September 07, 2004
I keep writing at the most inappropriate times ( like late at night when I should be taking a bath)
But anyways,check out this post on Misbehaving.net. About a BBC mini-series that is examining some of the more pressing global issues over the next 20 years. One such issue is apparently the real possibility that women may take over the world.
The entry at misbehaving is super-interesting, it sums up the social, biological and technological reasons why women are increasingly in a position of autonomy na dpower, as contrasted with centuries previous. That increase over 20 years could well result in a paradigm shift that places the ladies and not the lads at the top of of the pile for the first time in thousands of years.
Of course at the end there is the obligatory caution about how men feeling left out of the paradigm shift might increase their violence towards women..
I am currently reading a book by one of the experts (Steve Jones: the Decent of Men) interviewed for the tv show, and have been having a bit of a struggle to finish it because to be frank I don't get excited by discussions of difference as much as finding out how genders overlap.
And I guess that's what bothers me about the BBC idea. (which I will be honest here, I did throw my fist in the air and yell woot! immediately after reading the title of the post.)
Continued from main page..
But post-woot, what pierces my bubble of contentment is actually the very fact that the BBC has posited that women will rule the world in 2020, and not happily share it equilaterally with all members of the gender continuum.
I am tired of the idea that one group needs to rule over another group. It is backwards thinking and it is the binarism that has probably led the majority of people on the earth to adopt variations on the "war on terror - dominion over nature - sweatshop mentality" theme. You know the lords of the earth and all the creatures who walk upon it, including waged labour and your nanny you bought from the phillipines. Just because we ladies may replace the lords doesn't change the fact that the primary word being used to describe the shift is still - rule.
On a less philosophical level. I spent part of this evening at a benefit concert to raise awareness about victims of a serial rapist who was apprehended last week in a neighbourhood in downtown montreal. I totally like to play the; let's-predict-the- future-and-make-it-better-than-now game, but let's be honest. People are still shits and part of shitty behaviour includes raping and probably that isn't just going to stop because in 20 years women have the high paying jobs and can finally afford a sitter.
True equality may help solve the problem of rape, not more heirarchy.
Also and I am too tired and haven't the theoretical chops to go into this here and now, but I will mention that a crucial part of post-feminist discourse centres on race and gander and the interpellation of those two social classifications/categorizations. As my jibe earlier about nannies from the phillipines somewhat illustrated, gender and power are not isolated issues, so it is not enough to point to North American or European standards of living/ statistics and extrapolate that in 20 years women will rule the world, the question still needs to be asked which women, and will that change anything?
Okay I'm out and off the soap box for this month. Please take note that I have added Bookslut to my furl list. I will probably go poke around there tomorow and write a laudatory post about them. If my eyes weren't so sticky I would go read it right now.
Posted by Miriam at September 7, 2004 12:59 AM
Posted to girls+tech