>Kelley wrote:
> >
> >
> > Her answer to the problem isn't to have everyone stop using
> domestics,
> > remember. She is speaking _only_ to feminists who hire domestics.
>
>I have nothing to say on this part of the argument _as far as
>Ehrenreich
>is concerned_, because I haven't read her book. _On this list_,
>however, it isn't really Ehrenreich's position that is at issue but
>the
>position taken by various people supporting what is (wrongly or
>rightly)
>alleged to be her position. Also (and again it is the position of
>participants in this thread, not Ehrenrich's position, that is in
>question), I'm wondering if the somewhat pickwickian category of
>"feminists who hire domestics" constitutes a very useful topic of
>discussion. I simply don't know who they are and what their individual
>positions are. Or to put it otherwise, I would intgerpret "feminists
>who
>hire domestics" in nominalist terms: it doesn't name anything real
>("real" as used by either Aristotelians or Marxists).
the problem is that if i correct the bad interpretations of ehrenreich, i'm presumed to be supporting her. i also have a problem with people who spout nonsense about a book they haven't read. i really never understand your criticism, carrol, but i'm wiling to try and understand it.
at any rate, feminists who hire domestics are a small group, but it's a jumping off point for a wider discussion of bias among the leading voices of feminist thought. i think that ehrenreich went astray here, wanting to say something about this "loss" for feminism in the wrong venue. that is, the book is written to a wider, more popular reading audience. her articles, mostly from chapters in the book, are geared to a more specific audience: feminists. and while feminists who hire domestics might be a small group, they are the people who largely shape the voices of feminism since they are also the most privileged, most well-paid, etc.
make sense? from there, ehrenreich isn't surprised that the study of housework and the common bond of housework as a point of solidarity among women has declined in the past twenty years.
>Within the kind of movement you discussed in your exchange with Justin
>these kind of concerns become live concerns. Within the present
>context
>they only contribute to endless arguments about "lifestyle
>radicalism."
>Even if one agrees with either Ehrenreich or her
>(friendly)interpreters
>on this list, it is an agreement that goes nowhere, since action on it
>(at the present time) can only occur in the isolation of the
>individual
>household.
yes and we do have to start somewhere. because it also occurs in spaces like this list where we discuss things that, had we not had the opp to hear about another perspective, we might have continued on our merry way. hasn't it ever happened to you that you read someone on a topic and you realized, "holy shit, i _never_ realized that before." I remember realizing that when a prof and were talking about harassment and she explained how her experience as a lesbian was slightly different. now i'm careful to think about that and take that into consideration when analyzing/talking about/writing about harassment.
that what, among other things, watching each other's backs means to me. in part, it requires that we point out ways in which we have generalized our _particular_ experience of the world and pretended as if it's THE way the world works.
feminist consciousness raising was an attempt to give value to women's voices/experiences/analyses of the world. the notion was that women could see things about the way oppression works that the oppressors cannot see. Goal: to bring that perspective to bear in our critiques of contemporary society.
so, for instance, when i once talked about how hard it was to juggle everything in a casual conversation with a professor, she said, "gee, you ought to hire some help." or, for another instance, a very prominent professor interviewed me for a scholarship and she looked at me with arched eyebrow and said, "you do realize that grad school is serious business and not something for housewives to fill their time once their children start kindergarten, right?"
in both instances, feminist consciousness raising asks us to look at how those statements inadvertantly reinscribe status privilege, gender oppression, racism, etc.
what happens, though, is that typical left defensiveness and guilt kicks in.
feminist solidarity as I've experienced it, however, has managed to create practice of self- and social-criticism that enables feminists, as individuals and as groups, to withstand the criticism and become stronger for it. it isn't easy. it is messy. it is downright terrifying at times, as women who went through successive criticisms of, at first, feminisms' het bias and then, later, feminism's racist biases...the dildo wars, the criticisms of the lack of class analysis, etc.
wish me luck, moving tomorrow!
kelley