Notes on Obedecedario Patriarcal

• I think I’ve heard about the Grimm study on women characters. I wonder how it compares to other folk traditions. Thinking here specifically on the rich tapestry of woman lead characters in Russian folklore, or at least my perception of a higher proportion, biases and bad memory accounted.
• The idea of romantic jealousy as a manifestation of patriarchal obscurantism is interesting: that romantic jealousy is the attempt to have absolute knowledge about what can’t be really aprehended. It reminded me of that quote by Arca, discussing doubt and gender identity: “There’s a reason that basically every major world religion centers a moment of doubt in the process of developing a faith, because faith without doubt is just dogma”. Which is ironic in a sense, speaking about obscurantism and quoting religion. But there is something to say about philosophies of doubt (hermeneutics of suspicion and all those shenanigans).
• Also liked from that passage the “violence is overcompensation for the impossibility of acquiring total possesion/comprehension” kind of line.
• Fun to see a quote by Borges, the man who wrote a short story about a man who was inmortal and experienced everything… except, funnily enough, trying to be a woman (!).
• The “ontological mandates” of patriarchy are form of epistemic violence (see above) (kinda obvious in inshight).
• Oh, ambiguous reference to the “gender debates’”, kind of sold as a sterile debate (… yeah, let’s ignore the existence of a whole intersection between feminism and queer studies… and ignore that a part of the “sterile debate” seeks out active harm against the other, in conjunction with the typical reactionary forces of the extreme right accross the world) . I wondered when that was going to come out. I don’t negociate basic human rights, so I call bullshit right here.
• The ethics of care are intrinsecally linked to the question of what is actually work. Care labour is, after all, labour, and thus intersects with the laws of capital (as the authors themeselves admit). Ex. g. the idealization of housewifes in the 50’s and 60’s in EEUU as a reaction to the return of male workers to the labour market after most of it left to fight in WWII. Suddenly, at their return, men found their gap was filled in their absence: by women. Meaning: what a radical idea would be to get paid for (our own) domestic work! should we dare to go the extra mile?
  • I wonder what are the parallels with the current fantasies of “tradwifes”. Tradwifing works as a pseudoliberation of the forces and pressures of the labour market, I guess, as scape of the “double shift” of paid and unpaid work, salaried and domestic labour.
• That Emma Goldman quote about dance and revolution… I recently learned it’s apocryphal. I mean… It’s reaaally catchy, and she kiiiiinda says that in many other words, but… I prefer the original, because I feel the misquote takes out conveniently the part about anarchism, so I’m laving it here because I like it a lot:

I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy.

• Catched a reference to Amelia Valcárcel. For fuck’s sake, was it necessary to include here? specially in a very inocuous quote where they also mentioned another historical feminist (Carmen Alborch) way less involved in, you know, the active diminishing of rights of gender dissidencies. I don’t get a good vibe of this. Reminder that gender essentialism is also a form of ontological genocide and the core belief powering misoginy. PS: Actually, doing some reseach: turns out Sara Berbel is part of PSOE, and has participated in some conferences with Valcárcel. So that explains things. :/

So, overall, interesting, though I have a couple gripes with it that I’m glad they didn’t explore much more. The quotes of studies and biases were interesting also.

Some refs I might check out:

• Betty Friedan (on 60’s american housewifes)