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■ Soral et Dieudonné défendent la quenelle face à des déportés- Par Nicolas Guégan
■ Why do we condemn Anti-Semitism, but not Anti-Islam?- by Mohamed Elmasry
■ Anti-Semitism rising along with anti-Islam in Europe: Turkey's ambassador to France
■ In Europe, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia go hand in hand - by Paul Hockenos
■ Qui ment : Alain Soral ou Saïd Bouamama ?
■ Shoah business
■ The Holocaust Industry' - No Business Like Shoah Business
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■ Qui ment : Alain Soral ou Saïd Bouamama
■ Qui est Alain Soral ?
■ Alain Soral. "Shoah business"... Elie Wiesel est un imposteur!
■ ALAIN SORAL EST JUIF!
■ A VOIR! Dieudonné et Alain Soral: La Marche de La Quenelle
■ Alain Soral : Judaïsme, talmudisme et sionisme
■ Dr.Maurice and the Pharaoh - Qur'an & Science
… "For the propertied bourgeois woman, her house is the world. For the proletarian woman, the world is her house, the world with its sorrow and its joy, with its cold cruelty and its brutal size."- Rosa Luxemburg
Prologue: Feminism and Women's Liberation Ideals
Feminism and women's emancipation are like two sides of a coin that can not be separated. Ideals of female emancipation from oppression, slavery and a lowered position have become feminism's framework. Feminists around the world from time to time have their own definitions and images of what their ideals as women's emancipation. What kind of ideal image of women's emancipation in their minds ? Of course, very diverse, depending on their reading of the root of oppression that occur in women. Rosa Luxemburg -- one of the most influential figures in women's movement of the 20th century -- for example, imagine the emancipation of women within framework of liberation from the shackles of patriarchy and capitalism which closely related to each other. She's not alone, there's also Clara Zetkin in Germany, and many more who thinks similar to herself.
Every woman who claims herself as feminist surely has an ideal image of women's emancipation as what she wants. Along with the growing and pervasiveness of capitalism (neoliberal) in every line of life, the ideal image of women's emancipation is more and more being challenged. The challenge is more evident when the criterion of women's emancipation eventually have a tendency to "adjust" with -- In Gramscian terms -- hegemony of capitalism. One of them which is quite dominant and very reasonable is consumerism.
Borrowing a term as proposed by one of the intellectual from Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse "One-Dimensional Man", Nina Power conducted a critical and fundamental analysis on feminism and capitalism, in a book with 75 pages entitled "One Dimensional Woman". In this book, Nina Power explains what she means by "One Dimensional Woman" which departs from the premise that we can not understand contemporary feminism without regard to the changes that occur in the workplace (working conditions and relationships in it) and the fact that "feminism" as a term is also used by those who traditionally can be recognized as an enemy of feminism.
Emancipation in Consumerism
Feminism is often defined as a way to interpret the woman herself. In today's era of neoliberal capitalism, what becomes the definition determined by "market appetite". In this regard, ideals of feminists emancipation also tend to experience a shift in meaning, no longer to liberate women from the shackles of patriarchy and capitalism, but to liberate women from the burden of "can't buy this and that". This is called by Nina Power as consumerism feminism. In consumerism feminism, emancipation means the extent to which women can buy more stuff. Femme-capital, the emancipation of feminism is determined by the extent to which women can consume. This is what makes her writing on One Dimensional Woman similar to Marcuse writing about One Dimensional Man.
Women have the right to choose but many feminists often forget the fact that all the options are determined by the circumstances and historical. In advertising on television and other media, we often see the description of happy women. They are described as women who can clean up their home while caring for their children but can still maintain their appearance, either in the workplace or anywhere including while shopping. Women imaged as human who must always be perfect. Various products are created to support the image's demands and advertising as a means to market it. Women are free to choose, but the options are limited by the standards described in advertising.
In her book, Nina Power questioned the equality concept in the capitalism context. Consumerism describes the happiness of women as humans who have the right to choose -- such as championed by feminism -- also very limited and determined by the ideology of consumerism.
What makes women happy? Ask them and they'll reply, in roughly this order: sex, food, friends, family, shopping, chocolate'As a result, images of free and happy women displayed continuously through advertising becomes "general image" that is accepted as a natural thing. Advertising itself not only affects human society that gets its effects but also reflects certain aspects of the values and structure in society itself. In this case, patriarchy -- which become the dominant ideology in society -- its existence continues to be reproduced through advertising.
