Re: Nationalism is Always Gendered

[Celia Winkler <cwinkler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry for the delay in responding to this.  Finals week and all that.  I
can think of some very good reasons why the left should not appropriate the
term "family values."  I would far prefer "child-friendly" "human values"
and so forth.

First, there are a lot of people who do not fit the dominant view of
family.  While it is possible to redefine terms in the popular
consciousness (see Hobson and Lindholm's article in the 1997 Theory and
Society), it is quite difficult, and "family" is probably one of the
hardest to redefine.  Redefining the term "family" has been a project of
the gay and lesbian movements, and the resistance to this has been, as we
are all aware, explicit and vehement.  In addition, not even the gay and
lesbian movements have been able to move very far from the traditional
nuclear family mold, even when the couple is same-sex.  While I think it is
important to eventually redefine the term, people cannot wait that long to
attain the necessary services.

Second, in line with this, we need to begin thinking of individual
entitlement to these benefits, rather than entitlement based on status as a
family member.  Tying benefits to family status is rife with problems.  It
puts too much onto families, so that divorce, death, domestic violence and
so forth can have effects beyond the emotional, and move into the economic
(which then exacerbates the emotional...)  Women's economic independence is
tied to their individual entitlement to benefits.  Sure, there are a lot of
good families out there, but there are also a lot of really awful ones.

See the 1988 article by Joan Acker for a critique of distribution of these
resources through family relations:  "Class, gender, and the relations of
distribution."	Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13(3):473-498.


The book I am currently writing takes as a major premise the notion that
women's status in society is dependent on how well they can live
autonomously.  See Ann Shola Orloff's 1992 article for a discussion of
this:  "Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship: The Comparative
Analysis of Gender Relations and Welfare States."  American Sociological
Review 58(3): 303-329.

Some of the benefits you mention are troublesome, and if constructed on the
basis of a family structure, can have negative effects for women and will
not achieve the desired results.  Specifically, tax credits for women
helping family members at home are ONLY of any use to women supported by a
wage earner with a high wage.  What of the single woman caring for an
elderly mother?  By saying, "We have tax credits," the policy makers can
muffle demands for greater provision of in-home care by paid providers.
Both the adult daughter and the elderly mother are short-changed, the adult
daughter by an inability to attain adequate retirement provisions of her
own, and the elderly mother by possibly inadequate care by an untrained and
stressed-out caregiver.

Paid parental leave is another sticky issue.  It has to be high enough to
provide a decent standard of living for the parent, but not so long and
expensive as to interfere with demands for quality and affordable
childcare.  What about lost pension savings and social security during the
leave?  That has to be on the table.  How will it be paid for?  The Swedish
model of basing parental insurance on past earnings is problematic for
younger parents, but even that form of benefit is questionable in the U.S.,
specifically if informed by a "family values" argument.  More likely, it
would take the form of tax deductions (again useless for the sole supporter).


Sweden has had a mixed experience with shorter work days, specifically
because parents of young children have the right to work part-time at
part-time wages.  Again, who can afford to do that?  Who will do that?
Even in a nuclear family, it would tend to be the woman who works the
shorter day, exacerbating the already sex-segregated labor market.  The
only good alternative is a *universal* shorter work day, for everyone, not
just parents.  Is it possible to put that in a "family values" framework,
or would the result be shorter days only for mothers?  Actually, I'm
currently wrestling with the way that the Swedish policy makers in the
six-hour day debate wrestled with calling it "family policy" or "labor
policy."  The ultimate form of the "partial reform" was informed by its
location as a family policy issue.  It needed to be both.

Another point--Anne Phillips makes the point that social solidarity is not
necessarily a product of family solidarity, and in fact, locating
solidarity in family can have negative effects on social solidarity by its
very limited ambit.  I know that the argument for a left "family values" is
to take the idea of care into the public arena, but I'm not sure that it
would work that way, because of the first objection--the difficulty of
changing the definition of family.  See also a nice 1992 article by Susan
James,  "The good-enough citizen: citizenship and independence."  In G.
Bock and S. James (Eds.) Beyond Equality and Difference: citizenship,
feminist politics, female subjectivity (pp. 48-65).  New York: Routledge.

I would rather see a statement of society's duty to children, social
solidarity, human values.  I'm wondering if "family values" has become a
little trite, even in the popular consciousness.  I haven't heard it so
much these days.  But then I may be out of the loop.


At 11:06 PM 5/11/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>Now that "family values" is in the mainstream, I think the left
>should appropriate it and use it to include: reinstatement of
>welfare, raising of minimum wage, national health care, day care, a
>shorter work week, paid parental leave for longer terms, measures to
>support seniority and the high late age-wage curve, more assistance
>for in-home elder/disability care, tax credits for people (women)
>helping family members at home, etc. . . . . I plan to use the term
>as explicitly as this in my next book, unless good theorists like you
>find some reasons for me not to.
>And I would hope it would get picked up and cause plenty of confusion
>and contest, and the left would get it back again.
>        Margaret
>But about your parents' grandchildren: it's one thing if all but two
>have non-standard work, and quite something else if they're marrying
>late or not marrying, etc. I was really asking specifically about
>them.
>
>
>Resident Scholar, Women's Studies, Brandeis
>e-mail: mgullette@xxxxxxx
>617-965-2164
>Home page:www.brandeis.edu/wmns/gullette.html
>
>Declining to Decline judged "best feminist book on American popular
>culture" (1998 Emily Toth Award)
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: A place for marxist-feminists to hang out
><M-Fem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Date: Monday, May 10, 1999 9:38 PM
>Subject: Re: Nationalism is Always Gendered
>
>
>>I thought I would add a general question to Margaret's question to
>>me. Could anyone attempt to define what is in the head of all the
>>people who accept the slogan, "family values"? I take for granted
>>that the inner meaning it bears for the people who push it is "Keep
>>them pregnant and barefoot!" but the slogan must have a somewhat
>>more complex effect on those who swallow it.
>>
>>Carrol
>>
>>Margaret M Gullette wrote:
>>
>>> Carrol: By the "older pattern," do you mean no more
>>> marriage-and-children or nonstandard work? Or both?
>>>         --Margaret
>>> .
>>
>>
>
Celia Winkler
Sociology Department
University of Montana
Missoula, MT  59812-1047
Office: (406) 243-5863
Home: (406) 549-6285
Fax:    (406) 243-5951
cwinkler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx