THE POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGIST
Mar/Apr 2017
Unelectability, Sovereignty and Occupy
Neither Wanting Nor Seeking Truth
Community Resistance In A Neoliberal Post-Truth Era
Race and Reform in Workplace Law
POPULAR CULTURE and SOCIAL JUSTICE Desegregating Popular Culture for Equal Representation
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THE POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGIST MARCH - APRIL 2017
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Community Resistance In A Neoliberal Post-Truth Era, p25
Politics
After the Election: Don’t Panic, Think! Diana Johnstone
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Chosen Leaders, Proven Failures And Political Debacles James Petras
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Unelectability, Sovereignty and Occupy Thomas Swann
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29 Why Gender Inequality Persists, p38
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Culture
Popular Culture and Social Justice: Desegregating Popular Culture for Equal Representation Yuya Kiuchi
Biopolitics
Cosmopolitan Conceptions? Biopolitics and Emiratisation in Dubai’s IVF “Reprohub” Marcia C. Inhorn
Media
Neither Wanting Nor Seeking Truth Bruce Fein
Race
Community Resistance In A Neoliberal Post-Truth Era: Is Self Care Becoming A Radical Political Act? Ornette D Clennon A Change Must Come: Race and Reform in Workplace Law Phillis h. Rambsy
Gender
Enduring Gender Inequality in Politics: Where to from here? Emma Dalton Why Gender Inequality Persists Mary Evans
Popular Culture and Social Justice, p14
Production & Design: Angela Lamcaster Print Strategy: Stefan Newhart Production Accounts: Lynn Moses Editors: Elenora Elroy, David Lean Managing Editor Europe & Americas: Yetunde Olupitan Group Managing Editor: Jane Liu Editor in Chief: The Political Anthropologist Publishing Oscar Daniel READERS PLEASE NOTE: The views expressed in articles are the authors' and not necessarily those of The Political Anthropologist. Authors may have consulting or other business relationships with the companies they discuss. The Political Anthropologist: 3 - 7 Sunnyhill Road, London SW16 2UG, Tel +44 (0)20 3598 5088, Fax +44 (0)20 7000 1252, info@politicalanthropologist.com, www.politicalanthropologist.com No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission. Copyright © 2017 EBR Media Ltd. All rights reserved. ISSN 2052-7403
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After the Election: Don’t Panic, Think! BY DIANA JOHNSTONE
An effective opposition should know how to distinguish between hot air and real issues, and to judge issues on their own specific merits. The opposition should demand that Trump make good on his promise to avoid war, while opposing his reactionary domestic policies.
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n 2016, the fundamentally undemocratic US two-party system presented the public with the two
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most hated candidates in history. The choice was so dismal that over forty three percent of the voters could not bring themselves to go to the polls. Everyone hated one or the other of the candidates, or both. Whoever won was bound to face vehement opposition. The unexpected shock of Donald Trump’s victory created mass hysteria, with crowds in tears going into the streets to protest – an unprecedented reaction to an uncontested election.
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This hysterical opposition is not the best basis for building the new movement needed to oppose a widely rejected political establishment. Most of the weeping and wailing comes not from Bernie Sanders supporters, who were prepared for the worst, but from those who believed the Clinton campaign claim that Trump represents nothing but various ways to “hate” other people: sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. The response is to hate Trump. This is sterile and gets nowhere politically. Trump’s reputation as a racist fiend is largely based on excessive remarks such as his outrageous promise to build a wall to keep Mexican immigrants from entering the country – outrageous, in fact, because the wall already exists! Except that it is called a “fence”. Washington is not about to be ruled by Nazis, but by reactionary Republicans, which are bad enough but nothing new. If Trump is better than they are on some points, that should
be noted and encouraged. An effective opposition should know how to distinguish between hot air and real issues, and to judge issues on their own specific merits. The Clinton campaign was based on the “identity politics” claim to protect women and minorities from their enemy, Trump. An opposition movement based on perpetuating that claim, with emphasis on how horrible Trump must be personally, is also likely to swallow other aspects of the Clinton campaign line, notably its anti-Russian propaganda. Incited by the mainstream media, the “left” opposition risks echoing the Clintonist accusation that “dictator” Trump is too friendly with “dictator” Putin. And the hysterical opposition will oppose the one positive element in Trump’s campaign: the desire to make business rather than war with Russia. It is significant that the German Defense minister Ursula von der Leyen wasted no time in demanding that Trump choose between friendship with Putin on the one hand or NATO and “our
An effective opposition should know how to distinguish between hot air and real issues, and to judge issues on their own specific merits. shared values” on the other. This is a sign that not only the US war party but also the European NATO machine will be putting pressure on Trump to pursue the very same warlike policies favored by Hillary Clinton. And the disappointed Clintonite opposition is likely to be out in the streets not to oppose wars, but to oppose Trump’s opposition to wars, all in the name of our shared democratic humanitarian values and opposition to “dictators”. This is the danger of hysterical opposition to Trump. It would be a continuation of the worst aspects of this dreadful campaign, totally centered on denouncing individuals, and neglecting serious political questions. A progressive opposition should leave Clintonism behind and develop its own positions, starting with opposition to regime change wars – even if Trump is also against regime change wars. And indeed, it should push Trump to maintain that position, because he will be under strong pressure in Washington to give it up. The opposition should demand that Trump make good on his promise to avoid war, while opposing his reactionary domestic policies. Otherwise, we are heading for the worst of both worlds. Copyright © This was first published in the Counter Punch website on November 14 2016 (http://www. counterpunch.org/2016/11/14/after-the-election-dontpanic-think).
