#participation of women in the labour force

[indizombie]

With India poised for a second wave of privatisation of industries, starting with Air India earlier this year, and a new National Education Policy pushing for increased PPP initiatives in education, activists feel the trends may not bode equally well for women across strata. “All private institutions, especially those providing technical, medical or managerial courses, charge exorbitantly high fees. Studies show that women are less likely to be considered for education loans and there is a clear preference for male children among most marginalised households, urban or rural, when it comes to education,” women’s rights activist and educationist Zakia Soman says. Soman also pointed out that falling education levels among girls can directly be linked to falling participation of women in the labour force, and consequently, poor healthcare among women. “We have failed to make education widely accessible even after 75 years of Independence,” says Soman. “This is a failure of the government and to top it, there is privat­isation. Girls were left out of even government schools,” says Soman. “There are a host of reasons for that, including safety, inaccessible geography, etc. But when it becomes an expensive affair at a private school, they are even more likely to be denied.”

Rakhi Bose, ‘Privatisation In Healthcare And Education Will Be Catastrophic For Women’, Outlook

#Outlook #Rakhi Bose #India #Privatisation #Air India #National Education Policy #PPP initiatives #education #private educational institutions #education loans #preference for male children #Zakia Soman #education levels among girls #participation of women in the labour force #healthcare among women #education accessibility #government schools #safety #inaccessible geography

[zerodiscriminationday]

Reflecting on Gender gaps in education and in the labour market.

Gender gaps that leave women and girls behind in education and labour force participation are estimated to cost the African region US$60 billion in economic losses every year.

 The new data on the jobs gap shows that women who want to work have a far harder time finding a job than men. 

New data shine light on gender gaps in the labour market.

#rights and freedoms #zero discrimination day #1 march #campaign #gender gap #labour force participation #protect everyone's rights #protect everyone's health #economic losses #africa #Women's overall participation

[equalpayday]

Gender gap in labour-force participation, 2006-2023.

Labour force participation remains well below 2009 peak.

Post-pandemic, women have been returning to the labour market at a slightly higher rate than men, nudging up the participation rate to 64% from a low of 63% last year. That said, parity is still at the second-lowest point since the first edition of the index in 2006 and significantly below its 2009 peak of 69%.

And women continue to face higher unemployment rates than men. The global unemployment rate is currently at around 4.5% for women and 4.3% for men.

#women's economic participation #labour market #unemployment rate #Labour force participation #world economic forum #gender gap

[womelle]

#History of female labor force participation #The History of Women’s Work Force in America #When did women start working in factories #Who was the first female to work in a traditionally male field #Why has women's labour force participation increased #Women's Bureau 1920 #Women's jobs in the early 1900s

[communistkenobi]

went on a terf blocking spree and they were sharing this tweet around

and like obviously this is factually wrong - “homosexual rights” happens primarily through de-pathologising homosexuality, quite literally an effort to redefine sexuality and sexual activity, which was commonly followed by a legal redefinition of marriage in many states as not only being between a man and a woman, and parenthood as not being strictly done by a mother & father - that’s redefining gender categories! Gender doesn’t exist as a repressive force independent of political & legal institutions. Universal paternity leave is a redefinition of gendered reproductive labour through employment and labour policy, it is a structural economic benefit that incentivises fathers to participate in child rearing. This is a (limited, partial) redefinition of what it “means” to be a man, just as gay marriage is a redefinition of what it means to be a husband or wife, just as allowing gays to adopt is a redefinition of motherhood and fatherhood. 

And this denial of being in an “ideological cult” is also intentionally downplaying the massive homophobic outcry that gays were/are in fact trying to destroy the meaning of family and marriage - that gay marriage would let you marry your dog, that gay parents are all pedophiles, that even expanding the definition of the nuclear family to include cis gays would threaten to destroy all categories of familial and civic life. Denying that gay rights are not viewed as an “ideological cult” of their own is laughably homophobic.

Taking this argument to its natural conclusion - that cis gays just want to be “left alone,” they aren’t here to “redefine” anything unlike the transsexuals - means a comprehensive denial of the law as an institution that produces patriarchal and gendered violence, that societal conceptions of gender (and the oppression produced by those conceptions) are unaffected by legal redefinitions of family and marriage. An absurd claim! This argument denies patriarchy as a social force, assigning it instead to this mystical abstract force that exists “out there” in nature, unable to be punctured or altered by any social response. Like tbh if you believe that why even fight for gay marriage at all? Just accept your lot in life as broken men and women with a mental disorder that makes you incapable of raising a family.

