Pussyhats, Marches, Bernays, etc

Most women demonstrators who marched against Trump were no doubt well intentioned within their limited perspective.

I can’t count the number of women I know who were in that march. And none of them are restricted to the stereotypes this limited-minded guy wants to promote. And we’re talking some heavy-duty, real-thing leftists here, and I mean people who could reduce that insulting essay to rubble without working up a sweat. I am talking about people who would hold their own here and fit right in and add a lot, except they’re not Rams fans so I probably couldn’t get them to post here.

He actually thinks that the female millions involved in and/or sympathetic with that march are homogenously the same and were all equally susceptible to the same centralized manipulation, so for example everyone wore pussyhats because that was promoted by one place/person/entity that says some stuff a certain way on their website. Sorry but. That. Is. Just. Stupid. Generally speaking, if someone from the left has dismissive stereotypes of an entire category of person, they are not shining examples of progressive analysis.

As a rule any form of top-down analysis (ie. “everyone but me is a victim of this thing because they were led to it by a chosen few”), it’s not real analysis at all and certainly not leftist in any reasonable way.

Oh and btw women were smoking in the 1890s.

https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/CXXV/513/491/525369/Women-and-Smoking-since-1890?redirectedFrom=fulltext

When a small number of intellectual or leisured society women began smoking hand-made Egyptian or Turkish cigarettes in the 1890s it was associated with emancipation and the ‘new woman’.

One of the author’s most obvious mistakes is the assumption he can read minds. I see this most often in right-wing Op-Eds, which routinely purport to know exactly what their political opponents are thinking — at all times, apparently. One of the reasons I strongly prefer left-wing analysis is that it tends to — with exceptions, of course — actually cite quotations, transcripts, radio or tv proof for its argument.

This particular author, unfortunately, went the right-wing route of just making sweeping statements about the motives of all the women at these marches, without presenting anything to support any of those statements.

Whether or not a person agrees with his sweeping statements, it should be acknowledged no attempt was made to back them up.

Billy_T wrote:

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The thing is, the author just didn’t need to make that point via a putdown of the women’s march. It actually makes zero sense to attack it from that angle. Shit. He should be applauding the activism, the passion, the enthusiasm for mass opposition to the status quo.

I agree.

The author also doesn’t seem to think that the danger to women’s rights posed by the Trump administration is, in itself, worth marching for. It’s 2017 and women’s issues are still being marginalized – even from those on the left who should be their allies…

Anyway, that’s why I called him a sexist ass.

Symbolically wearing your genitals on your head is surely an arresting image, but it is misplaced and duplicitous when one has not opposed the systematic brutality of the American empire’s ravaging around the world under Obama and Clinton.

I don’t think the women’s march was any one thing. It wasn’t even confined to women’s issues. There were a lot of people marching who marched in solidarity with women, but were motivated by, and promoting, other issues such as LGBT, gay, environmental, and so on. It was a broad coalition of causes that united under the banner of women’s issues with which everyone is sympathetic.

Moreover, I will say that I never heard of a pussyhat website until now. None of the marchers I know ever mentioned it, and they certainly weren’t following any kind of instructions, or lead from a webpage. So I agree that part of the article is just facile. This was not Bernays-level manipulation by any stretch.

But I also don’t see any Stalin-level demands for purity in the piece. I see a (correct) observation that most of the marchers have failed to recognized the big picture, the one that extends to women’s rights beyond their own personal concerns. I think that’s just true. They were largely out there because of concern about the chauvinistic tone of Trump and his supporters, and because of concern about Planned Parenthood etc. That, broadly speaking, was the impetus. The writer points out that that is hardly a comprehensive approach to women’s issues.

Unfortunately, I think he is dismissive of the march for that reason, when another person might have pointed out that it was a big step in the right direction that people are standing up for themselves. We haven’t even been doing THAT much in this country. So standing up for self may be the first step. Standing up for others comes later in the growth of the movement.

I don’t, however, think that the march means much unless it is followed with constant pressure, and a concerted effort to dislodge as many politicians as possible with alternatives who are farther to the left politically. Because – let’s face it – the march in itself was close to pointless. Marches don’t do much of anything except provide catharsis. They have little, if any, impact on policy. Just a few days after the march, Trump nominates a regressive judge to the SC, and while the women are marching, he signs the Global Gag Rule. So…you know…

Zooey wrote:

I don’t think the women’s march was any one thing. It wasn’t even confined to women’s issues. There were a lot of people marching who marched in solidarity with women, but were motivated by, and promoting, other issues such as LGBT, gay, environmental, and so on. It was a broad coalition of causes that united under the banner of women’s issues with which everyone is sympathetic.

Moreover, I will say that I never heard of a pussyhat website until now. None of the marchers I know ever mentioned it, and they certainly weren’t following any kind of instructions, or lead from a webpage. So I agree that part of the article is just facile. This was not Bernays-level manipulation by any stretch.

But I also don’t see any Stalin-level demands for purity in the piece. I see a (correct) observation that most of the marchers have failed to recognized the big picture, the one that extends to women’s rights beyond their own personal concerns. I think that’s just true. They were largely out there because of concern about the chauvinistic tone of Trump and his supporters, and because of concern about Planned Parenthood etc. That, broadly speaking, was the impetus. The writer points out that that is hardly a comprehensive approach to women’s issues.

