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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>Comment #1: Is it that women cannot win
this struggle, is it too hard for them to keep fighting it when, for example, no one will
ever see them as competent as their male peers in the workplace? Is it time to
stop waiting for ‘someone’ to set this right? Or should women act themselves? The
latter is the advice I would give my daughter. Don't wait to be chosen.
The men will always win that way. Choose yourself. Create value
separate from your persona as a woman and put it out on the workplace.
Let that value speak for itself. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">Comment #2: Hi Lori,
Thanks for the feedback. I read some aggressiveness between the lines; that is
good for beliefs strongly held.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">Not trying to excuse
myself for sins committed in the piece, let me tell you that my Readers are
partial windows at any given time. I collect info on the topics I follow and
then each Reader is sort of an update or a new insight. Never a full rounded
coverage of the respective topic. I wrote the chapter of a book on women and HR
rights where things are more rounded.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">Let me go through
your comments:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Times">Thanks Claudio for the latest
installation of thoughts. I read your collections of thoughts and
your diatribes <span style="color:blue">is this meant pejorative? </span>quite
regularly -- But I felt I needed to write back as this analysis, and your
suggestions of 'who needs to do what' to address gender equality is off kilter.
<b>We do not need a feminine thought. We need feminist thought and
analysis. <span style="color:blue">Touche’. Got'ya.</span></b></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times">You have suggested that: "<i>women-must-propose"
and that "</i>women have to fight for their right to more and better
standards of living"…etc, etc. Subtly and not so subtly you have
stated that not only does the problem unjustly affect
women, but that THEY are the ones that need to address it. <span style="color:blue">not only though. I think I say that.</span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times">Women have enough to do already, thank
you very much. I <span style="color:blue">am more than aware, but maybe
room needs to be made to fight this fight.</span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times">Instead here are some more radical
thoughts: How about MEN relinquishing their patriarchal power by stepping down,
making room, getting out of the way; how about MEN staying home with the kids
so women can go to meetings and rallies, how about MEN losing sleep thinking
about what to cook on a limited budget, and where the hell the food and
the firewood is going to come from for tomorrow; how about women
taking Sunday off (maybe to visit their buddies or watch some sports
or just sleep in the hammock) instead of catching up on all they couldn't
get done vis-a-vis the laundry and the food and the kids and the community
meetings… How about MEN staying silent and REALLY listening to women
at home and in workplaces; how about MEN taking the responsibility for changing
their own patriarchal norms of thought and behaviour; how about MEN working to
re-think labor analysis to include reproductive labor
- I.E.— unpaid how about MEN reading feminist authors and
analysts, getting caught up on the history of women who have carried their and
their communities' weight in every single social struggle
in the world – but who are invisible in the
historical records of those struggles…. How about MEN sharing the damned
domestic load for change? <span style="color:blue">I am all for all these
How Abouts! Shouldn't women be involved in asking these how abouts? Yes, men
too, but not only.</span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times">Patriarchy is a system of thinking that
has been a necessary tool to allow both colonialism and capitalism (and now
globalization) to function. <span style="color:blue">could not agree
more. </span>It also has held back every (attempted and actual)
socialist revolution from truly creating equity for all. Your
diatribe <span style="color:blue">(pejorative again?) </span>doesn't even
mention feminism, hardly touches on the intersections of the MANY oppressions
that implicate all people, and forgets all the gender assignments beyond men
and women. (there are also trans gendered people, for eg). <span style="color:blue">explained such omissions above...</span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times">To me the analysis is a good
start, <span style="color:blue">merci. </span>but also illustrates why there is
such a long way to go before any kind of equity is even envisaged. <span style="color:blue">never thought otherwise.</span> Our socialist and
left-leaning political economists forget about kitchen politics. <span style="color:blue">share your disappointment.</span> 66% of the world's
Unpaid work is done by women — where is that in your analysis?
And have you any idea what that means in terms of health? <span style="color:blue">explained such omissions above...</span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times">Disappointingly, the analysis offered
shows me yet again why our traditional political-economic analyses of health
fall short. In general, our leftist leaders don’t think through this
stuff — by and large they don't have to, maybe because there is nothing as
blinding as male privilege itself. <span style="color:blue">Strong, and totally
true. </span> While they are writing their socialist critique and standing
on the podiums of power, whether with a megaphone or in a suit, in the
boardroom or the bar, their women partners are raising their kids, doing the
housework, and keeping communities alive. THAT is the crux of where
change is needed if people really want to act toward gender equity and HR or
'health for all'. <span style="color:blue">agree.</span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times">Here is a suggestion: try on some
feminist economists for size — see what they add to the picture. Listen to
the Queer theorists. Question how colonialism, capitalism, globalization -
and also the socialist experiments - have all benefitted from patriarchy
together with class privilege and the racializing of peoples around the world.
Maybe throw in some historical examples of how rape has been a
fundamental tool for the 'mixing' of races and for ethnic cleansing …. <span style="color:blue">I have done quite a bit of this elsewhere.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times;color:blue"><span style> </span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times">As you said "Women are fighting
back." this is my current contribution to that fight. <span style="color:blue"> taken for every ounce of its weight.</span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times"> </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times;color:blue"> </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times;color:blue"> Claudio
</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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