Asheville, North Carolina, USA – February 28, 2016: Parody of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Mr. Monopoly standing close together holding bags of money in front of Bernie Sanders campaign supporters holding signs saying that Bernie is not for sale on February 28, 2016 in downtown Asheville, NC.
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. Her new book is Queen of Chaos: the Misadventures of Hillary Clinton.
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Politics
Chosen Leaders, Proven Failures And Political Debacles BY JAMES PETRAS
The concepts, symbols and signs of the ruling class determine who will be the political “choices” for leaders and officials. Political elites co-opt upwardly mobile “identities”, carefully assessing which of their qualities will contribute to the desired elite outcomes. This is how working class and community-based electorates are seduced into voting against their real class, national, community, gender and racial economic interests.
Bangkok, Thailand – November 18, 2012: Barack Obama arrives at Bangkok's Don Muang International Airport.
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ith a few notable exceptions, political leaders are chosen by political leaders, and not by electorates or communitybased organizations or popular assemblies. Popular media figures and the so-called “pundits”, including academics and self-declared experts and “think-tank” analysts reinforce and propagate these choices. A collection of terms and pseudo concepts are essential in validating what is really an oligarchical process. These concepts are tagged onto whoever is chosen by the elite for electoral candidates or for the seizure of political power. With this framework in mind, we have to critically analyze the symbols and signs used by popular opinion-makers as they promote political elites. We will conclude by posing an alternative to the “propaganda of choice”, which has so far resulted in broken pre-election promises and political debacles. Language and Pseudo-Concepts: Subterfuges for Manipulated Choices The usual suspects in the business of mass-manipulation
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The views expressed by “experts” are primarily ideological and not some disembodied scholarly entity floating in an indeterminate space and time.
describe their political leaders in the same folksy or pseudo-serious terms that they attribute to themselves: Experts/ intuitive improvisers/ trial and error “muddlers”. The “experts” often mean wrong-headed policymakers and advisers whose decisions usually reflect the demands of their current paymasters. Their stated or unstated assumptions are rarely questioned and almost never placed in the context of the contemporary power structures. The experts determine the future trajectory for their political choices. In this way, the views expressed by “experts” are primarily ideological and not some disembodied scholarly entity floating in an indeterminate space and time. Pundits often promote “experience” in describing the “experienced” leader, adviser or cabinet member. They denigrate the opposition candidate adversary as “lacking experience”. The obvious questions to this platitude should be: “What kind of experience? What were the political results of this experience? Who did this experience serve?” We know that Secretaries of Defense William Gates and Donald Rumsfeld and their leading assistants, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, were appointed to their high positions and praised for their “experience”. This “experience” drove the country into repeated disastrous military engagements, political debacles and unending wars. It would be better to reject officials who are highly “experienced” in
creating disasters and appoint those officials experienced in conciliation and reconciliation. Unfortunately the “experts” never discuss these matters in any historical context. Many political choices are adorned with “titles”, such as “successful entrepreneur” and/or “prize winning journalist”. This ignores the fact that those “bestowing titles” come from a narrow band of inbred organizations with financial, military or ideological interests looking for near-future rewards from their now titled, prize winning political choice. Highly certified candidates, we are told, are those eminently qualified to lead, whether they are university academics with prestigious degrees, or doctors, lawyers, or investors who work for leading groups. The most highly vetted officials coming from Harvard University have implemented economic policies leading to the worst crises in the shortest time in world history. Lawrence Summers, PhD and Harvard University President-turned Treasury Secretary participated in the pillage of Russia in the 1990’s and then brought his talent for sowing international chaos home by joining Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. These two “experts” promoted enormous financial swindles, which led to the worst economic crash in the US in seven decades. Money laundering by the big banks flourished under Princeton Summa Cum Laude and US Treasury “UnderSecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence”, Stuart Levey. Levey concentrated on implementing brutal economic sanctions against Iran shutting US businesses out of multibillion-dollar oil deals with Tehran, promoting a huge annual $4 billiondollar giveaway to Israel and a granting a uniquely privileged trade status for
the Jewish state – which cost the US taxpayers additional billions. Receiving “prestigious awards” does not predict a successful policymaker in contemporary US politics. The underlying ideological commitments and political allegiances determine the appointment of these “prize-winning” leaders. From an objective perspective, any obscure college economics graduate, eager to increase high tech US exports and sign profitable trade agreements with Iran, would have been far more successful political choice as Secretary of Treasury. Frequently “identity” colors the choice of appointees, especially favoring an “oppressed” minority, even if their field of competence and their political allegiances run counter to the real interests and political needs of the vast majority of American citizens. Some “ethnic” groups wear their identity on their shirt sleeves as a point of entry into lucrative or influential appointments: “Hello, I’m a Jewish graduate of Yale Law school, which makes me the best choice for an appointment to the Supreme Court … where there are already three Jews out of the ten Justices… and only an antiSemite would consider a fourth to be an ‘over- representation’ of our tiny national minority…whereas the total absence of any WASPs (white Anglo-Protestants) on ‘The Court’ only confirms their historical degeneracy…” Who could object to that? “Identity” appointees are not reluctant to employ scare tactics, including citing old historical grievances and claiming special suffering unique to their heritage, to justify their appointment to privileged, lucrative positions. Their identity also seems to insulate them from any fall-out from their policy catastrophes such as disastrous wars and economic crises, as well as providing impunity for their personal involvement in financial mega-swindles.
