Re: gender: Judith Butler's pseudo materialism and cultural feminism.(fw

>On Tue, 21 Mar 2000 md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu wrote:

> 
>> >Ortner "...concluded that the ubiquity of male domination had its
roots
>> >in
>> >the facts of sexual reproduction."
> 
>> Richard, what facts of sexual reproduction? can you give specific
>> examples? 

>I thought the quotes I provided made this clear.  You're missing the
>point
>that "the facts of sexual reproduction," ie, women bearing children, has
>different effects depending on the mode of production.  Once upon a time
>it had profound effects on gender roles, when it limited women's
>participation in socially important/necessary activities, such as hunting
>or heavy agricultural labor.  It need not have those same effects today,
>but to read today back into the past is idealism, not materialism.

another geezzzz!! I am *not* reading today back to the past, Richard. In
fact, you are reading past on to the present. This is called biological
reductionism, not materialism. I said in matfem today:

>At some point in history, original sexual division of labor, which was
>just a division of labor in physical act (remember Marx), was translated
>into political and
>social inequalities, and became institutionalized, and were
>systematically
>produced and reproduced.. Saying this has NOTHING to do with having a
>romantic conception of human nature, let alone crapy post-modernism, but
>rather an understanding of who we were in the past, and why we are as we
>are at the moment.

>Take the example of mothering. I said this hundred times so it may look
>as reiterating myself. In the hunting gathering societies, women had to
>take care of infants since it was somewhat necessary for small band
>groups
>to maintain and reproduce themselves (I am also open to other
>cross-regional antropological examples that argue otherwise).As history
>developed, and material and social structures of societies evolved, this
>mothering role has changed too.  At the moment, mothering is a gender
>category (sex role),not a sex category. Eventhough women are STILL
>supposed to
>mother and defined in terms of their domestic roles, women do not want to
>spend the rest of their lives taking care of children. This role is no
>longer a natural role, but an unjust division of labor between men and
>women. hence,it needs change to attain equal social status between the
>sexes, which i beleive is hard to achieve in a capitalist society. The
>paradox that capitalist patriciarchy poses to women is a paradox of
>trying
>to balance between public and private roles.Even if women are somewhat
>liberated from the domains of private life, they are this time
>subordinated within the market as cheap labor.. the reason for this is
>they are still perceived as mothers, weaker sex, womanly, etc.....