But of course they don’t actually really believe this, they know what side their bread is buttered on. Cis gays got themselves removed from the ICD and DSM, got gay marriage legalised in a bunch of countries (the tweet’s exclusive use of past tense when talking about gay rights implies the fight for gay equality is finished, an obviously self-centred western & homophobic argument) and said fuck you got mine! The king granted us entrance into his castle unlike you freaks, all we ever wanted was a seat at his table. Liberation is not the goal, cis gays just want to be permitted equal access to the power of cisheterosexual society. This tweet is arguing that gender is not a relevant mechanism in the oppression of homosexuals, that their oppression is altogether something else, unrelated to ideas of what it means to be a woman or man, because they want access to the violence those categories produce. Destroying these categories makes this goal unattainable for them, and so now cis gays are continuing to pivot to reactionary opposition to trans rights. But don’t take my word for it - I’m just repeating what this guy’s saying!

#even old new york was once new amsterdam #transphobia tw

[genderkoolaid]

I saw a post that was showing some statistics about trans women getting paid the least out of like al trans people like a way to discredit transandrophobia and compared us to cis mras and all I could think about was that trans men are the most likely to be suicidal out of all trans people and like I just wanted to scream at OP this isn't a competition we all are oppressed

Idk what study/studies they were citing, but I will say that this study suggests that trans pay rates are a bit more complicated than that?

They look at binary trans men (FTM), binary trans women (MTF), and genderqueer/nonbinary people AFAB & AMAB in the USA. Here are some findings:

Within the ‘Trans’ grouping, these estimates indicate that the income of FTMs ranges between 5–19% less than similarly situated MTFs. Within the ‘GQNB’ grouping, the income of AFAB GQNBs ranges between 9–22% less than AMAB GQNBs. For the ‘AMAB’ grouping, AMAB GQNBs income ranges 12–15% less than their MTF counterparts, with the exception of one insignificant decomposition estimate.28 Finally, AFAB GQNBs income ranges 13–26% less than their FTM counterparts in the ‘AFAB’ grouping.

Compared with this group, MTFs who transitioned from male-to-female later in life – between 25–29 years, 30–34 years, or ≥35 years – have incomes which are 30%, 43% and 52% more, respectively. In contrast, FTMs transitioning to male later in life is correlated with progressively lower incomes, with those transitioning at ≥35 years having 25% lower incomes than those who transitioned up to 24 years old

The two groups [identifying as wo/men vs. identifying as trans wo/men] of MTFs do not significantly differ along standard demographic or employment characteristics, while FTMs who identify as men have higher rates of education and income compared with their trans male identifying counterparts. The main differences in these groups are along trans specific characteristics. Those simply identifying as women and men are significantly more likely to have socially transitioned to living as their gender identity on a day-to-day basis, and to “pass” as their gender identity rather than their assigned sex. Of those who have socially transitioned, the age at which they began doing so does not significantly differ among these sub-groups of MTFs and FTMs.

Compared with ACS [American Community Survey] cis-men, those assigned male at birth (MTFs and AMAB GQNBs) have similar rates of labour force participation, while those assigned female at birth (FTMs and AFAB GQNBs) are around 4 percentage points more likely to be out of the labour force. Despite similar or lower rates of labour force participation, all transgender groups have higher rates of unemployment (5–8 pp) and, conditional on being in employment, being transgender is correlated with higher rates of part-time work (2–19 pp). All transgender groups have higher rates of poverty (8–16 pp) also.

This is just one study but I really like how it looks further into the issue and is inclusive of GQ/NB people. The authors actually point out how identifying as GQ/NB can result in worse treatment because of having a gender further outside the norm. I also find it interesting how they look at trans people who identify specifically as trans vs. just as men or women, and the result that trans-identified FTMs tend to have higher education and income- which could point to them having better access to transitioning through wealth and being more aligned with cisheternormative standards, giving them more experiences in line with cis men of their race and class, while FTMs who do not pass as cis(het) men feel their transness is more crucial to their experiences.

But anyways. Even if trans women are paid the least, that doesn't erase the real damage of anti-transmasculinity- but, also, it may be much more complex than that. There's a lot more variables to consider than just "trans or not trans." And, ultimately, we're all paid less as a result of being trans.

#m. #ask box #transandrophobia #transmisandry #anti transmasculinity #transunity

[jessicamessicavillageofspillage]

Apparently transpeople will also die from the inaccurate recording of Sex within statistics

The collection of data on a person’s sex – that is, whether they are male or female – has become controversial in recent years, and a number of public bodies have moved away from collecting data on sex as a result. For example, Scotland’s chief statistician recently issued guidance stating that data on sex should only be collected in exceptional circumstances. This move has been greeted with alarm by quantitative social scientists who believe that data on sex is vitally important and that data on both gender identity and sex is needed.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) was also embroiled in controversy when it proposed to guide respondents to the 2021 England and Wales census that they may answer the sex question in terms of their subjective gender identity, rather than their sex. This was despite the fact that the 2021 census also included a new separate question on gender identity. The ONS was forced to change its proposed guidance on the sex question by a judicial review and went on to advise that people should answer the first question to reflect their legal sex. The Scottish census authorities have been criticised for disregarding the implications of that judgment.