Receiving “prestigious awards” does not predict a successful policymaker in contemporary US politics. Race and claims of victimization often serves as a justification for being a political “chosen one”. We are told repeatedly that some appointee, even with a tangential link to skin color, must have suffered past indignities and is therefore uniquely qualified to represent the aspirations of an entire group, promising to eliminate all inequality, right injustices and promote peace and prosperity. Racial identity never prevented three of the worst Caribbean tyrants from robbing and torturing their people: The two Haitian dictators, “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc” Duvalier murdered tens of thousands of Haitians, especially among mixed race educated elites. Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista had to slaughter hundreds of Afro-Caribbean sugar workers in Santiago de Cuba before he could enter the exclusive “whites only” Havana Golf and Country Club. In the United States, it was a “man of color”, General Colin Powell, Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, who bombed and invaded black African Somalia and implemented the policy of invading and destroying Iraq and Afghanistan. The carefully groomed “First Black President-To-Be” Barack Obama, was the protégé of a Chicago-based millionaire lobby led by the fanatical “Israel- First” mob, to bring “identity” to its highest level. This charade culminated in the “First Black President” and promoter of seven devastating wars against the poorest people of the world receiving the Nobel Peace Prize from the hands of the King of
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Sweden and a committee composed of mostly white Swedish Christians. Such is the power of identity. It was of little comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Libyans and South Sahara Africans murdered, pillaged, raped and forced to flee in rotting boats to Europe, that the NATO bombs destroying their country had been sent by the “Historic Black US President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner”. When the wounded captive President Libya Gadhafi, the greatest proponent of Pan-African integration, was brutalized and slaughtered, was he aware that his tormentors were armed and supported by “America’s First Black President”? A video of Gadhafi’s gruesome end became a source of gleeful entertainment for the “Feminist” US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who would go on to cite her “victory” over the Libyan President in her bid to become ‘The First Female President of the US”. The question is not about one’s race or identity, but whose interests are served by the Afro-American leader in question. US President Barack Obama served Wall Street and the Pentagon, whereas Malcolm X and Martin Luther
King had a long and arduous history of leading peoples’ movements. MLK joined the striking Afro-American garbage workers in Memphis and the autoworkers in Detroit. Malcolm X organized and spoke for the Harlem community – while inspiring millions. Gender labels covered the fact that a politically chosen woman ruled on behalf of a family-led tyranny, as in the case of Indira Gandhi in India. The financial lords of the City of London financiers, and the mining and factory bosses in Great Britain chose the very female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who launched multiple wars abroad and smashed trade unions at home. Madame Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who promoted seven wars resulting in the deaths, injuries, displacement and rape of 5 million African and Middle Eastern women and destruction of their families, had the unconditional support of the top 20 Wall Street banks when she ran to become the “First Woman President of the United States”. In other words, political appointments chosen for their “gender identity” bring no special qualities or
Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier dies at 63. © Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
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The “gender emphasis” is most effective on liberals and the advocates of “identity over class politics”. In reality it is a vacuous symbol rather than real power and highlights elite upward mobility. experience that would recommend them as progressive. When political and business elites choose a female for a high political office, they do so because it serves their interests to put a progressive political gloss on their reactionary policies. The “gender emphasis” is most effective on liberals and the advocates of “identity over class politics”. In reality it is a vacuous symbol rather than real power and highlights elite upward mobility. Often media moguls, publicists and corporate leaders laud the “social background” of a candidate. They use such criteria to groom and coopt upwardly mobile workers, trade union officials and community militants. “Chosen leaders” from minority or oppressed backgrounds are put in charge of discipline, work-place speed-ups and lay-offs. They sometimes adopt “workers” language, splicing rough anti-establishment curses with their abuses as they fire workers and cut wages. One’s past social background is a far less useful criterion than current social commitments. As Karl Marx long ago noted, the ruling class is not a closed caste: It is always open to co-opting bright and influential new members among upwardly mobile labor leaders and activists. Labor leaders receive “special favors”, including invitations to political inaugurations and corporate meetings
with all the travel and luxury accommodations paid. Elites frequently transform past militant leaders into corporate policemen, ready to identify, exclude and expel any genuine emerging local and shop floor militants. Public and private labor relations experts frequently describe a labor militant’s ascent to the elite as an “up by his own bootstraps operation” – putting a virtuous gloss on the “self-made worker” ready to serve the interests of the corporate elite! The primary feature that characterizes these “boot-strappers” is how their sense of “solidarity” turns upward and forward toward the bosses, and not backward and downward toward the working masses, as they transform into “boot-lickers”. Many examples of these “upward and forward”looking political choices are found among entertainment celebrities, sports heroes, media figures and pop musicians. Rap singers become ghetto millionaires. And “working-class hero” rock musicians, the well-wrinkled as well as the young, charge hundreds of dollars a seat for their rasping and grasping performances while refusing to play on behalf of striking workers… The popular music, promoted by the elite, contain country and working class lyrics, sung with phony regional twangs to entertain