Re: Nationalism is Always Gendered

[Martha Gimenez <gimenez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 17 May 1999, Celia Winkler wrote:

> 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.

While I share Celia's reservations about the term "family" I am not sure
the left should give it up.  There are several issues here - 1)  the
meaning, the kinds of values it implies in opposition to the instrumental
values and relations of the market and the work place.  2)  the kind of
family structures and relations people are able to build under present
capitalist constraints, whatever their sexual orientation and personal
values.  3) the meaning attributed to it by social agencies and the state
which restricts it to heterosexual couples and children and excludes
everything else as "deviant" families or simply as not-families; 4) the
issue of access to benefits on an individual rather than on a family
basis.

With respect to 1, it seems to me that giving up "the family" to the right
keeps the left from reaching people where their feelings are - most people
understand family issues and values, not other more political adequate
(correct :) ?   ) labels.  Child friendly or human values are good, but
politically they lack strength - and we can't rally people around issues
that matter with slogans such as "let's change the mode of reproduction!"
:)

Sigh... I believe people, within and outside nuclear families, are
looking for ways to reorganize their lives in ways that not only allow
people to work and care for themselves, children, elderly and other
dependents, but to share their lives with others, away from the
couple/children nuclear straight jacket - perhaps instead of throwing away
the concept of family and family values, we could explore ways to make
the organization of reproduction (daily and generational) broader, more
inclusive, and claim the need not to just make political gestures about
the family  but to put those values in practice....

> 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.

I agree, everyonw, women and men should be entitled to benefits and
everyone should, in theory, be able to live on his/her own without having
to depend on others.  Autonomy is a very important value.  But in a
society with chronic unemployment, underemployment and various kinds of
reserve armies of labor, a very difficult value to attain in practice.

And autonomy, if not balanced with solidarity and a larger network of
freely chosen kindred souls, could become simply the culmination of the
individualistic thrust of capitalist relations.  Within capitalism,  I
believe autonomy in the sense Celia means is possible only for a small
proportion of the female (and male) population.  Am I being too
pesimistic?

I can't possible address all the interesting issues Celia mentions in her
message.  I will just say that in my view, the main reason it is so
difficult to take solidarity out of family networks into a broader context
has to do with private property, not only of means of production but also
of assets, tangible property, real estate, savings, etc. such that every
individual and every individual family is structurally pressured to look
for themselves.  It would be interesting to discuss the extent to which
state policies of universal entitlement to certain benefits of the kind
Celia mentions could be construed as a gradual process of eroding the
importance of private property at least among the non-owners of means of
production.

Well, enough of avoidance behavior :)

Must return to my work!

Martha

**********************************************
*	Martha E. Gimenez                    *
*	Department of Sociology              *
*	University of Colorado at Boulder    *
*	http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/     *
**********************************************




>
> 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
>
>
>