Unfortunately, I think he is dismissive of the march for that reason, when another person might have pointed out that it was a big step in the right direction that people are standing up for themselves. We haven’t even been doing THAT much in this country. So standing up for self may be the first step. Standing up for others comes later in the growth of the movement.

I don’t, however, think that the march means much unless it is followed with constant pressure, and a concerted effort to dislodge as many politicians as possible with alternatives who are farther to the left politically. Because – let’s face it – the march in itself was close to pointless. Marches don’t do much of anything except provide catharsis. They have little, if any, impact on policy. Just a few days after the march, Trump nominates a regressive judge to the SC, and while the women are marching, he signs the Global Gag Rule. So…you know…

The march was important as a networking agent as well. I heard so many people say that. That they made connections they never would have made otherwise, and were now highly motivated to organize and perhaps even run for office themselves.

You make excellent points about the diversity of the marchers. All kinds of different issues being represented. We could all hear that in the speeches, etc. etc.

As for that global gag rule. You no doubt know Trump expanded it. Since Reagan, it’s basically been just turning off the light, turning it back on, turning it off again, with each change in parties. But this time was different. Trump made it far worse:

Trump’s global abortion gag rule goes much further than any previous administration The policy now affects all global health organizations that receive US government funding. Updated by Sarah Wildman Jan 26, 2017, 8:20am EST

Excerpt:

Trump’s reinstatement of the policy on Monday was not unexpected. Indeed, since Reagan, every Republican president has reinstated the rule when he comes into office, and every Democrat has rescinded it. But what was a shock was Trump’s radical expansion of the policy to include not just family planning organizations but all global health organizations that receive US government funding.

This means organizations that address everything from malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS to tropical diseases and vaccinations — the list goes on — will now risk losing funding if they even mention abortion.

“It is not only chilling effect on family planning,” Dr. Mengistu Asnake, the Ethiopia country representative for Pathfinder International, a global family planning organization, tells me via Skype from Addis Ababa. “It will create a chilling effect on every health program.”

“This is really an extreme executive order,” says Lori Adelman, director of global communications at Planned Parenthood, “perhaps the most extreme executive order ever issued in the global health space. It is more extreme than under any other Republican administration.”

I agree with the point about networking. I believe that is probably the most important outcome of the March. Not just creating contacts, but the expansion of awareness of related issues. There is no way to educate people on all of these issues efficiently. The best way is through conversations that take place when people’s interest is aroused, like these marches. So hopefully a lot of the Marchers who aren’t socialist feminists had their eyes open to a wide range of issues. That’s the best outcome of all of these demonstrations in my opinion.

The cigarette can be a potent symbol and extended in all kinds of directions to great effect. Again, I haven’t read the author before, so I have no idea what he’s done with it in the past. But I think he wasted a good opportunity in the article above.

It speaks to the immorality of the capitalist system — to be all too generous, its amorality — that it would use, and needs to use, such marketing techniques. Why? Because capitalism is the first economic system in human history to make exchange-value paramount and to require endless growth and the expansion of new markets. No previous economic system required these things or was inherently imperialistic. Capitalism was the first.

We used to make things ourselves, at home, or within a community, as needed (within independent, autonomous local markets). As in, use-value. Capitalism, OTOH, as our first M-C-M economic system, made use-value meaningless and irrelevant and replaced it with exchange-value.

Literally, anything for a buck. Doesn’t matter if it kills you. Can you market it? Sell it? Brainwash enough people to believe they want it or even need it? Who cares if it has one iota of use-value, or if it sends you to an early grave.

So Bernays and company figured if they can just make women believe it’s a great show of “freedom and emancipation” to be just like men and smoke yourself to death, a few humans will make vast fortunes while millions die to make that happen. And they had a lot of help from Hollywood in the process.

The history of capitalism is littered with hundreds of millions of dead people all in the name of profits for the few. And that’s not hyperbole.

wv wrote:

Zooey wrote:

I agree with the point about networking. I believe that is probably the most important outcome of the March. Not just creating contacts, but the expansion of awareness of related issues. There is no way to educate people on all of these issues efficiently. The best way is through conversations that take place when people’s interest is aroused, like these marches. So hopefully a lot of the Marchers who aren’t socialist feminists had their eyes open to a wide range of issues. That’s the best outcome of all of these demonstrations in my opinion.

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Well, it couldn’t hurt.

But my own experience at marches is that there
aint much ‘education’ goin on. There’s speeches, and walking, and goofing around, and smiling, and laughing and gawking, and people-watching, and chatting, some music… maybe some drugs maybe some alcohol. Some painted faces. Some signs. Lots of photos.

But i haven’t seen a whole lot of ‘education’ or networking, myself. I aint marched in a decade or so though.

w
v

WV,

On a possibly lighter note . . . didn’t you try Ayahuasca years ago at one of those marches? How did all of that go? Did you get a sudden urge to listen to Jim Morrison a lot?