mass audiences even as the successful performers flaunt their Presidential awards, luxury mansions and limos. The political and corporate elite frequently choose phony working class or ethnic identity celebrities to endorse their products, as the gullible public is encouraged to purchase useless commodities, electronic gadgets and gimmicks, and to support reactionary politicians and politics. There are a few celebrities who protest or maintain real mass solidarity but they are blacklisted, ostracized or past their peak earning power. Most celebrities prefer to shake their backsides, mouth raunchy language, snort or smoke dope and slum a bit with their bodyguards, but the political elite have chosen them to distract and depoliticize the young and discontented. They are paid well for their services. Conclusion The concepts, symbols and signs of the ruling class determine who will be the political “choices” for leaders and officials. Political elites co-opt upwardly mobile “identities”, among minorities and workers, carefully assessing which of their qualities will contribute to the desired elite
outcomes. This is how working class and community-based electorates are seduced into voting against their real class, national, community, gender and racial economic interests. Renegades, demagogues, soothsayers and other charlatans of many races, ethnicities, genders and proclivities run for office and win on that basis. The elite pay a relatively small fee for procuring the services of prestigious, certified, titled and diversified candidates to elect or appoint as leaders. Elite power only partially depends on the mass media, money and power. It also needs the services of the concept and language masters, identity promoters and propagandists of the embellished deed. Stripping away the phony veneer of the “chosen”politicians requires a forceful critique of the signs and symbols that cloak the real identity of the makers and breakers of these leaders. And it requires that they be exposed for their proven failures and disasters, especially their role in leading America into an unending series of political, military and economic debacles. This article was first published on Eurasia Review on 7 December 2016.
James Petras is the author of more than 62 books published in 29 languages, and over 600 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, TempsModerne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. Among his many research contributions are “The Class Struggle in Latin America”. London: Routledge, 2017 (co-author H. Veltmeyer), “The New Extractivism: A Model for Latin America?” London: Zed books, 2014. (co-author H. Veltmeyer), “Imperialism and Capitalism in the 21st Century”. London: Ashgate publishing, 2013. (co-author H. Veltmeyer). For more of his writings, check out the The James Petras Website.
Barack Obama served Wall Street and the Pentagon, whereas Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had a long and arduous history of leading peoples’ movements.
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UNELECTABILITY, SOVEREIGNTY and OCCUPY BY THOMAS SWANN
Highly popular candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn were deemed unelectable. In being described as unelectable, these politicians are being excluded due to the fact that they don’t fit within the proscriptions of neoliberal
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politics and economics. Instead of the government being sovereign and demanding a certain people, it is the people that must demand governance through a range of structures and processes that are built on mass participation.
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n 1953, after the failed uprising in East Germany, Bertolt Brecht wrote the poem “Die Lösung” (The Solution):
After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers’ Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another? These last lines, the ones about the government dissolving the people and electing another, have come to typify the attitude of authoritarian regimes that see themselves as the correct realisation of the will of the people, even if the people don’t in fact express that will themselves. The people, in such an eventuality, are simply wrong and
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must be put right by the government, with the expectation that the means of this putting right can extend to violent force.
In being described as unelectable, these politicians are being excluded from the realm of possibility due to the fact that they don’t fit within the proscriptions of neoliberal politics and economics.
Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders and Being Unelectable Brecht’s eloquence on the subject can be applied not just to examples of overt tyranny but as readily to the mentality of modern day neoliberal governance. One of the clearest and most recent examples of this can be seen in the response of elites in supposedly left-of-centre political parties in the US and the UK to left-wing candidates, Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn respectively. In both cases, the established leaderships of the Democratic Party and the Labour Party decried the candidates as “unelectable”. In Corbyn’s case, nationwide polling and some by-election results certainly haven’t been yet able to disprove this claim, but the charge of unelectability was made even before such polling was evident. For the Democrats in the US, however, the polling for Sanders nationally was consistently stronger versus Donald Trump than was polling for Hillary Clinton in the same predicted race. It was clear from quite early on the primary process that Sanders had a far better chance of beating Trump than Clinton, with explanations often coming down to his anti-establishment appeal to working class voters left behind by the economic process of de-industrialisation. Yes, Clinton was still predicted to beat Trump, but on such a knife-edge that that result was far from certain; history has been the decider in this case. A similar approach can be seen within the elite of the Labour Party in the UK. Since Corbyn was elected as leader following a poor showing for the party in the 2015 General Election, the (neo)liberal centre that became entrenched under Tony Blair (some his supporters, others fractionally to the left but still committed to centrist politics) have used every opportunity to undermine his more left-wing leadership, even if that has meant undermining the ability of the party as a whole to act as an effective opposition. Just as the elite of the Democratic Party, it seems, would prefer a Republican president to a left-wing Democrat, so too would the elite of Labour prefer a
There exists in the reality of neoliberalism a very active control of political and economic activity.