Statistics on employment, health, crime and education have all been affected by this trend.

The Government Equalities Office has issued guidance to employers who are legally bound to report on their gender pay gap to provide data on their employees’ gender identity, not their sex, and to exclude employees who “do not identify as ‘men’ or ‘women’” from the data. This makes it impossible to assess whether natal males who identify as trans or non-binary may have different labour-market experiences from natal females who identify as trans or non-binary. Yet non-binary or transgender identification may not protect females from discrimination, for example, on the basis of pregnancy or maternity or the perceived risk of becoming pregnant.

The NHS decides who to call for routine medical screenings based on the gender marker a person has recorded with their GP rather than their sex as recorded as birth. The NHS’s failure to record biological sex on patient records has led to trans patients not being called in for screening for conditions that may affect them due to their sex, such as ovarian cancer or prostate cancer. If trans patients are not screened for such conditions, the consequences are potentially fatal. The use of gender identity rather than sex has also led to confusion for some trans patients attempting to use sexual health services.

Freedom of information requests have revealed that multiple police forces in England now record crimes by male suspects as committed by women if the perpetrator requests to be recorded as such. Even small numbers of cases misclassified in this way can lead to substantial bias in crime statistics.

Differences between the sexes are an important factor for analysis in most, if not all, of the areas that social and health scientists address. Sex, alongside age, is a fundamental demographic variable, vital for projections regarding fertility and life expectancy. Sex has systematic effects on physical health and is also linked to mental health. And the importance of sex extends to all aspects of social life, including employment, education and crime.

We know that many differences between the sexes have changed dramatically over time – education and labour market participation are two examples. Without consistent data on sex, social scientists would not be able to track this change over time or to understand whether efforts to improve the representation of women and girls in domains where they are underrepresented have been effective.

We have been losing data on sex, as public sector bodies have switched to collecting data on gender identity instead. But the tide may have turned. The UK Statistics Authority has recently published guidance that recommends that “sex, age and ethnic group should be routinely collected and reported in all administrative data and in-service process data, including statistics collected within health and care settings and by police, courts and prisons”. It also says data producers should clearly distinguish between concepts such as sex, gender and gender identity.

Both people’s material circumstances and their identities are important to their lives. We know that sex matters, and we have much to learn about the ways in which gender identity matters, too. Rather than removing data on sex, we should collect data on both sex and gender identity, in order to develop a better understanding of the influence of both of these factors and the intersection between them.

Original article in The Conversation

Professor Alice Sullivan’s academic profile

UCL Social Research Institute

#social science #data #Erasure of equality measures for everyone #radblr #radical feminism

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Sexiest Podcast Character — Unscripted Bracket — Round 3

Propaganda

Ver'million "Millie" Blue (Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN):

Mech pilot with a body horror mode and a thematic dog motif. She’s trans in a culture that does gender way different than contemporary human genders, and she’s sexy about it. Escaped a military super soldier cloning program to join a revolutionary organization. Kind of a fish person (pls look up art of her, it’s all excellent). Dreams of settling down into a peaceful life and is so so so wife to me

She's a canonical goth trans woman with sick teal hair and scales and she's an alien who's vaguely fishlike and she's a sniper and an absolute shit kicker she's literally SO sexy

ok so i did just submit Pickman bc she won my tournament but i gotta say, Milli is my personal pick for sexiest f@tt character! she's goth! she could kill me! but she won't! she just wants to be away from the war! she's breaking out of the worldview she's been conditioned in to since infancy! her mech is called the stray dog! and after the campaign ends she goes around recruiting so many people that they recognizably start getting called the stray dogs! she's so excited to have literally any participation in governing! she spends a while going around the moon to install a communications system and gets to learn what its like when you approach people in a way that isn't immediately antagonistic! SHE DECLARED A GOOD HER RIVAL! she got SO close to getting out but then her sense of duty to others pulled her back in (im not actually sure if that last one is hot exactly but it SURE is compelling). AND SHE'S A FISH WHO REJECTED THE GENDER SYSTEM SHE GREW UP IN FOR ONE NOT DESIGNED TO FURTHER WARFARE!

