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• Tuesday, July 29, 2008 08:05 PM

  @badstoat

  You make an interesting point that I've encountered in a particular segment of feminist writing (Cixous and Irrigaray, for example), but I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree. The idea that the personal and emotional aspects of life are devalued because they are culturally associated with women (rather than vice versa) may be provocative, but is neither believable nor helps us break free of the cycle, since it doesn't explain why those aspects would be associated with women in the first place. Furthermore, it reeks of gender essentialism, since it seems to argue that these are essentially "feminine" traits that need to be taken seriously. At some point you really have to just face the reality that politics, economics, and science affect the masses in the same way, while everyone's personal and emotional lives are unique and not necessarily generalizable. And from a practical standpoint, I think it's much easier for women to keep trying to break certain glass ceilings than to try to change the entire focus of Western civilization, especially since now we apparently know that they are equally good at math and science after all.

  As for the post itself, this is the first well-balanced and insightful Broadsheet piece I've seen in a while. I think it strikes at the heart of the internal conflict within feminism that I noted above: are women abetting their own second-class status by focusing on "feminine" topics and gender-specific activities rather than attempting to speak to universal issues, or is attempting to compete with men on equal terms simply letting the patriarchy determine the rules of the game? You can't have it both ways, as Hilary Clinton found out.

  Also, it looks like we have a new troll in the neighborhood. Welcome, King Leonidas, I'm sure you'll find plenty of like-minded people here who only read the headline and proceed to fire off a stream of 4th grade-level sarcasm. Maybe you and James T. Kirk can hang out.

  —achilleselbow Read achilleselbow's other letters
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