’ve had to rely on men for our wellbeing, for our survival. To turn to other women for support is critical to seeing that we share political goals. This is not enough, however, since we ultimately need to unite with all effected by capitalism (which is everyone). I think we need to develop ways to be independent of capitalism, whatever that may be. We need to re-build our self-knowledge, creating true independence. We need to know how to grow our own food again. We need to re-learn basic medical knowledge of our bodies. We need to learn how to protect ourselves; we need to begin to refuse to rely on a system that pretends to help us but really breaks us down.
No comments:
Post a Comment