Re: Socialism and Women's Leadership and black women

[Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/15/06, Mark Lause <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Strangely, the Left was as conscious of this divide as the wider society.
> Those "groomed" for promotion were almost invariably middle class
> and upper
> middle kids.

In the days of Lenin, Mao, Ho, Mossadegh, Arbenz, Castro, etc., the
gap in class backgrounds between leaders and masses was enormous.
Generally, the leaders came from petit-bourgeois families of doctors
and lawyers, when a majority of the population were either illiterate
or functionally illiterate.  Today, the class backgrounds of many
nationalist leaders -- Evo and Lula, most obviously, but also Chavez,
Ahmadinejad, Putin, etc. -- are much lower than the 20st-century
socialist and nationalist leaders: they come from working-class family
backgrounds and have risen through education, state bureaucracy,
and/or union/movement bureaucracy.  And in many nations the masses are
better educated than in the past.  The class/education gap has
narrowed between the top leaders and masses, but the gender of the top
leaders has remained largely the same on the Left (except in Chile,
where the party in power is only weakly Left and the President comes
from a higher class background than the aforementioned nationalist
leaders of today).

> Nevertheless, 99.9% of the time this is a very nice, if poor neighborhood
> because we have probably a dozen women just on this bloc who run
> households
> (often on their own), participate in organizing events at their churches and
> quietly make this neighborhood civilized.  They look in on the sick, watch
> out for the youngsters, and keep an eye on things generally.  Thugs usually
> avoid them and, one time they didn't, I saw one little old woman spin around
> a guy twice her size and chew him out publicly.  If you ask anyone who the
> leaders of this community are, they'd name politicians, businessmen,
> ministers and real estate thieves.  However, it's these women who provide
> the leadership in the organic life of this community.
>
> Until that social reality gets translated into politics, it's all going to
> be worthless posturing and empty promises.

That social reality is unlikely to translate into politics through
female community leaders nominating themselves for the top national
leaders.  Ordinary working-class folks, even those who become local
community leaders, rarely support (through votes or other means) those
who are "just like themselves."  They want leaders who have what they
don't have.

--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
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