Conservative government to a left-wing Labour one. For these party elites, the issue at stake is not as simple as how they act in the face of evidence. Indeed, in the case of Corbyn the evidence of his popularity is far less convincing than in that of Sanders. Rather, of importance here is the ways in which they both made use of the idea of “unelectability” to discredit the respective candidates. Both Sanders and Corbyn, we were told by those at the top of their parties, were unelectable. They would be unable to win general elections. While the example of Corbyn may well support this narrative (although without being undermined by the party and in the media, perhaps the polling would be otherwise), the example of Sanders certainly doesn’t. The fact that a highly popular candidate was deemed unelectable suggests that the term refers less to electability and more to something else entirely. Sovereignty While there have been suggestions that the notion of sovereignty has been rejected under neoliberal forms of governance, and that instead there is a privileging of self-determining flows of capital in a “free market”, there exists in the reality of neoliberalism a very active control of political and economic activity. As David Harvey, for example, has shown in his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, neoliberalism would have been impossible as an economic reality without the concerted effort of individuals and groups in positions of power. The market imagined by neoliberal thinkers had to be built, and this required technocratic elites to assert their sovereignty as the rightful deciders of what ought to happen in society. One of the results of this is the branding of Corbyn and Sanders as unelectable. Here, unelectability has little to do with popular appeal or support as measured in opinion polls. Instead, “unelectable”, as the notion is deployed by elites in parties like the Democrats in the US and Labour in the UK, means “unacceptable according to what a correct understanding of politics, economics and society demands”. Sovereignty, rather than being understood as residing with “The People” who express their will in one way or another, is reframed as residing with elites who understand the world and what needs to be done in it. When someone like Corbyn or Sanders is rejected as being unelectable, this has no reference at all to whether or not they could win an election. In being described as unelectable, these politicians are being
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excluded from the realm of possibility due to the fact that they don’t fit within the proscriptions of neoliberal politics and economics. In shifting sovereignty from an idea like “The People” to a privileged elite of philosopher kings, neoliberal governance is playing the same game as the authoritarian regimes that are the target of Brecht’s insightful poem. If the electorate were to vote for candidates like Corbyn or Sanders, this would not prove to the elites of their parties that they are in fact electable. It would instead signal that the people who elected them don’t understand how the world ought to be run and their decision should perhaps be annulled. In these cases, neoliberal logic would surely dictate that the electorate ought to be deposed for having chosen unwisely and the government or the party elites should indeed find another that will vote for the right candidates (i.e. ones that uphold neoliberal political and economic doctrine). This is precisely what happened in Chile in response to Salvador Allende’s election. Henry Kissinger justified US support for the coup that deposed Allende in 1973 by saying, “I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” Occupy and the 99% What then of an alternative to this account of sovereignty that gives party elites the legitimate power to declare potentially popular candidates and polices as unelectable? As Paolo Gerbaudo argues,1 “sovereignty has become the master-frame of contemporary
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Iowa City, United States – February 1, 2016: Heavy turnout for the 2016 Democratic Iowa Caucus in Precinct 14 at Mark Twain Elementary School in Iowa City, Iowa with relatively mild for a January Iowa night.
politics; a discursive and political battleground where the battle for a post-neoliberal hegemony will either be won or lost, and will take either a progressive or regressive direction”. With the rejection of the neoliberal framing of sovereignty as the preserve of elite experts at the top of the great institutions of politics and the economy, the question Gerbaudo does well to focus attention on is whether a populist rearticulation of sovereignty as residing with ‘The People’ is harnessed by the right or by the left. Research I have conducted with Ruth Kinna and Alex Prichard on Occupy2 has highlighted how a popular framing of sovereignty, a framing that puts an expansive and inclusive notion of “The People” or “the 99%” at the base of accounts of democracy, can translate into concrete and well-defined decision-making practices. Starting with a set of principles related to autonomy, solidarity, equality, diversity, inclusivity and participation, the Occupy movement, in different ways across the various encampments, developed methods aimed at seeing these principles realised in processes such as consensus decision making, mass general assemblies and semi-autonomous working groups. One of the central elements of these processes was a rejection of representative politics whereby decision making privilege is restricted to a group of leaders. When the movement encountered problems associated with entrenched privileges around race and gender, ways were often found of reformulating structures and practices through safer spaces policies and caucuses that aimed at facilitating the participation of groups often excluded from mainstream and radical conversations. In response to the logistical problems that emerged in passing every decision through the mass general assemblies, innovative methods were developed that tried to marry the inclusive participation of general assemblies – where everyone present could be involved in consenting or not to proposals concerning strategic perspective – and the practical effectiveness of spokescouncils – where delegates from working groups and caucuses would decide on day-to-day logistical running of the camps. What Occupy offers is a concrete example of how a radical populist framing of sovereignty as an inclusive and diverse “People”, as opposed to the exclusive populism of the right, can not only capture the imagination but also translate into organisational forms. In constituting the 99% as an imaginary, Occupy drew on existing social movement practice, and the experiences
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of the Arab Spring and the movement of squares in Europe, to develop a host of structures that gave this idea of sovereignty a political expression in participatory, consensus-based direct democracy. If a radical account of sovereignty means popular control, then the democracy of Occupy shows how this might be possible. For those calling on reforming (or revolutionising) existing parties like the Democrats and Labour, changing those in leadership positions is not enough to move away from the neoliberal logic of elite rule. Mass organisations must be democratised in radical ways that begin from an alternative account of sovereignty that is embodied in practices and structures of decision making and participation that run through these organisations from bottom to top. This means that the challenge is not merely to remove elites from positions of power in politics and economics but to find methods of aligning the horizontal and participatory nature of social movements like Occupy with the bureaucratic and centralising nature of mass organisation.3 This is as much the challenge for the radical left as is the reassertion of radical forms of sovereignty. Indeed, meeting one demands meeting the other. Radical sovereignty and participatory direct democracy need to be developed hand in hand. Brecht’s poem captures in exquisite simplicity the nature of sovereignty in authoritarian politics, an insight that applies to neoliberal governance in a similar way as it does to authoritarianism in Central and Eastern Europe in the latter half of the 20th Century. Occupy, and other radical social movements, suggest how the promise of democracy, inverted so cleverly in those closing lines, can be realised. Instead of the government being
Instead of the government being sovereign and demanding a certain people, it is the people, according to the narrative of Occupy, that must demand not democratic government in the centralised, statist mould we are familiar with, but governance through a range of structures and processes that are built on mass participation.
