Re: Nationalism is Always Gendered

["Michael Hoover" <hoov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I think that one of the reasons why national health care, day care,
> elder/disability care, etc. have been difficult to achieve is that these
> things have been thought of as primary responsibilities of "families"
> (which translates into "women's work"). Therefore, I think it will be
> exceedingly difficult to propagandize leftist solutions with the rhetoric
> of "family values." We have to offer them as public goods for every
> individual (with or without families), not as consumer items for families.
> Besides, doesn't the term "family values" make you think of such cheesy
> things as combo meals at McDonald's, Disney movies, "buy one get one free"
> coupons, and the like?
> We need to struggle over the term family (what it has been, what it is,
> what it means, etc.), as things stand now, but why buy such ugly words as
> "family values" (though in a sense quite appropriate for what nuclear
> families have meant to capitalist imagination)?
> Yoshie

re: care...since 'care' within the context of unequal power relations
can do harm, preserving family relationships can be distorting and
unhealthy...

re: comodities...one indicator of market pervasiveness is household
decisions now made for women by men via commercials...

any lister thoughts on views of Angela Davis and bell hooks, among
others, that family can be context for experiencing dignity and self-
worth in exploitative society, as it has been for blacks from
enslavement to present...obviously, they don't mean what Christopher
Lasch - who shared with neo-conservatives a positive view of patriarchal
family life - did when he referred to the family as a 'haven in a
heartless world'...  Michael Hoover