Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

It's The End of the World As We Know It.....

Page: 1 2(3)

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:29 / 30.05.02

So...haven't posted for a while, namechecks the Knowledge in his first post, issues with feminists, semi-literate writing style, decides to break cover in a thread started by SFD....

Nah. Not even Andrew would be that obvious, surely.

Meanwhile...I think Lurid's point that it isn't just women who are disadvantaged by the current power structures is a very good one. And I do think it's very dangerous to assume that the only fault of these power structures is that they are created and peopled by men.

Dao is, of course, absolutely right - this entire discourse cannot exist outwith the power structures it critiques, and neither can any attempt to rebuild those structures. *However*, I don't see why it should be so controversial in itself to speculate on how a society in which women were privileged in the pursuit of as men are now, and it was "just the way things work" would function. Would it be different? How, from our admittedly phallogocentrically gimpy viewpoint, would we imagine such a society being constructed, and would it just end up being just as inequitable but in the other direction? Can we even imagine the development of western society retooled gynocentrically? Possibly we would find that it was power rather than gender that made people wacky, possibly the gynocentric society would effectively phase itself out by establishing equality, as one might vaguely hope that our own will.

Or, to put it another way, would we find ourselves in exactly the same situation, but with somebody angrily posting "fucking women! If it weren't for their femcho bitchiness, intense competition and grudge-holding, India and Pakistan could have sorted out the Kashmir problem years ago!"

(On a related topic, Benazir Bhutto claims that she was instrumental in blocking Pakistan-supported insurgency in Indian Kashmir when her army brass wanted to step it up. So, if Pakistan had remained a democracy, without generals dictating policy, this might never have happened. Is it significant that Bhutto was a woman, or a civilian?)

10:40 / 30.05.02

i think we could all attempt to imagine the development of western society retooled gynocentrically, but everyone would disagree on the worth of each others results and even their validity to attempt the task in the first place.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:43 / 30.05.02

Yeah, but my dad's bigger than your dad. And has a bigger penis.

The Natural Way

10:46 / 30.05.02

I remember really marvelling at the size of Dad's tool when I was a kid. It was enormous and hairy and so much widdle....

Errr...back to nuclear war......

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:48 / 30.05.02

Yes please.

No star here laces

11:01 / 30.05.02

Is anarchy phallocentric/logical?

"Phallological". Hah!

My phallus is deeply logical.

But is logic phallocentric?

Who has the most intuitive phallus?

The Natural Way

11:03 / 30.05.02

I suspect my Father does. Everything about it's so perfect.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:31 / 30.05.02

So who would win a fight out of Queen Elizabeth I and Genghis Khan?

12:40 / 30.05.02

I don't know but I reckon it would make a killing on pay-per-view.

pointless and uncalled for

13:09 / 30.05.02

I've rubbed together the remaining two shiny nickels in my brain here is what they have produced.

While I'm not convinced that the India vs. Pakistan situation is solely a man only pissing contest that cares not about the fallout, I do agree that the patriarchal stranglehold on world governance is an issue that requires some addressing.

[side note] There should be some recognition of the fact that women, once achieving power, have not been entirely absent from the starting wars count. All though it's typically associated with men there have been some feminine utterances of "fire at will" and there lies something that is what I (IMHO alert) see more as a testament to human capacity than gender differentiation/characterisation.[/side note]

In an ideal future I see a well contructed balance of power between genders with accurate representation and recognisance of position and needs. However the existing stranglehold contains a legacy of sytems (some, not all being an important point here) that favour and are geared towards men.

If the feasability were present then a potentially suitable course of action would be to hand certain reigns and powers over to women and minorities to allow the opportunity to kick the system into a far better shape than exists now.

However, without certain consideration, such a dramatic shift of powers would almost guarantee a collective fuck up of immense proportions, not because women can't cope but because humans rarely do anything right the first time round.

Regrettable Juvenilia

16:54 / 31.05.02

While I'm not convinced that the India vs. Pakistan situation is solely a man only pissing contest that cares not about the fallout, I do agree that the patriarchal stranglehold on world governance is an issue that requires some addressing.

Potus succinctly summing up my position on this thread? We live in strange times indeed...

18:15 / 31.05.02

this thread was dropping and had gone about as far as it could go, i think, but now it's been resurrected i must just point this out:

"blaming it on men is about as constructive (and exactly equivalent, btw) to saying "these fucking pakis are always causing trouble, things would be better if white people ran those countries"."

lyra - your repeated twisting of my words and denial of my experiences in order to fit your view that i am a racist is utterly offensive, patronising, and unfair. i don't feel i have any choice but to hit the ignore button. rather a sad state of affairs, but you've well overstepped the mark.

23:51 / 31.05.02

It would certainly be an interesting experiment if women held the reins of power that men now do, but isn't that somewhat missing the point a bit? I don't know how that would change anything for the better, other than admittedly a momentary feeling of satisfaction among the women of the world.

But it would be short-lived. Because replacing one imbalance of power (relative exclusion of women) with another (exclusion of men) doesn't fix the problem.

Thatcher's gender is irrelevant. She was Successful in her arena because, as several have said, she knew how to play the game. And the game is basically a hierachical, dominator structure.

Far more interesting to see the results of an egalitarian, partner-ship- oriented society than an all-female power structure running in the same manner the male-dominated ones do now.

09:06 / 01.06.02

Well said, Cherry Bomb. I couldn't agree more.

Mind you, I have heard it argued that politicians are duplicitous and manipulative because that is their job. An open and honest politician might not do so well both internationally and domestically...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

10:34 / 01.06.02

That's how their job is done. And why? Because no one wants to vote for someone who says 'well, basically, you can't burn as much petrol as you want and we're all going to have to pay an extra ten pence basic rate'. They'd much rather vote for someone who'll say 'there's no problem anywhere in the country, have a rebate'. Even though it's clearly rubbish. People want to be lied to and bought off, and then they want to blame someone else.

Politicians are slimy because that's how we like 'em. Democracy in action. They'll get clean when we want it bad enough.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:56 / 01.06.02

As Lurid said, An open and honest politician might not do so well both internationally and domestically...
I think the Jo Moore thing was a good illustration of this- yes, the "bury bad news among the corpses" thing was horribly callous and immoral. But it was what she had been hired to do. Her real crime was getting caught out- nobody in government wanted to admit that THAT WAS WHAT THEY PAID HER FOR. Because that would be an admission that a system that requires people to do such things is fundamentally fucked.

17:08 / 01.06.02

indeed, but (in a rather half-winded attempt to return to the topic posted in this thread), why was Moore caught out?? Didn't it have somethign to do with Martin Sixsmith, the middle-class, middle-aged well-paid male executive?? The media kicked up a bit of a storm about the whole Moore/Sixsmith affair, but they never really analysed the situation. Is it possible that Sixsmith just wasn't comfortable with a woman occupying a position closer to his own boss than he was?? And yet, if this is really the case, it will still be insanely difficult to prove that he has contravened the Sex Discrimination Act.

The point i'm trying to make is that we're not going to be able to have an egalitarian society, until we get rid of the people who don't want one. Affirmative Action is all well and good, but if you take it away, we're just going to end up going backwards. We really need to stop people from thinking this way (don't ask me how, although i do know how i'd deal with Sixsmith, after his performance in the few days before the funeral of princess Margaret).

Perhaps Orwell's Thought-Police wouldn't be such a bad idea after all................

Page: 1 2(3)