The entire blog @fuckyeahvermillionblue.

milli cannot lose she is the second sexiest fatt character and Pickman already lost so Milli has to carry it forward come on she chose to be a woman when her culture/species literally doesn't have women, she was a prisoner doing forced labour and she still wore goth prom clothes to a state funeral and got messy drunk and she's got a big gun and a leather jacket that says "Divine Retribution" in red and she Is SO COOL AND SEXY that the revolutionary group included "Look Sick as Shit" as one of their 8 main tenets exclusively because she fucking whipped ass at the combination MET gala/Olympics by doing combined sniping/trick shots with her mech

sorry but the rest of this propaganda is too good to leave in tags

#But milli is literally a clone raised in fascist school for war and now she uses her sniping skills for revolution#She chose to be a woman when her culture/species doesn't even HAVE women. She's teal haired and trans and sexy#And she's so funny and everyone accepts that she's cool and competent and she made her mech be able to cry#She's literally goth gf. She wants to retire to a cottage. She's canonically into women. Like come on.

Millie is the best girl and you should vote for her. Her mech is a transformer that cries

VER'MILLION BLUE HOT BUFF CHICK

VOTE MILLIE

Kravitz (The Adventure Zone: Balance):

Grim Reaper. So hot he managed to date Taako from TV

gotta be krav

#Round 3 #Ver'million Blue #Millie Blue #Kravitz #Kravitz TAZ #Friends at the Table #PARTIZAN #The Adventure Zone #TAZ Balance

[dailyanarchistposts]

If we stop, the world stops

Millions of women around the world participated in events for International Women’s Day (IWD) on March the 8th. The most militant action was in the growth of the ‘Women’s Strike’, with 5.3 million people on strike in Spain. In Britain, the interest in the tactics of the strike on IWD is relatively new, yet still 7,000 women pledged to strike. In addition, links were made to grass roots unions such as the Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union (CAIUW) with support for their pickets for a Living Wage. Sex workers also co-ordinated their own actions for decriminalisation and trans women held an action over the problems of access to NHS services.

The organisers in Britain made it clear that the strike should focus on demands for working class women, including those who often face the most exploitation and discrimination, like migrants, sex workers, trans women. It is not just a strike about traditional work but also about ‘invisible labour’, such as care, domestic and emotional labour, and against male violence. The historical origins of the day make it clear that the purpose is not to have more women politicians or company directors (see box). Instead it is focused on the majority of women who are at the bottom of the pile, both in the workplace and in the home. According to one organiser of the Women’s Strike in Britain: “We are instead taking action – action against our exploitation under capitalism, where the domestic and emotional work we do for little or no pay is made invisible, while austerity measures force us into a more and more vulnerable position. This is feminism for the 99%”.

It was in Spain, however, that the strike was the most successful. This was partially because of the support it got from the mainstream unions. However, it is clear that they were forced into support as a result of the massive upsurge from the grass roots organisations. According to one source (thefreeonline.wordpress.com): “An important feature of this strike is that it has been promoted and organised from the bottom up, and not the other way around. That is to say, the initiative of the strike has been born first in the streets, in the neighbourhoods and districts and has developed in open assemblies. It has not been a proposal of the unions, but of the feminist movement.” The mainstream unions only called for a 2 hour strike whereas unions such as the CGT and the anarchist CNT called for 24 hour stoppages.

Despite calls for the strike to be based on working class women, it is uncertain to what extent many women could actually participate, given that they are the ones in the most precarious position. In Spain, headlines were given to women in media and other professional jobs. In Britain, the strike was most successful in the universities, with 61 universities taking part. However, the link to CAIWU and sex workers showed that there certainly was support outside the universities.

If women are to truly win all the demands put forward on the day then we must go beyond demands for equality in the system and call for both the end of capitalism and patriarchy. So how is this going to happen? The strike in Spain may have been very successful in terms of numbers on the streets but what will it achieve in terms of winning demands? Politicians and even bosses may pay lip service to the aims of IWD but they are unlikely to do anything about it. In the end, using the success of March the 8th, women and men must continue to organise at the grass roots level and build up a movement that lasts much longer than a day. The linking up of a number of groups on the 8th provides a good basis on which to move forward.

Origins of International Women’s Day

March 8 is International Women’s Day. This date commemorates March 8, 1909, when 129 employees of a cotton textile factory in New York were killed when their own owner set fire to the factory while all of them were inside making a protest demanding labour rights. In addition, the colour of feminism is violet because, it is said, the smoke that came from that fire was violet, like the fabrics that were there that day. At an International Congress of Socialist Women in 1910, Clara Zetkin proposed this date as the International Women’s Day in honour of the cotton workers.

#anarcha-feminism #feminism #women #anarchism #resistance #autonomy #revolution #community building #practical anarchism #anarchist society #practical #anarchy #daily posts #communism #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #late stage capitalism #organization #grassroots #grass roots #anarchists #libraries #leftism #social issues #economics #anarchy works #environmentalism #environment #anti colonialism #mutual aid

[haggishlyhagging]

I want women actively to resist, to refrain from cooperating with men, to cease making our resources available to men who are likely to then use against us what they have taken. I want men to be ‘irrelevant’ to our enterprise of constructing our own knowledge; I do not want them ‘revered’. I am advocating non-violent non co-operation.

