slavoj zižek

gendering women

It is critical for women to learn skills in order to gain independence. Women in our society, however, are often restricted to assuming the role of the “traditional” woman, whether it’s through social pressure or the fact that it is one of the only legitimate roles for women in our society. I think women do the best they can with what they’ve been given. Everyone is trying their best to survive and to be happy, and assuming the role of a traditional housewife or mother is one way. And I believe it to be worthy and commendable. I think people do the best they can with the gender roles they’ve been assigned. Some resist it, some accept it, and I think it’s okay either way. However, I think it’s important for us to learn that our roles as women and men are assigned. They are socially constructed. Women weren’t born wearing heals and makeup. Men weren’t born knowing how to play football. Women weren't born to be submissive and men dominant. We learn to be gendered.

queer autonomy

I think the queer movement has helped in legitimizing breaking down the gender barriers. It has become more acceptable to be something other. Yet, I know this isn't the answer, only a way of tinkering with the system (although that tinkering is critical to saving lives).

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.

american women's oppression

Women's oppression in the United States is no less oppressive than other parts of the world. Dowry murder in India and female infanticide in China is no more or less oppressive than the epidemic rates of rape, abuse, forced prostitution, murder, and sexual objectification of women in America. When we see that women's oppression is linked to the oppression of all women of the world, we can see that we have far more in common with the rest of the world's women than we are led to believe.

separatism

Separatism is a legitimate political choice. It can be an act which refuses participation in oppressive structures. Men refusing to go to war in Vietnam is one example of political separatism. A woman leaving her abusive husband is another political survival strategy. To withdraw from a system or a particular situation is to refuse to act according to its rules. It is a political act since a system can't function without participants.

Participation in oppressive structures is a choice. We are told we are pure victims, agentless with little choice to change. It's not entirely true. We can change. We can leave, pack our bags and create new systems based in true equality. Change does not have to be a slow process. Revolution can happen overnight if we so desired.

We are agents of our actions but we are not the creators of the circumstances we face under oppression.

melissa ferrick. i don't want you to change.

collective guilt

Collective guilt isn’t a fruitful means of change.  It may alleviate our pain as victims and oppressors; it may help us cope, but it leads us into a hole of destitution and shame.... To charge someone guilty in a court of law is to strip one of their resources, strip them of their livelihood.  Collective guilt creates a space of violence, of hatred, of oppression and invisibility. Oppression does not defeat oppression.  However, we will never get anywhere if we don't enact collective responsibility to those who batter us...

We must also end this cruelty towards those who are perceived as other (as woman); stop blaming them and recognize that there is another way instead of pain and shame. 

If Steubenville has taught us anything, it is that we treat responsibility as if it were absolute criminality… as the devil itself.  No one wishes to discuss it except when it is the "victim" being blamed; no one wishes to touch it; no one wishes to think of the "perpetrator" as anything but noble…

criminality is tainted, dirty; it’s the black man himself.  And to treat a white man as a black man (that is throwing him in prison – in the gates of hell and oppression) is a sin.  It is a sin to treat white males as if they were criminals… like a woman, like a black, like a queer or whore.