Takeaways from the Contemporary Women’s Issues Workshop
The following are some of what I took away from the Contemporary Women’s Issues Workshop:
- Contradicting oppression is like breathing—it must be done a thousand times a day.
- We need to look at the early times when we were seen as not completely human; that is a basis of our later hurts.
- Trivialization of sexism makes it difficult for us to acknowledge its existence and to prioritize working on it. We need to put sexism and male domination “back on the map” [back in our consciousness].
- We women have done work on the institutions of sexism. Men still need to do this; for example, they need to discharge on marriage and childrearing.
- Male domination is maintained in part by the illusion that we women have freed ourselves from sexism.
- As women we mostly still maintain a subservient position in relation to men. Many women are powerful, but no woman escapes having subservient distress recordings installed on her. In general, we give up fighting for ourselves completely and full-out.
- People envision societies in which there is redistribution of wealth and no racism. However, the end of male dominance is not commonly present in such visions.
- In capitalism’s last stages, pretense and deception become the biggest ways to keep oppression intact.
- We have gotten used to sexism and male domination. They should be deeply shocking, but we are mostly numb.
Rochester, New York, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of women
(Present Time 204, July 2021)
Last modified: 2022-12-25 10:17:04+00