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December 03, 2003
Post Feminist Swill Redux
As Emily points out, there is a riposte to the Opt-Out Revolution which I'd posted about in October, on In These Times, Post-Feminist Swill Redux . Susan J. Douglas, the author of the piece, dissects the selective use of statistics, and concludes:
That is what I took away from the story, and I think it was there in the original article (see the pullquote in the October post). Nonetheless, Douglas gives us some food for thought.
Posted by Caterina Fake at 06:25 PM in General | Permalink
Comments
Amen, Caterina.
Posted by: Joel at Dec 3, 2003 7:10:43 PM
We’re real close to the root of the problem. The challenge is a traditional, hierarchical model of success that is rooted in achievement-based consciousness; everything is measured in terms of monetary wealth, shortage-avoidance and personal advantage. Alternately, this model competes with an older, conformist-based consciousness; success is measured in terms of security, safety and degree of control. Unfortunately, when both models co-exist, they biased towards a male mindset and not towards a female mindset; it is why until recently "successful" women were more likely to emulate male behaviors to succeed. Women simply weren’t being “seen” as successful by these two different states of conscious since women tend to manifest a different state; we’re seen as “opting out” or “dropping out” because the traditional workplace success models don’t work for us.
A critical mass of women live in a reality of affiliative-based consciousness; our measures of success are consensual cooperation and smooth relationships. Traditional achievement or conformist measures are extremely difficult to apply; how does one quantify the value of a harmonious home or workplace? How do we value cooperation? Where will shareholders find these on the bottom line? Until our culture and workplace shifts towards the broader adoption/acceptance of the affiliative model, women will continue to appear as “opt outs” if they leave the old model – even if they leave to build a new model in the form of women-owned businesses.
It’s not as if this is impossible; nomadic cultures historically have required a more cooperative model to succeed. There may be a parallel we can use among these nomad peoples to meld both the traditional and the affiliative workplace realities. Or we can continue to build something larger and new from the outside in until we can reach an equitable parity. It may be, too, that the traditional models of business eventually reach a point at which it breaks and is forced to change. There are highly visible cracks in the model that prove the achievement-based, “dog-eat-dog” methodology fails our society, as shown in the case of Enron, Tyco, and other business debacles. Had these businesses been as concerned about cooperation and relationships as financial achievement, would they have failed their shareholders and stakeholders so spectacularly?
(My opinions on this topic have been substantially shaped by Prof. Jenny Wade’s Changes of Mind: A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Conscious and Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Ph.D.’s Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines. I recommend both texts highly.)
Posted by: Rayne at Dec 4, 2003 12:17:53 PM
Excellent comment, Rayne. I think that one of the problems with the "Opt-Out Revolution" was, as Douglas pointed out, that the buried story was that the workplace is changing because if women's refusal to participate in such a dog-eat-dog culture. Thus the advent of personal days, flexible schedules, company childcare, etc. Still a long way to go but inroads have nonetheless been made.
And I will investigate those books, thanks for pointing them out. And I enjoyed your blog too.
Posted by: Caterina at Dec 4, 2003 1:50:40 PM
Thanks, Caterina. Prof. Wade's book in particular rocked my world...after seeing the model of the evolution of consciousness through which we all travel, saw the schism that exists between most adult humans along gender lines, everything I understood about gender bias changed completely.
If consciousness is defined as one's experience of reality, and most adults live in one of two predominent states of consciousness, along gender lines, it means we can't see each other, we don't live in the same realities. Only women who looked more like, acted more like men would be "seen" cognitively by men living in a particular state of consciousness. It's not just a whippy Venus-Mars thing once one gets their mind around this premise. Some folks live in an earlier state of conformism -- you know the ones, the absolutists who expect everyone to stay in their box, the ones who believe that following the rules is much more important than the rightness of the rules. If we truly grasp that persons living in this reality can't "see" us either, it explains how easily they can dispose of women as non-entities.
Wade's work is based on the giants of psychology, but her compilation into a single, overarching framework made all the difference in my comprehension.
I'd also recommend studying Clare Graves' work (assuming you've not already done so) and that of Beck/Cowan in "Spiral Dynamics"; their work is predictive of outcomes over the long-term.
Posted by: Rayne at Dec 4, 2003 10:09:38 PM
So much justification for laziness.
The mind boggles.
Posted by: Julius at Dec 5, 2003 11:05:42 AM
The irony of reading some well-thought out and well-written posts, followed by a 2 liner who calls them “lazy”. Too funny.
