Re: Socialism and Women's Leadership (was China Drafts Law to Boost Unionsand End Labor Abuse)

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Oct 14, 2006, at 1:23 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> That said, you evade the question of why socialist states and
> movements have had only a few women leaders, fewer than one would
> expect, when women have managed to rise to the top in a number of
> capitalist states, even ones that are poor or on the Right where one
> might not have expected them to do so.

Might be because, contrary to some essentialist feminist thinkers,
capitalism undermines patriarchy over the long term, by competing
away gender distinctions in favor of a purer individualism; because
socialism arose in many highly patriarchal cultures, and didn't last
long enough to undermine the received system; and because formerly
existing socialism was already in decay as women were rising in
capitalist societies. How many women were in Western boardrooms and
parliaments in the 1970s?

Doug