***
HWMNBN quotes a conversation:
HWMNBN: have you wonderfed why ther aren't any big female directors?
Someone: sophia coppola ?
there are some who direct chick flicks
HWMNBN: sofia coppola has only got two big ones to her name leh
Someone: lets put it this way la
women have never succeeded much artistically
save for a handful
HWMNBN: women have never succeded much anyway
save for a handful
Someone: errr ...
HWMNBN: it's a history thing lah
Someone: i think artistically speaking ... women are just cold that's why they can't perform with soul
some famous lead guitarist, can't rem the name once said a female lead guitarist is an oxymoron
HWMNBN: i thought women were supposed to be more emo
Someone: in a different way if you know what i mean
HWMNBN: two caveats: i meant that women haven't succeded much because historically they were oppressed:)
[secondly,] an observation: art is a flash abstract thing that transcends. (overgeneralising). women's abstractions are far more micro than macro
i'm not articulating myself very well, but what i'm trying to say is that a woman will scry obscure abstract meaning in interpersonal relations
whereas men prefer to get their obscure abstract meaning in externalities
hence the latter predisposes towards art
i know it's a crude overgeneralisation but that's what i feel
HWMNBN on a feminist: she's from the steinem school right?
dworkin and all the bra burning womyn type
XXX is living proof of one of my favourite aphorisms: "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."
Me: haha
you two can go fight it out
HWMNBN: men who go whoring are oppressed as a result of matriarchal domination by guilt that compels them to seek an outlet for their healthy sexual appetites in a stigmatising way.
it is impossible to have a conversation on the - in my opinion - valid psychological and emotional drives that lead men towards prostitutes because her ilk are unprepared to accept that males have deeper psychological and emotional needs beyond beating women up, confining them to the kitchen, and using them as incubators
[bit of education for HWMNBN on third wave feminism and how, though it begs the question, 'patriarchy' oppresses men as well]
HWMNBN: isn't XXX haranguing you about ideological purity here/
your understanding of feminism and criticisms of it are based on flawed ideologial understanding
ie. you lack the "political consciousness" of the oppressive patriarchy by virtue of your gender
because most of the most liberated and empowered women i know have no time for her bullshit
actually i've heard it said - from women out here (more than in sg oddly enough) - that they feel oppressed because the path to success now exists for them as well
but it requires them to behave and conduct themselves in a male-oriented model of behaviour
ie. women can now be successful in the workplace and empowering
but only if they behave like men
i find that not entirely true (especially in private banking and fx sales jobs where THEY'RE ALL WOMEN)
but even that can be construed as opporessive (ie the women succeed becuase they use ku niang wiles to flog their shit - which is a further indictment of the patriarchal society where women are supposed to pander to male desires)
*shrugS* i tend to view this oppression mor from an economic stand point rather than a "gender" / "patriarchal" perspective - ie. we are all, men and women alike, enslaved to an economic system tha encourages an erosion of ethics and a focus on rent-seeking and information asymmetries and system-gaming
Me: yeah
that's part of third wave feminism
well successful blacks are accused of 'acting white'
so we can see that they are part of an oppressive social structure where success is defined in ethnocentric terms where blacks can only succeed by eschewing blackness
so we need alternative modes of success [Addendum: Examples might include having a lot of bling, using ebonics, wearing FUBU apparel and slapping your bitch]
same with women
HWMNBN: exactly
you can
you can also blame it on the illuminati
or the jews
any dialogue bemoaning the current ills of society is, by definitoin, chopped up into :"us vs them"
you just pick which us you see yourself as on and which them you wan tto overtrhow/liberate/emasculate/etc
Me: there's a reason my lecturer called marxism conspiracy theories
third wave feminism: we are oppressed in subtle and insidious ways. women are oppressed by the mere existence of slimming ads and pornography!
post feminism: we are now liberated. for all intents and purposes, women aren't discriminated against purely because they are female. stop whining and start doing real work
HWMNBN: what about out here in the east?
gender values and roles could - and arguably so - d with some updating out here
frnakly that should be the focus of their fight
Me: yeah in the east there's more that can be said about what remains to be done
I'm talking about the West in general
HWMNBN: *drawls* of course to draw a line between occident and orient is simply reflective of false colonial consciousness where the superior moral values of an enlightened orient must be imposed - through economic tariffs and cultural annexation rather than armed force - on a supine and primitive East
hahahahhaa
Me: yeah
this is where they get all angsty
because claims of ethnocentrism get levelled
then you have the intersections of gender, race, postcolonialism and all that
and it gets very messy
and I'm not sure whether it remainscoherent
HWMNBN: this is why i marginally prefer finance
at least for allthe complications and circumlocutions, there' s an objective wya of keeping score
as an intellectual study that is
i'm not sure which is worse, the brute anti-intellectualism of modern society, or the arcane jargon-filled semantic legerdermain of people like XXX
incidentally you should ask her to parse this litle conversation i had with you a day or so ago which i thought was indicative of postfeminist gender attribute blurring and the essentialist error of a universal female experience of oppression
me: "Is this a good time to call?"
Gabriel: "No. my hair is wet."