One thing I would like to point out is that is not just women who are rebelling against the 80- hour work week, lots of men, particularly younger men are rejecting the “live to work” ethic. Guys are increasing demanding time off when a new child is born and leaving work to see little Junior play his soccer games. These days, you just as likely to see daddy taking a couple hours to take the kids to the dentist as you are to see mom doing it. In a society has spend many thousands of gallons of ink bemoaning the decline in fatherhood, this is a hopeful sign for the future.
Posted by: Robyn at Dec 5, 2003 1:21:29 PM
Wordy doesn't equate to well-thought-out any more than fat equates to strong.
Posted by: Julius at Dec 5, 2003 2:08:37 PM
Julius, why does this topic threaten you to the point of nastiness? It's obvious that you're trying to embarass the author and the other commentators. Don't you have a more dignified way to dissent?
Posted by: Joel at Dec 5, 2003 2:56:31 PM
Robyn -- you're right, younger men support this change in work ethic. I suspect men like my spouse (a late Boomer) might be a bit more uncomfortable with this than his son (early Gen Y) simply because there's been a steady change in ethics about work over the last generation between them. Part of the shift was due to the 90's boom; as employees increasingly had the upper hand due to a shortage of workers, flexibility became a popular incentive to attract and retain workers. The downside post-dot-com-bomb is that flexibility became a tool against workers to increase productivity. Where once one might put in 40-50 hours through a combination of telecommuting and in-office hours, employers are now more likely to expect 60-80 hours per employee along with the savings of overhead reduction from telecommuting and downsizing (been there, done that).
Another facet is the change in younger men's mindset due to the influx of women in the workplace over the last thirty years; many of these men saw both mother and father working, saw the personal toll. They're more likely to feel comfortable with women in the workplace and with expecting a need for flexibility from co-workers after nearly a generation of "normalization".
Joel -- thanks! There always will be people who reject simple social etiquette and refuse to be held accountable, unfortunately. Appreciate your support.
Posted by: Rayne at Dec 5, 2003 3:43:44 PM
Thanks Joel, but I find Julius simply amusing. He reminds me of the Chihuahua who lives next door to my parents, who also happens to be the only dog on the planet who hates my father. The dog runs up to dad, yaps at him for a few seconds, and runs away. It’s hysterical!
Rayne - I think another reason workers are not willing to work 80 hours a week anymore is the fact that company loyalty to their workers is gone. When I was growing up, I was taught that if you worked hard, your company would reward you with pay raises, promotions and you had a pretty good career to look forward to. These days, working long hard hours doesn’t net you anything more long hard hours. The Gen X and Y have watched their parents toil long and hard, only to get laid off and have their pension funds raided. This does not inspire the workers to bust their buns.
Posted by: Robyn at Dec 5, 2003 4:42:34 PM
The 'must work 80 hrs per week' to stay competitive is a complete myth.
At my previous workplace, we were driving ourselves and the entire staff extremely hard. We were a dot.com and people seemed to expect the coding marathons, the burning of the midnight oil etc. However, we kept missing deadlines, the bug count didn't go down and products didn't launch.
So some of us decided to switch tactics. We changed the way we were approaching the whole development effort and decided that if anyone needed to work more than 50 hrs. per week on average something was wrong. We also decided to give paternity leave to employees, a couple of years before that became mandatory. Working through the week-end turned into a once in a blue moon kind of thing, and was mostly done by people that wanted to make up for lost time due to some flex-time they had taken.
And guess what? We started meeting our deadlines, turning out better code, better products. We impressed the hell out of our customers. But we also pissed off our CEO, who claimed we had lost our 'start-up' feeling, that there was no sense of urgency anymore.
So when the inevitable time came when the company needed to cut down, due to financing issues, the worker friendly, profitable and efficient unit was cut, while the harsh, americanized unit was kept. BUT, even though I had to fire most of my team (and then myself), most of them have stated that they'd work for me again, given the chance, and they were snapped up quickly by other companies, that have since started using our methodology and mindset. Oh, and the other unit, the one that survived? Still missing deadlines.
Nobody can do good work for more than 50 hours per week. It has been proven time and again. So the more time you request from people, the more tired they are, the more mistakes they make, the more it's gonna cost you.
Posted by: Toti at Dec 7, 2003 8:10:31 AM
There's truth in that, Toti, but there's a decision a business must make above the frontline level when the frontline is NOT empowered to acquire resources. The media isn't helping matters by glorifying the mythology of American productivity without looking at the larger costs to our society.
