Sunday, November 12, 2006

I HATE the patriarchy

The title says it all.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I, TOO, HATE THE PATRIARCHY!!!

That said, I love when women defy expectation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/jobs/24homefront.html

By being a well-educated woman who's also a plumber, Elaine Ward is doing something awesome: knocking down chauvinist and classist expectations at the same time. The article's relevance to gender issues is pretty self-explanatory (it pinpoints gender inequality in areas like the plumbing industry, and also profiles Ward's personal struggles in becoming a female plumber)-- but I'd just like to point out how important it is that feminists today focus on how gender issues intersect with issues of class, race, etc. On the one hand, it's natural that a Yale blog pays more attention to the problems of elite institutions e.g. the Summers controversy, sexual abuse by professors. On the other hand, it is the privilege (and responsibility) of blogs like this one to examine a wide range of feminist issues. Remember to think about horizontal as well as vertical segregation, and praise women like Ward who try to break the walls between 'men's work' and 'women's work.'