By utilizing patriarchal which has been strongly rooted in society, capitalism gives the illusion of female variety which means that women will not feel being the object of commodification. The illusion of being waged by using a variety of jargon such as, "It's your choice", "You are entitled to be anything", or "The important thing is to feel sexy", etc, run by capitalism, so in reality, women often do not realize that they themselves have been used as a commodity. We find the most straightforward and easy form of objectification and commodification of women in everyday life. Ironically, we also can find it easily in advertising.
In other words, feminism which dissolves in the logic of capitalism repeatedly using individual-centered argument which emphasizes the aspects of a person's individual choice by completely ignoring the structural analysis or collective and historical dimensions. This example can be very clearly seen in the entertainment industry, including pornography industry. Nina Power, in this book, defines pornography as a massive industry where along with it, also shifts the meaning of sex. Now, the porn industry has put sex as something beyond human and social relations. Associated with it, Beatrix Campbell -- who also discussed the pornography industry -- revealed that sex work would only exist in so far as there was still sexism where market ideology had become a metaphor for life. Sex work itself is a form of erotic capital which shows a close relationship between capitalism and patriarchy.
In addition to the issue of sex and industry, Nina Power also commented on how to dress in religion, which according to her was also dissolved into the market's logic. The use of the veil issue -- for example -- for Nina Power, based on the argument of "individual choice" then it is a form of capitalist hegemony's success into feminist struggle. As she said,
"On the one hand, any woman who wears the hijab must, by the logic of secular reason, be oppressed. On the other, if she makes too much of the rhetoric of choice to justify her wearing it, she misunderstands precisely what that rhetoric is for. The logic of choice, of the market, of the right to pick between competing products cannot be used to justify the decision to wear what one likes, if one chooses something that indicates a desire not to play the game."
Vulnerability in flexible labor market
Besides feminism and consumerism, changes in work and relationships are also a major concern of Nina Power in this book. According to her, there is no discussion about women and feminism today without discussion about the work. What is revealed by Nina Power is similar to what is disclosed by Kathi Weeks, that various issues relating to the work, including housework (domestic work), working hours, and so on, are closely associated with the political agenda of feminist struggle. Inclusion of women into the world labor market has brought a change in how we interpret the women's "role", women's capacity for independent living and women's participation in the economy as a whole. Of course, women are always working, raising children, caring for the house, and so on. The region history will be very different if since the beginning of domestic jobs (housework) is considered as work.
Just like the other Marxist feminist as well as Beatrix Campbell, Silvia Federici, Kathi Weeks, and Maria Mies who also criticized housework or domestic jobs -- which all this time always charged to women -- Nina Power also put his attention on it.
According to her, the tasks or work related to motherhood should be social responsibility, but the fact is women are encouraged to become mothers at the same time to return to work, without adequate access on childcare facilitated by the state.
Nina Power quoting what has been said by Marx, that only when women entered the work "outside the scope of the domestic economy", then transformations that occur in workplace in relation to gender, the composition of the family and so on, really begins. In the current conditions of neoliberal capitalism, women become primary key in the Labour Market Flexibility (LMF). Women have adapted very remarkable in the workplace. Now, women do their best in school, in a better place in the university, and go to work during, before, and after pregnancy. However, women are in a very vulnerable position in flexible labor market. Women become the key and the biggest part of precarity or vulnerability in flexible labor market.
In the context of neoliberal capitalism as it is today, the work is often considered a personal choice and its structural aspects are not seen. Although women tend to gain better access to education and better at doing the job, the feminization of labor that occurs everywhere has put women as a determinant of sustainability vulnerability (precarity) in the LMF. Precariat (precarious proletariat) which increasing everywhere putting women as the greatest compositions.
In the UK, the participation of women in the labor market has greatly increased for a long time. Women, especially young women, are key factors in employment agencies. In South Korea, 70 percent of its female workers are precariat. According to Campbell, the conditions are the worst in history. Then, from at least as many as 250,000 workers in 500 electronics companies in Vietnam, as many as 90 percent of them are women workers and 70 percent are workers who come from rural areas in Vietnam. Living condition of women workers -- in the UK, South Korea, in Vietnam, and elsewhere -- is almost the same, in which the female workers earn very low wages, poor working conditions, and live in vulnerability (in the employment relationship and do not have any social protection).
This is called by Nina Power as the feminization of labor, namely the way in which women are used as workers and only in the second position when women position as mothers or wives or other identities are not related to economic productivity. Most women work part-time and are paid very low wages when compared with men, although the workload performed by women are equal or even greater than workload performed by men. Feminization also occurs during labor search where women (including their bodies) become curriculum vitae of its own.