It is ironic that it is Mahatma Gandhi who is held up as the originator of this method of resistance. Elizabeth Sarah informs me that in 1906 he visited Britain and on his own ready admission stated that it was from the suffragettes that he learned the power of non co-operation. As they refused to pay fines and were imprisoned, as they refused to acknowledge the authority of the law or its makers, as they ‘invented’ the method of hunger striking they revealed that a group defined as powerless, excluded from political participation (for they were kept out of meetings), were able to exert a great deal of power. They were able to act and the oppressor had to react. The oppressor could change his ways or he could show that his rule is maintained by force, but either way his ideology that the oppressed are content with their lot is seriously challenged.

As males cannot be authorities on women's experiences, what they make of this thesis does not much matter; but as they possess enormous power what does matter is what they can take and use. I have tried to practise what I preach and to provide them with as little as possible. I cannot condone violence against the enemy, but I can withdraw my labour from the exploiter and will not be swayed by the argument that he has more rights, that his interest is greater, his authority more legitimate.

I do not believe that women are now of age so that it is perfectly in order for us to start criticising (attacking, condemning, demolishing, deriding) each other in public forums, for I know, as women have found again and again, that our words will be taken down and used as evidence against us. We play into men's hands when we represent our sex negatively; we oblige them by doing some of their work for them. I know we are perfectly capable of generating our own valid meanings and I know that we do not all agree. I even know that I will never agree with some women; but my 'criticisms' are in private until the view of a woman carries the same weight as a man's, and is not just the raw data for his patriarchal products. While the world is arranged as it is I choose to assert my intellectual and creative existence as a woman and to promote a positive representation of women's lives, values, and ideas. Let men do what they will with this.

-Dale Spender, Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done to Them

#dale spender #female oppression #patriarchy #non cooperation #female rebellion #suffragettes

[thedreadvampy]

hmmm so to reflect on a conversation me and mum had in our little impromptu bell hooks book club:

(nb: here I am using "men" and "women" to describe the roles and expectations for people pigeonholed into masculinity or femininity under patriarchy - this includes a mixed group of people of all genders in a way that is not necessarily static)

so:

men are culturally held back from loving others or themselves

therefore men both are harmed by and enact patriarchy

women are sick of cleaning up after men and handling their emotional work. we've been expected to do it our whole lives and liberation from patriarchy for women necessarily partially entails us no longer being expected to do this one-sided labour which both exhausts us and prevents men from the space to develop

why should it be on us to continue to do the invisible labour of Figuring Out What To Do? women are consistently pushed into being the people who Figure Out What To Do.

in an emotional conflict, men are traditionally left saying "I'll do anything, just tell me what we have to do!" and leaving women to figure out, both for themselves and for the man, what the actual path forwards is.

and in the end isn't that the path forwards?

that we're still conditioned, as women, to singlehandedly "do for" men the job that can only be properly done by two people working together, ie loving.

by falling back into the trap of trying to Fix The Problem ourselves - come up with theory and practise to liberate men - we deprive men of the space to figure it out.

the same way women doing a man's housework their whole life deprives him of the chance to look after himself, acceding to the demand that you do his emotional work for him deprives him of the opportunity to learn how to love by himself.

we're taught implicitly that love is wage labour. men are expected to pay - in money, in security, in compliments, in favours, in sex, in physical intimacy, in emotional vulnerability - for someone else (a woman) to do the labour of emotional questioning, self-reflection, path-setting, care, negotiation and compromise, thoughtfulness, figuring out how to love and be loved, and putting it into practise.

ie "women are machines you put Kindness Coins into until sex/love/emotional intimacy comes out"

you can't love yourself for someone else. nor can you figure out how to love them. they have to be an active participant. but men are rarely forced into a space where they have the room to learn those skills.

the impulse, which my mum particularly found led her to a challenge point with hooks' work, is that if we identify the problem as being that men do not know how to receive or give love, our conditioned response is that we should flood them with unconditional positive regard, forgiveness and love.

but that is already what's asked of us by patriarchy - to forgive, excuse and continue to make space for men regardless of how their actions harm us or others

what we need to work towards is offering the same conditional love we offer to people who aren't men - infants, girls, boys, and women. conditional in the sense that it's given freely and openly but is subject to context and behaviour.

if we are treated poorly, neglected, used, ignored, or abused, we don't owe infinite love and forgiveness. our love and forgiveness is contingent on, well, the Will to Change.

nobody we love has to be perfect at loving us or themselves. but relationships require work and both parties need to be putting the work in - proactively asking questions and trying to find answers for themselves, not expecting the other to do all the planning and thinking.