sovereign and demanding a certain people, it is the people, according to the narrative of Occupy, that must demand not democratic government in the centralised, statist mould we are familiar with, but governance through a range of structures and processes that are built on mass participation. The author would like to thank David Harvie and Ruth Kinna for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Featured image: Binghamton, NY, USA – April 11, 2016: Bernie Sanders rally at the Arena in Binghamton, NY. Thousands of Broome County citizens came out to listen to Sanders' speech.
Thomas Swann is a Research Associate at Loughborough University working on the “Constitutionalising Anarchy” research project (www. anarchyrules.info). He completed his PhD at the University of Leicester School of Management in September 2015. He is a member of the international advisory board of the journal Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies and in 2014 co-edited a ground-breaking special issue of the journal ephemera on anarchism and critical management studies. Dr. Swann has published on anarchist ethics and organisation theory and has contributed to public debates on Scottish independence, contemporary social movements and the connections between anarchism and cybernetics. His writing has appeared in The Conversation, TIME, Roar Magazine, Bella Caledonia, the Times Higher Education Supplement and OpenDemocracy. References 1. https://www.opendemocracy.net/paolo-gerbaudo/post-neoliberalismand-politics-of-sovereignty 2. https://theconversation.com/anarchy-in-the-usa-five-years-on-thelegacy-of-occupy-wall-street-and-what-it-can-teach-us-in-the-age-oftrump-68452 3.https://assembliesfordemocracy.org/2015/07/14/assemblies-fordemocracy-a-theoretical-framework-by-richard-gunn-r-c-smith-andadrian-wilding/
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Culture
POPULAR CULTURE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: Desegregating Popular Culture for Equal Representation BY YUYA KIUCHI
Popular culture reflects who we are. Today, so-called “mainstream” popular culture excludes the minority population and their voices. In order to truly move toward a society that values diversity and inclusivity, we must make purposeful decisions to achieve equal representation of minority groups in popular culture.
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opular culture, by definition, is diverse. It affirms the significance and value of what so-called high or established culture looks down on. With popular culture, children can make up their own rules beyond adults’ influences. Racial minorities have created their own entertainment so they can enjoy what they want to, and not what someone else has made for them. Immigrants practice their traditions to maintain ties to their homeland. Sexual minorities have established cues, signs, and symbols to communicate with each other within the group, avoiding the risk of name-calling or violence. Popular culture, therefore, challenges status quo and is diverse. The popular culture industry, however, rarely reflects such diversity. So-called “mainstream” popular culture is that of English-speaking middleclass non-Latino white heterosexual able-bodied
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Popular culture history teaches us that putting diversity on a TV screen or a magazine cover is a start but is also far from enough.
men. Hollywood movies continue to feature white heroes and Black villains. Prime time TV shows rarely cast Asian actors and actresses as protagonists. Rather than seeking an actor who actually used a wheelchair, American TV series, Glee, cast Kevin McHale to play the role of Artie who uses a wheelchair. Homophobia is still strong in sports, especially among male athletes. It was recently suggested that misogyny was also permissible in a locker room. Rarely do we encounter a story of a marginalised but resilient individual who sheds light on serious issues of inequality. If we do, it is either in the context of a generous white family helping out the unfortunate secondary character (e.g. The Blind Side (2009)) or to advance the long-lasting Horacio Alger myth that discounts, if not ignores, the plight of the minority population. Examining the history of popular culture suggests that progress has been made. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, minorities were excluded from appearing on theatres and movies. “Blackface in minstrelsy” is an apt example. Portrayals of Blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities were severely stereotyped as coons, mammies, and so on. In the second half of the 20th century, African Americans slowly became more visible in movies and TV shows. But they rarely had major roles. Even if they did, like the Huxtable family in The Cosby Show, their images were sanitised and made “safe” for its “mainstream” audience.