From my personal experience: I could elect to work the 80 hours a week on a proactive basis on a global tactical project, or be paged 7x24x365 as systems failed. Those were the two choices I had. There were NO resources to be had for 3 months; when they came, many systems had already failed in spite of the 80 hours a week. The corporation for which I worked had rolling staff reductions, meaning that resources became thinner and thinner during the course of the project; the pressure on remaining employees to increase productivity to keep their jobs was phenomenal. I eventually raised my hand and said my feelings wouldn't be hurt if in some staff cut they needed another head - solution implemented. The project is still not complete seventeen months later to the client's complete satisfaction, although it has reached a point of stasis.
Not my problem. Good thing I can "afford" seventeen months of unemployment, though. Most workers don't have that choice, particularly in job markets where unemployment approaches 12%; somebody had to pick up the slack on the project I left in order to stay employed. Sad.
Posted by: Rayne at Dec 7, 2003 3:28:45 PM
What businesses don't seem to get is that efficiency depends on their employees being physically fit and of a rested state of mind. If you push people too hard you get the results that Rayne described -- a never-ending work schedule that delivers a shaky product.
Thanks for observing what I, too, have seen out there.
I read in a book about James Dobson and Focus on the Family that the board once received a request from a male employee for fewer work hours. He wanted to spend more time with his family. Only one member thought this merited praise on the grounds that the fellow was putting his priorities in the right place. Dobson and the rest of the board castigated the man for being lazy!
So much for practicing what they preach!
Posted by: Joel at Dec 8, 2003 6:53:15 PM
"Julius, why does this topic threaten you to the point of nastiness? It's obvious that you're trying to embarass the author and the other commentators."
You're trying awfully hard in the opposite direction, my dear boy. Failing, but trying nevertheless. Which invalidates your entire argument.
As for the whole efficiency / good work argument, if efficiency / good work were a concern to American corporations, tech jobs wouldn't be outsourced offshore at the rate that they are today.
Posted by: Julius at Dec 9, 2003 8:18:21 PM
I must say Rayne's posts have fascinated me, although I'm a little unfamiliar with the register. I can heartily recommend Australian Feminist Philosopher Moira Gatens. (She's been appointed a Professor in the Philosophy of Department of Sydney University for anyone curious as to her credentials).
Much of her musings have concerned the incompatability of women within the patriarchal discourses which emerged within the Enlightenment. This gloomy outlook for feminist struggle highlights not only the complexity of the issue, but gives an important foundation to the 'Post Feminist Swill' which is contested here.
For example, to draw on Gatens, the connection between the (masculine) body politic and the capacties of the male body may shed light on the expectations of the thrifty capitalist as citizen, voter, worker, and ... man?
Posted by: Declan at Dec 10, 2003 3:37:49 AM
Thanks, declan, I'll run right now to check out Gatens' work.
I'd neglected to provide a thought experiment of sorts, which might shed light on what I'm trying to explain with the schism in states of consciousness manifested by a critical mass of adult humans.
Transcendent consciousness is another state, several levels removed from where most people experience reality. We've heard the term, we have a generalized understanding of what that state of consciousness might be like, but unless we've actually had a transcendent experience we don't really know what it's like to "see" other humans from that perspective, may be confused by the challenge of "seeing" from that perspective. Many people will simply blow off the entire concept of transcendent consciousness because it can't be quantified, qualified. That's what it may be like for those of us on either side of the schism; confusing and easy to discount those in another state. They simply don't exist.
(This may well explain why certain visitors/commenters at this site make absolutist statements which are negative and close-ended; they "see" only within their framework of reality, cannot shift to another state of consciousness to comprehend a different point of view.)
Hope that Gatens can shed more like on this challenge from her perspective as a philosopher.
Posted by: Rayne at Dec 10, 2003 4:44:53 PM
I'll certainly have to check out Prof. Jenny Wade’s work!
I'm not sure Gatens is too well qualified to provide insight into these matters. She sits with feminists of difference such as post-structuralists Luce Iragray and Helene Cixous, and is very wary of the projects of absolute equality which negate the body as 'tabula rasa' or blank slate. In fact, she's a leading theorist on Spinoza who was the most prominent contemporary challenger to Cartesian dualism.
