tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post114054810198140414..comments2023-12-17T19:35:07.459-08:00Comments on Bouphonia: Sentiment and BrutalityPhilahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-1140636133258208722006-02-22T11:22:00.000-08:002006-02-22T11:22:00.000-08:00Speechless, I agree. But what bothers me about thi...Speechless, I agree. But what bothers me about this article is that it views these extremely personal issues through the prism of economics and bad gender politics. In this case, at least, the "lunacy" from which women - and only women - are to be redeemed by service is their own internalization of the consumerist values that the NYT itself blesses daily. <BR/><BR/>It's a seeming critique of materialism, but it doesn't actually engage with the system itself; other forms of self-sacrifice than acceptance of an expected societal role - political activism, for instance - aren't even on the radar screen. Which is why I see this article as similar to those forms of Victorian pathos that paid lip-service to sentiment while blessing things as they were...blessing both female self-sacrifice, and the system that inordinately demands it, simultaneously.<BR/><BR/>Self-sacrifice is most valuable emotionally when it's a real choice, rather than the demand of gender roles within a particular economic system. It may be, as you say, that women are more emotionally savvy than men; how that quality gets exploited is another question entirely. To me, the tension between sentimentality and brutality lies exactly there.Philahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-1140567743971836562006-02-21T16:22:00.000-08:002006-02-21T16:22:00.000-08:00I've always been totally confused by the right-win...I've always been totally confused by the right-wing viewpoint that exalts individualism, capitalism, free-market success, and self-reliance, and then dumps on career women. The only way to reconcile these two is to understand that, for the right wing, women aren't among those considered economic agents. Instead, women are support staff to the "real workers"; in other words, men. Unpaid caregiving yes, economic independence, no. <BR/><BR/>But then, the women get blamed when that role backfires on them. Remember Clarence Thomas sneering at his sister for being on welfare? She had quit her job to care for the woman who raised them. See where caregiving gets you?<BR/><BR/>I can't tell you how much I hate these people.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com