In the meantime, away from broadcasting media such as TV and major film projects, minority groups in the 1970s and 1980s started producing and consuming their own content via narrowcasting cable technology. They controlled and owned their production rights and power. For African Americans, as an example, just as they have done with Ebony and Jet decades prior, they began to produce televisual content they wanted to consume on their cable television. Thanks to these efforts, minorities were beginning to be represented both in front of and behind the screen. It is also during this time period that Spike Lee started directing movies and BET (Black Entertainment Television) was launched. Changes continue to happen today. Recently, Jackie Chan was finally awarded an Oscar. Robbie Rogers, Abby Wambach, Jason Collins, Kwame Harris, and others have come out as gay athletes. In February 2016, Samantha Bee became the first female to host a late-night satirical news program in the US. Twitter allowed African American youth in Ferguson, MO, to show the harsh reality of their life and struggles after the death of Michael Brown to the world, eventually encouraging national and international news
outlets to feature their stories. Minorities refuse to be silenced and their voices are heard increasingly. Despite these changes, minority popular culture icons face backlashes. Chan’s fame in the West continues to be in slapstick martial arts comedies. Minority popular culture icons face harsh criticisms. Beyoncé, who had produced the “Formation” music video that paralleled the imagery of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, performed during the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show, only to be called “outrageous” and “ridiculous” by Rudy Giuliani, because she had shown support for African American solidarity and the movement against police brutality through her performance. Meanwhile, Chris Martin who also performed at the show with an armband for his own cause was not criticised. Twitter was filled with racial slurs when Rue and Thresh, two characters from The Hunger Games trilogy turned out to be Black. While heterosexual couples hugged and kissed each other in Independence Day: Resurgence, a movie directed by openly gay Roland Emmerich, the only homosexual couple to appear in the film – Dr. Brackish Okun and Dr. Issac – just held hands in solidarity against an alien attack.
Jackie Chan 'Finally' Gets His First Oscar at the 8th Annual Governors Awards. © Getty Images
Digital media including social media are powerful tools to achieve more equal representation of diverse groups. The message of “mainstream” popular culture is clear. Popular cultures of the minority groups are welcome as long as they are sanitised. Diversity in popular culture is also welcome so long as it does not change the current “mainstream” popular culture landscape. You can soundbite Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to talk about his dream, but an X formation as a tribute to Malcolm X is overboard. We can have a few gay and lesbian relationships on TV to celebrate the appearance of inclusion but the depictions of such relationships must be toned down, in reminiscence of the Hays Code. Magazines may feature diverse body shapes on their cover but inside they advise how to achieve a beach body before this summer. Darker-skinned athletes are welcome, but as was the case with “Les Bleus” or the French national football team, they face criticism if they account for the majority of the starting lineup. Various food options are convenient, but taco trucks should not be on every corner. For minority representations, there are only two choices: sanitise to be accepted or stay away. Popular culture reflects us. It showcases who we are as a society. The reality of “mainstream” popular culture is also reflective of the “mainstream” society, which remains utterly unaware of the richness of popular culture of various minority groups. Today, African Americans are well represented in their own popular culture. So are Asian Americans, Latino/ Americans, and others. LGBTQ communities have their own booming popular culture ecology. But the “mainstream”
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remains unaware and uninterested. During the 2016 US presidential election, social media critics frequently argued that we surrounded ourselves with like-minded people and we were only fed the kind of news and viewpoints that we had already agreed with. The same can be said about popular culture. The “mainstream” stays in its comfort zone and only consumes images of familiar faces. One might argue that popular culture is purely for entertainment. But this is far from true. Popular culture is very political. Even aside from the Cold War era cultural diplomacy led by the US government, popular culture has helped certain ideas and lifestyles become mainstream. Disney and other cartoons for children underscored the idea of white male heroes. The “mainstream” popular culture industry has denied opportunities for minorities to be represented positively and in a self-affirming manner. Not only did it exclude minorities but also portrayed them negatively, underscoring the myth that they lacked work ethic, that it was their own fault that they are poor, that they took advantage of social welfare services. Popular culture has been used as a means for the “mainstream” to maintain their unjustifiably inherited position and structure of power. Popular culture has never been just for pure entertainment. It has always been political. Because popular culture is a reflection of us, we cannot just change popular culture for the sake of equal representation. In order for popular culture to equally represent diverse minority groups, the society and its constituents that create and consume popular culture must make purposeful decisions to bring social justice. Just as we see racial and income segregation persisting in the US and other parts of the world, our popular culture is also segregated. Because popular culture is not just about representation, but also about ownership and control, minorities must be represented at various levels of popular culture. Popular culture history teaches us that putting diversity on a TV screen or a magazine cover is a start but is also far from enough. Diversity must be represented in the board rooms, in the executive teams, and production teams.