we owe this to ourselves and to men. men only have the space to change if there are boundaries to what we will accept, and consequences to inequitable behaviour.

what we do owe, both to men and to ourselves, is to accept men as people who have experienced harm, and who are struggling against a system which wounds and oppresses them as well, and to accept them as our equals - neither more or less deserving of care, love and forgiveness than anyone else.

some of what that means, as well, is interrogating our own biases. do we give room for men to change when they're trying? not by letting them off the hook, but by recognising the difference between shittiness and clumsiness and offering guidance? how do we as women enforce patriarchy (on men, women, boys, girls, or infants)? how do we do the work of trusting our own judgements and desires and knowing ourselves outwith patriarchal gender roles and expectations? bc we deserve better than to be men's emotional navvies, just as they deserve the space to understand and engage with their own emotions.

the best thing we can do for men is to stop doing shit for men. to make it clear that love and intimacy isn't a thing we do for men but a thing we do as a joint effort, or not at all.

#red said #haven't quite finished the book yet but i think we're largely headed in the same direction #the looming monster of rape in the abstract

[indizombie]

Girl children are immunised less than boys, hospitalisation among women is lower, there is a delayed morbidity among women, meaning they will only seek medical help as a last resort, much later than men. “There are two reasons for this,” says Roy. “One is the overall decrease in labour force participation of women, especially after Covid. Second, women do not control the resources.” Financial independence is essential for control of resources, but during the pandemic, more women have lost their jobs—in formal and informal sectors—than men. Since 2020, there has also been a drop in women seeking employment.

Rakhi Bose, ‘Privatisation In Healthcare And Education Will Be Catastrophic For Women’, Outlook

#Outlook #Rakhi Bose #Girl children #immunisation #hospitalisation #women #morbidity #medical help #Bijoya Roy #labour force participation #Covid-19 #Financial independence #control of resources #job loss #women seeking employment

[spiderfreedom]

get thee some feminist blogs

Y'all there are a lot of good feminist and woman-centric substacks (blogs) out there and you don't need to pay to see the good articles! just put your email in and they will email the free articles to you. or don't and just bookmark the site itself. anyway on to the recommendations!

The Unpublishable by Jessica Defino: A critique of beauty culture from a woman who used to be an editor shilling beauty products. She is uncompromising in her analysis of the false mystique of beauty and the harms that beauty culture does. Recommended article: Barbie Has Cellulite (But You Don't Have To):

From the story alone — Barbie leaves Barbie Land after discovering she’s a “less-than-perfect doll” and journeys to the human world to “find true happiness” — it’s clear that writer-director Greta Gerwig aims to subvert much of what the Mattel toy symbolizes in American culture: conformity, compliance, the objectification of women and girls. The issue, as it was with Don’t Worry Darling and Blonde, is that you cannot subvert the politics of Barbie while preserving the beauty standards of Barbie. The beauty standards are the politics, or at least part of them. (emphasis mine)

(she has tons of great ones like "Having a human experience? Try being hot instead")

The Great Gender Divergence by Dr. Alice Evans: A historical/economical history of patriarchy and analysis of modern women's participation in the labor force. What forces prevent women from working across different countries? Recommended Article: The Patrilocal Trap.

Pre-Christian Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Central Asia and East Asia were all patrilineal and patrilocal. Sons were scions of the family line, inherited land/ herds, and remained with their clan. Households strengthened trusted networks through inter-marriage. Daughters were socialised to marry, please their in-laws and stay put. Marriages were arranged; divorce was stigmatised. Wives’ inability to credibly threaten exit gave their husband’s family the upper hand. Mothers-in-law could enforce their preferences - to exploit labour or restrict mobility. I call this “The Patrilocal Trap”. What explains the global-historical variation in patrilocality? Through my globally comparative historical analysis, I realise that arranged patrilocal marriages with stigmatised divorce were common in regions with inherited wealth, beasts of burden and long-distance trade. What might explain this correlation?

And then here are some good individual articles from sundry writers: Do Words Mean Anything Anymore, The Proletarian of the Proletariat, and What Was the Girlboss.

Please share your favorite off-Tumblr feminist or woman-centric blogs and articles! It's a big internet out here and I know I can't have read all the feminist blogs :D

#feminism #radical feminism #radblr #radfems please touch #mypost

[blueiskewl]

A U.K. Museum Claims Roman Emperor Elagabalus Was Transgender

The North Hertfordshire Museum will refer to the 3rd-century ruler using she/her pronouns.

Third century C.E. Roman Emperor Elagabalus was transgender, says the North Hertfordshire Museum in the U.K., which will be referring to the ruler with she/her pronouns.

The change is in keeping with museum policy that states that pronouns used in its displays will be those “the individual in question might have used themselves” or whatever pronoun is “in retrospect, appropriate,” according to a report in the Telegraph.