The analysis presented by Nina Power is almost the same as analysis proposed by Beatrix Campbell, where, according to Campbell, women have been disciplined by daily work and their lives dedicated to the happiness of others. Women's work is nothing but taking care. Unpaid work such as caring work, housework, and so on, is not part of fiscal policy, although it takes a third and a half of gross domestic product.
Epilogue: the ideology of equality in the imperialist feminism
In addition to discussing the femme-capital and feminization of labor, in this book Nina Power also discussed how the concept of feminism experiencing "adjustment" with the story of capitalism. She questioned the concept of equality that is developing now and then even out of the initial ideals of feminism as she believed, namely to liberate women from the shackles patriarchy and capitalism. As we know, there are many "feminist" women who promote and fight for equality with men but they do not advance a different agenda.
In her book, the Nina Power gives the example of Sarah Palin or Condoliza Rice who occupy important positions in politics in the United States. They both are female and occupy important positions in the political world, but their policies are oriented to the pro-war policies and anti survival of women. She pointed out how the American policy in the invasion against countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and others -- which destroyed the lives of many women -- also designed by women and those who claimed to support feminism. Nina Power termed it as imperialist feminism. Nina Power stressed the importance of critiquing women's alignments in power. Women in power are not automatically in favor of the agenda and interests of women widely, as well as with minority groups.
Nina criticism is very precise and relevant. Many women have a position and an important position in the government but they do not advance the agenda for women's interests. Why?
Maybe the answer to my question can be obtained by, one of them, using the class analysis. Nina Power' description about imperialist feminism is very important to bring the debate over the "politics of presence" which is very important in understanding the presence of women in politics can't be separated from relations / class relations surrounding them.
Thesis on imperialist feminism is also important to point out another unfinished debate within feminism, namely about social class and the women's struggle. How to advance the agenda of pro women's interests and the struggle for women's liberation movement, but at the same time also eliminate the social inequalities.
Another thesis described by Nina Power in her book is about what she describes as the problem of consumerism emancipation , it also can significantly we encounter in everyday life. That measures of emancipation is determined by the ability to consume. Critics of this is so important, because the ideology of consumerism has become a very dominant value evolving in today's society, because it perpetuates patriarchy, which becomes the main source of women's oppression.
Similarly with women's laborization which becomes the main problems in most of women's population. Problems of precarity in work and employment relations to be decisive progress of feminism in the future. As the largest part of the precariat, what needs to be considered further is how the feminist struggle in the future to deal with all the vulnerability and lack of assurance of life experienced by most of women's population in the world.
In my opinion, the problems and theses revealed by Nina Power in this book is so precise and important. Overall, this book is essential reading for anyone, especially those who are interested in the development of contemporary feminism.
***
When someone looks so sexy on his way staring at you, ... when someone smiles at you with a flirtatious but polite gaze, ... and makes a woman want a man like a man wants a woman, ... mmm... aaw, ... what the hell I want to talk about?
He's holding her book, .... arghhh ... aaaaaarrghh ..... Does her book describe how to heat up the cold thing turns into heat, such as how to boil everything becomes very hot, ... mmmm ... maybe just like a dirty duck stunned when looked at a butterfly on a flower ... ah, wrong! There is an error in illustrating and staining the word, ... ah, there is a fool watching TV, ... ehehehhee.... stove, heart, flower, frog, duck, butterfly, cold, heat, book, ... ye all, all of you, ... all are wrong! Everything!
What the heck, Cisca! You do not write at all about your stove, or your hearts, previously, .. ahahha .. you make some new mistakes. When a male writer was reading a book of a woman writer, it does not mean he was holding her hand or her body. Do you understand, stupid?
Ah, it looks like you are not a true feminist. But anyway, even though you're not a feminist, you're still a woman, right?
BOXER TODAY
Boxing. Well, they say boxing is also good for women and health in general, but ... to be honest, I've never tried it before. To maintain my physical fitness, I only do low impact exercise such as athletics and swimming. But as you know, if you're a woman, and secretly you like a man, then it means you're trying to like what he likes. If you can't like everything he likes, that's okay, at least you've tried. So, um, well, ... I'm going to start boxing with punching my partner without much ado, ... eehehee ... I can imagine his reaction.
"Whoa, honey, ... you punch me?"
O yes! I've been waiting for this surprise: punching you in the face, dahling ... ahahahaa ...
My weight: 48 kilograms, my height: 173 cm,.. well, what do you think? Cool, is not it? I'm going to punch my partner confidently, olalalala ... Get ready, dahling!
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