So, in that respect, I guess her work could have some weight on the debates about transcendental consciousness you're espousing here. My only concern about such a term is that it could lend itself towards a sort of prescriptive moralism which empiricism gravitates towards. What exactly does Prof. Wade have to say about this transcendental state? Who can achieve it and how? Also, what is a critical mass of people?
A guy I've been studying under this year did his PhD on the topic of where knowledge comes from/where it's located, so these issues implicitly permeated much of the course work. My projects were directed towards the 'other' consciousness, namely the unconscious as discovered by Freud. ("Freud?!?! That surly old misogynist?" I hear in a collective roar) And, yes, he certainly was a product of his time (his work on 'primitives' is a more prominent example of this), but that doesn't discount his discovery. It led to a whole school of thought, Psychoanalysis, which has more to offer feminism than its droll Enlightenment inspired counterpart - Psychology - ever could.
For example, From Lacan's definitive (arrogant?) ramblings came Iragray's thesis of a female 'language.' Julia Kristeva spawned the discipline of semiotics - Post-structuralist theories which provide a hefty (if not occasionally nihilistic) opposition to the dualities which condemn women to 'left-side' - body/nature/emotion etc. (and men to mind/culture/reason)
I could write for hours on this, but the bottom line is that any reductionist, or absolutist answers to the "problems" of feminism today are doomed. These are complex issues with considerable intellectual weight behind multiple, often antagonistic, perspectives.
Posted by: Declan at Dec 10, 2003 7:44:59 PM
I'll point out that Wade's work is an attempt to build a "unified field theory" of consciousness; her work really assembles all the other great works of psychology into a comprehensive assemblage. It's in this assemblage that she sees a progression which moves from conformism in two directions, either achievement or affiliative consciousness. There are other levels beyond them, authentic and transcendent being two. What's important to remember is that most of us can experience changes in consciousness at any time -- we can alter states in many ways -- so being in any one state is not an absolute. Consciousness is fluid; we can progress/regress given the right circumstances. When I say that a critical mass of adults manifest in one of two states, I mean somewhat more than half and then under normal stresses of everyday life. Under catastrophic stress, one might easily regress to that of infancy. Under ideal circumstances (like years of meditative practice or drugs), one might advance to the other end of the spectrum.
If you're up to a particularly challenging read that is even more encompassing, tackle Ken Wilber's A Brief History of Everything. Great stuff, finds a way to wind in Wade's work with nearly everything else. Wonderfully holistic theory.
Having browsed what I can find on line of Gaten, I can see a dilemma; there's always the question of integrating the physical and the non-physical, the sex with gender. Philospophy has difficulty with the biology because it assumes we can merely reprogram the software of humanity around it. We can't because there are more than one hardware platform (sex), more than one operating system (gender, sexual identity, sexuality); the software (consciousness, intellect) cannot exist without them. The challenge is integrating philosophy with biology and the rest of science, networking a system which is not individuals but a whole. That whole must recognize the value of every subordinate part of the system or it fails systemically. Sounds flakey, but there's something to the balance of yin-yang; it's the archetypal description of integrative balance we must achieve as humans if we are to achieve sustainability. Sustainability won't arise from absolutism; it requires systemic thinking and integration.
Posted by: Rayne at Dec 10, 2003 9:57:54 PM
Philospophy has difficulty with the biology because it assumes we can merely reprogram the software of humanity around it
Sorry but this exactly the sort of thinking which Gatens has very, very firmly in her sights - which is why I commend her theory over other 'camps' of feminists. The whole point I've been trying to get at here (and I want to avoid too great a digression from the original topic) is that the 'physical and non-physical' are intimately tied across layers of consciousness. This is a perspective which requires a departure from the (phallocentric) empiricism which, I would contend, has brought about the very predicament in Ms. Fake's post.
As for the distinction between sex and gender, well Gatens has written a poignant essay on the topic which has gained considerable mileage. You'll find it and otherworks in Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality. (which, I'm afraid, receives a minimal write-up) I doubt you'll find anything she's written of consequence online.
I'd love to widen this debate in a more suitable venue *he says pointing to the 'about us' paragraph in the sidebar*
...or is this the perfect venue?
Posted by: Declan at Dec 11, 2003 8:13:55 AM
I see your point, and it's not my intent to validate/perpetuate "phallocentric" thinking; biology insists on genetic programming first, a simple slip of X or Y chromosome coding which triggers this split in brains. Now that we're *aware* of this dichotomous coding, can we get beyond this Matrix and build/find a unifying software which makes use of us as we are? We can try to expand that programming which is not entirely local, but we must start here in the local. We could agree that consciousness isn't just here, that philosophy and physics enmesh the corporeal and the ethereal.
