<
https://jacobin.com/2019/09/capitalism-socialist-feminism-inequality-sexism>
"The question of whether capitalism is good for women is one that both
feminists and nonfeminists have debated for a long time. But each upsurge of
interest in the question is embedded in a particular context. So, what are the
conditions of the present moment that encourage an exercise like this?
For one thing, capitalism is in crisis. Not necessarily an economic crisis in
the sense of a full-blown recession. But we have seen more than a decade of
stimulus that includes a multitrillion-dollar bailout by central banks, years
of quantitative easing, and a new normal of government-engineered low interest
rates to keep investors from collectively hurtling themselves off a cliff.
Despite these inducements, wages and economic growth remain stagnant. Companies
seem more interested in rolling the dice on the stock market than
brick-and-mortar investment. Meanwhile, neoliberal capitalism — the norms,
ideas, and policies that undergird the status quo of the past four decades — is
experiencing a deep crisis of legitimacy. There is a widespread loss of trust
in government, a waning faith in capitalism, and a resurgence of populism on
both the Left and the Right.
A second point of reference is the resurgence of feminism in the past decade,
both in the United States and globally. This resurgence has taken a variety of
forms and has encompassed a range of perspectives on how best to pursue a
feminist program, but it is a persistent feature of public discourse, most
recently with the #MeToo movement.
The defeat of Hillary Clinton, against the backdrop of neoliberal capitalism’s
crisis of legitimacy, has thrown the dominant model of neoliberal feminism —
the idea that feminist goals are best achieved by each woman striving to reach
a position of power and success within capitalism — into question. Increasingly
women, particularly younger women, are calling for a different kind of feminism
that often has anticapitalist undertones or overtones. Polls find that roughly
half of young adults prefer socialism over capitalism, and according to Pew, 53
percent of Bernie Sanders supporters are women.
It is in this context of crisis, which we can view as a moment of change rather
than a breakdown per se, that we look forward and ask how feminists should be
orienting their positions and their struggles.
I say look forward deliberately. Now is the time to both assess hard-won
victories and strategize about how to make it possible for all women to
actually enjoy them, and to push forward with new, concrete demands that
fulfill the broad aims of feminism."
Via Diane A.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