The museum owns a coin minted in the reign of Elagabalus, who ruled Rome from 218 to 222 C.E., when the emperor was assassinated at age 18. It has been used in LGBTQ-themed displays. According to the museum, it consults with Stonewall, an LGBTQ+ charity, and trade union Unison’s LGBT wing for best display practices.

“Elagabalus most definitely preferred the she pronoun, and as such this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times,” Keith Hoskins, Liberal Democrat councillor and executive member for arts at the Liberal Democrat and Labour coalition-run North Herts Council, told the Telegraph.

“We try to be sensitive to identifying pronouns for people in the past, as we are for people in the present,” he said. “It is only polite and respectful. We know that Elagabalus identified as a woman and was explicit about which pronouns to use, which shows that pronouns are not a new thing.”

Cassius Dio, who chronicled the history of Rome, wrote that Elagabalus was “termed wife, mistress, and queen,” telling one lover, “Call me not Lord, for I am a Lady.” Elagabalus even reportedly asked to have female genitalia fashioned for her.

There is some disagreement among historians about the meaning of the classical texts in which Elagabalus asks to be called “lady,” however, according to the Telegraph, with some deeming it an attempt at character assassination. Dio served the reign of emperor Severus Alexander, who succeeded Elagabalus, and used such behavior as justification for the assassination.

“The Romans didn’t have our idea of ‘trans’ as a category,” Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, a Cambridge classics professor, told the Telegraph, adding that “they used accusations of sexual behavior ‘as a woman’ as one of the worst insults against men.” Wallace-Hadrill also indicates that racism may have played a part, since Elagabalus was Syrian and not Roman.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (c. 204 – 11/12 March 222), better known by his nicknames Elagabalus and Heliogabalus, was Roman emperor from 218 to 222, while he was still a teenager. His short reign was notorious for sex scandals and religious controversy. A close relative to the Severan dynasty, he came from a prominent Arab family in Emesa (Homs), Syria, where since his early youth he served as head priest of the sun god Elagabal. After the death of his cousin, the emperor Caracalla, Elagabalus was raised to the principate at 14 years of age in an army revolt instigated by his grandmother Julia Maesa against Caracalla's short-lived successor, Macrinus. He only posthumously became known by the Latinised name of his god.

Later historians suggest Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos. He replaced the traditional head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter, with the deity Elagabal, of whom he had been high priest. He forced leading members of Rome's government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, presiding over them in person. He married four women, including a Vestal Virgin, in addition to lavishing favours on male courtiers thought to have been his lovers. He was also reported to have prostituted himself. His behavior estranged the Praetorian Guard, the Senate and the common people alike. Amidst growing opposition, at just 18 years of age he was assassinated and replaced by his cousin Severus Alexander in March 222. The assassination plot against Elagabalus was devised by Julia Maesa and carried out by disaffected members of the Praetorian Guard.

Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extreme eccentricity, decadence, zealotry and sexual promiscuity. This tradition has persisted; among writers of the early modern age he endured one of the worst reputations among Roman emperors. Edward Gibbon, notably, wrote that Elagabalus "abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury". According to Barthold Georg Niebuhr, "the name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others" because of his "unspeakably disgusting life". An example of a modern historian's assessment is Adrian Goldsworthy's: "Elagabalus was not a tyrant, but he was an incompetent, probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had." Despite near-universal condemnation of his reign, some scholars write warmly about his religious innovations, including the 6th-century Byzantine chronicler John Malalas, as well as Warwick Ball, a modern historian who described him as "a tragic enigma lost behind centuries of prejudice".

#Roman Emperor Elagabalus #A U.K. Museum Claims Roman Emperor Elagabalus Was Transgender #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #ancient rome #roman history #roman empire #roman emperor #long reads #long post

[maaarine]

India overtakes China to become world’s most populous country (Hannah Ellis-Petersen, The Guardian, April 24 2023)

“It is also the first time since 1950, when the UN first began keeping global population records, that China has been knocked off the top spot.

China’s population decline follows decades of strict laws to bring the country’s booming birthrate under control, including the introduction of a one-child policy in the 1980s.

This included fines for having extra children, forced abortions and sterilisations.

While initially highly effective in controlling the population, these policies became a victim of their own success, and the country is now grappling with an ageing population in steep decline, which could have severe economic implications.

Part of the problem is that because of a traditional preference for boys, the one-child policy led to a massive gender imbalance.

Men now outnumber women by about 32 million. “How can the country now shore up birth rates, with millions of missing women?” asks Mei Fong, the author of One Child, a book about the impact of the policy.

Recent policies introduced in China trying to incentivise women to have more children have done little to stimulate population growth.