But we're still faced with a here-and-now that's built upon/by people like Julius. (Thank you for providing the example, BTW.)
One key learning I took away from Wilber's work is that humans emerge in levels, and those at the edge of the envelope cannot emerge without taking the rest with them. Not all at the same level -- just pulling those behind the envelope to their next level. Now there's a challenge, one that pointedly addresses the issues in the original post.
What can we do to change the social coding, help others emerge, without actually waiting for them to die off like dinosaurs? Building a system outside the phallocentric world is one answer -- "opting out", starting our own businesses independent of the mainstream -- but is it enough to promote emergence of all levels?
Posted by: Rayne at Dec 11, 2003 9:11:33 AM
Oops, forgot to ask this: anybody else reading this feel this is in need of a different venue, or are others getting something out of this exchange?
Posted by: Rayne at Dec 11, 2003 9:23:17 AM
You can't opt out of the free market. Unless you offer more value than your competitors (which requires efficiency / hard work / research and development / other allegedly phallocentric measures) you'll simply fail.
Posted by: Julius at Dec 11, 2003 11:34:01 PM
Julius stands well within the philosophical boundaries I'm trying to define here. There is a truth, and he will use it at his own discretion. (One question for you Julius - what is a phallus in the [psychoanalytic] context I've been talking about? hint: it relates to your classification of Sociology as "soft")
Simple logic turns the moral currents here. If every woman he knows has trouble reading maps, then surely that must mean that "women" are not good at reading maps. Or to quote the man, "It's entirely provable that women engage themselves more with rhetoric than with facts." Followed by the clincher: "A gender-count of participants in various academic fields (humanities vs. hard sciences) should settle the question nicely."
Trans-historically, universally we can slowly distil an essence of each gender using this method from simple observation. The margins (such as intersex, or transsexuals, or even the Oriental) are subsumed into the grand narrative under a footnote and the phallus marches on.
Unfortunately your post suffers too Rayne: Biology insists on genetic programming first, a simple slip of X or Y chromosome coding which triggers this split in brains
While I'm not contesting that men and women are the same, or ever will be (except in some Marxist android phantasies) because their bodies are different. However, the way that we understand these bodies - and the accompanying biology and morphology - which forms the foundations of the historical system of gender relations.
This is not to say that hard work and efficiency are necessarily 'phallocentric' but to highlight the gendered basis of the system they exist in - one in which the neutral public citizen is actually male, white, heterosexual etc. etc. upon closer inspection. I know this may sound antiquated given the Equal Opportunity legislation which exists across most of the West, but the opt-out dilemma above shows that there is still a lot of ground to cover.
Posted by: Declan at Dec 12, 2003 1:40:25 AM
I have a feeling, Declan, that you and I are talking in circles and arriving at similar conclusions. I'm saying that there must be more than one solution (full integration into the existing workplace model) because there are more than one reality, one comprehension, one state of mind present in humans. There is an array of these realities based in conscious states, all needing a different kind of work and workplace; a critical mass tend to manifest in one of two states, though. How do we build a holistic approach, one that works for people like you and me and folks like Julius?
Speaking of Julius -- the phrase "opting out" has been used to label women's migration away from Fortune 500 companies. There has been NO discussion of leaving a free market or capitalist model; you may rest assured that women in American generally tend to find ways to work within this mixed-primarily-capitalistic society. In 2002, 38% of all American businesses were owned by women; according to a survey this year, "...start-ups of women-owned businesses have grown by double digits annually over the past three years, significantly outpacing growth in the 1990s and outnumbering men-owned start-ups by nearly a 2-to-1 ratio this year." (Survey, National Association for the Self Employed.) Lucky you, dude, we're not leaving you -- we're just parting company with large corporations.
Posted by: Rayne at Dec 12, 2003 10:51:16 AM
Sure, stay-at-home and earn a bit of pocket money from crochetry or whatever, while the men go out and conquer the world.
The funny thing is that things used to be this way, feminists complained, things supposedly changed, and now things are still this way because -- get this -- because the women like it this way! Proved beyond a doubt by their own admission and by their own behavior.
Here's a thought. You can't undo millions of years of human evolution with thirty years of fervent feminazi rhetoric. Chew on that for a while.
Posted by: Julius at Dec 13, 2003 9:25:19 PM