Women still have only 1.2 children and the population is expected to fall by almost 10% in the next two decades.

According to projections, the size of the Chinese population could drop below 1 billion before the end of the century.

In India, the population has grown by more than a billion since 1950. Though growth has now slowed, the number of people in the country is still expected to continue to rise for the next few decades, hitting its peak of 1.7 billion by 2064. (…)

India’s demography is far from uniform across the country.

One third of predicted population growth over the next decade will come from just two states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, in the north of the country, which are some of India’s poorest and most agricultural states.

Uttar Pradesh alone already has a population of about 235 million, bigger than Nigeria or Brazil.

Meanwhile states in India’s south, which is more prosperous and has far higher rates of literacy, population rates have already stabilised and have begun to fall.

In the next decade, states in the southern states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu are likely to start grappling with an ageing population, and by 2025, one in five people in Kerala will be over 60.

The divide in population growth between India’s north and south could also have political implications.

After 2026, India’s electoral lines are due to be revised and redrawn based on census data, in particular relating to the number of people in constituencies.

Many politicians in southern states have expressed concern that their successes in bringing down population numbers, through education programmes, family planning and high literacy, could result in a reduction in their political representation in parliament, and a further political domination of the northern states that continue to have a population boom.

Currently the average age in India is just 29, and the country will continue to have a largely youthful population for the next two decades.

A similar “demographic dividend” proved highly useful in China, leading to an economic boom, particularly in manufacturing.

While India has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies in the world, and recently overtook the UK as the fifth-largest, experts have stressed that the country needs more investment in education and employment to seize the opportunity presented by a young population over the next few decades.

India continues to struggle with high youth unemployment and less than 50% of working-age Indians are in the workforce.

The figure for women is even lower, with just 20% of women participating in the formal labour market, a figure that is decreasing as India develops.”

#article #politics #weaker sex

[apas-95]

Sorry if you're not the right person to come to but I think my friend has been reading up on TERF stuff because she's trying to unlearn radically inclusive rhetoric and I don't know what to direct her to that's critical rather than "gender critical" if you know what I mean. Do you have any advice?

I'm not very good at providing readings on this, but I could offer some works from Clara Zetkin, particularly her piece Proletarian Women and Socialism:

The investigations of Bachofen, Morgan and others seem to prove that the social suppression of women coincided with the creation of private property. The contrast within the family between the husband as proprietor and the wife as non-proprietor became the basis for the economic dependence and the social illegality of the female sex. This social illegality represents, according to Engels, one of the first and oldest forms of class rule. [...] The machines, the modern mode of production, slowly undermined domestic production and not just for thousands but for millions of women the question arose: Where do we now find our livelihood? Where do we find a meaningful life as well as a, job that gives us mental satisfaction? Millions were now forced to find their livelihood and their meaningful lives outside of their families and within society as a whole. At that moment they became aware of the fact that their social illegality stood in opposition to their most basic interests. [...] Therefore the liberation struggle of the proletarian woman cannot be similar to the struggle that the bourgeois woman wages against the male of her class. On the contrary, it must be a joint struggle with the male of her class against the entire class of capitalists. She does not need to fight against the men of her class in order to tear down the barriers which have been raised against her participation in the free competition of the market place. Capitalism’s need to exploit and the development of the modern mode of production totally relieves her of having to fight such a struggle. On the contrary, new barriers need to be erected against the exploitation of the proletarian woman.

Zetkin puts forward the Marxist position, based on Engels' work The Origin of Family, Private Property, and the State, that the social oppression of women is developed from the gendered division of labour, wherein women take up the role of domestic maintenance, maintaining and reproducing the conditions that allow men to labour. She points out that, as Marxism illustrates, since every school of thought and movement within class society is, inevitably, a school of thought and movement of a certain class, there is a significant difference between the women's movement of the bourgeoisie and that of the proletariat. Further, she details how the political-economic basis of women's oppression, the gendered division of labour, is being made obsolete, as service work and domestic production are no longer carried out in the individual household, solely by women, but by modern industry, wherein the division of labour is a far more complex one between workers.

Alexandra Kollontai also presents many of these same points in her work Communism and the Family, and is, I would say, much easier to read. This Marxist feminist analysis and critical theory would be continued by later authors, including Angela Davis, particularly in her work Women, Race, and Class, which I sadly can't find a link for reading online. More than just class, the intersection of race with womanhood is also an incredibly important aspect that, as with class, creates important lines of struggle that white, bourgeois feminism does not (and cannot) address, with its reductionism.

If your friend is disillusioned by regular bourgeois feminism, and looking for some hard-hitting 'critical' stuff, then hopefully this would provide something more substantial than jumping down the radfem rabbit hole.

#feminism #marxist feminism #kollontai #zetkin #angela davis