Consumers must have critical eyes, as well. They must recognise their causal popular culture choice is a political choice. 16
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Digital media including social media are powerful tools to achieve more equal representation of diverse groups. They have more potential than traditional media to be the tool for the marginalised and havenots. Even though not everyone can afford access to technology and devices, and the digital divide continues to exist, the barrier has become lower. This is why youth effectively used social media to create their own content and exercised their own agency. In the same way, people of color have used social media for fair representation and social justice. They can represent themselves without common stereotype and prejudices. They can tell their own stories without relying on others. With positive representations, they can nurture the “I can be like that, too” attitudes among youth. Consumers must have critical eyes, as well. They must recognise their causal popular culture choice is a political choice. They must understand that their popular culture consumption is an endorsement of certain ideas and causes. Consumers today have more power than they ever have in the past. Popular culture does not exist in a vacuum. Neither do consumers. If we look at the popular culture we consume, we can self-identify what our values are and where our priorities exist. As we strive to achieve more just and equal society, the status quo of “mainstream” popular culture reveals there still is so much work to be done. But as we move toward heterogeneity, there is a drive to bring diversity and equal representation of minority groups. Popular culture is not just for entertainment. It is not trifling. It is where we can make the value of diversity visible through equal representation of minorities. It is also the source of power for change that minorities have.
Yuya Kiuchi is Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University and the editor of Race Still Matters: The Reality of African American Lives and the Myth of Postracial Society and the author of Struggles for Equal Voice: The History of African American Media Democracy.
Biopolitics
Cosmopolitan Conceptions? Biopolitics and Emiratisation in Dubai’s IVF “Reprohub” BY MARCIA C. INHORN
Despite the political tumult in the Arab world, Dubai continues to draw medical tourists from around the globe, including infertile “reprotravelers” who are seeking IVF services. However, Emirati state attempts to manage, legislate, and “emiratise” IVF services threaten to dismantle Dubai’s reputation as a global “reprohub”. Introduction Since the beginning of the new millennium, the Arab world has experienced unprecedented levels of political violence and disruption. However, against this bloody backdrop, a high-tech reproductive revolution has quietly unfolded. Namely, by the mid-2000s, the Arab world had developed one of the most robust in vitro fertilisation, or IVF, sectors in the world. To be more specific, among the 48 countries performing the most assisted reproductive technology cycles per million inhabitants, eight Arab nations – including Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – could be counted.1
Dr Pankaj Shrivastav, right, and Farhat Unnisa at the Conceive Fertility Center in Sharjah with a cannister containing frozen embryos. © Randi Sokoloff / The National
The UAE was an early entrant into this burgeoning field of IVF globalisation. The UAE opened its first IVF clinic in a government hospital in 1991, only five years after Saudi Arabia introduced IVF to the Arab Gulf. By 2005, the UAE hosted seven IVF clinics, five of them private facilities. By 2012, that number had doubled to fourteen, twelve of these privately owned. Today, thousands of infertile couples are traveling to Dubai from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the United States, and other parts of the Middle East in desperate quests for conception. These “reprotravelers”2 are often fleeing home countries where IVF services are either absent, inaccessible, ineffective, illegal, or even harmful. Thus, as an emerging global “reprohub”, Dubai now sits squarely in the center of a “reproscape” – a world of assisted reproduction in motion – characterised by new global “reproflows” of actors, technologies, and body parts. Because of Dubai’s status as a global city and a booming international tourism hub, IVF in Dubai is decidedly cosmopolitan, with clinicians from various countries delivering IVF care across national, ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural boundaries.
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Biopolitics
Like the foreigners flocking to Dubai’s IVF clinic, Emiratis were expected to pay full fare.
Yet, cosmopolitanism in Dubai exists in tension with a state-sponsored project called emiratisation. Emiratisation is an attempt by the UAE government to prioritise the needs of Emiratis, particularly through a formal government mandate intended to increase the participation of Emiratis in key positions in the UAE private-sector workforce.3 On a broader societal level, however, emiratisation is about putting Emiratis first – prioritising the needs of the muwatinun, or “nationals”, over foreigners. This is partly because Emiratis now constitute a tiny fraction of the overall populace in their own country – less than one million out of a total of nine million, approximately eight million of whom are foreign workers.4 Since the mid-2000s, the Emirati state has made two major efforts to emiratise IVF services in the country. The first involves the Emirati government’s brief experiment with IVF public financing, which started off as a globally inclusive programme, but ended up solidifying preferential treatment for local Emiratis. The second is the 2010 passage of UAE Federal Law No. 11, which now stands as one of the world’s most restrictive pieces of ART legislation. The Birth of Emirati IVF and the Public Financing Experiment Before the UAE’s first IVF clinic opened in 1991, infertile Emiratis were medical travelers, leaving the country, primarily to London, to undertake IVF under UAE state largesse. However, sending all infertile Emirati couples to London was difficult for the UAE Ministry of Health to sustain financially over time. Thus, around 1990, the Dubai Health Authority decided to start its own IVF unit in a local government hospital. Given the UAE’s former status as a British protectorate, the Dubai Health Authority turned to Great Britain for expertise in setting up the nation’s first IVF clinic. British-trained gynecologists began traveling to Dubai as “IVF troubadours”5 – taking the art of assisted conception with them from its birthplace in England. With an effective monopoly on IVF in the UAE, the new Dubai IVF clinic was able to charge high prices for its services, between $5,000-$6,000 per IVF cycle, equivalent to the most expensive private IVF clinics on London’s Harley Street. The stature of both Dubai and Abu Dhabi as growing cosmopolitan cities, with many Western expatriate foreign workers, seemed to sustain these high fees, outstripping even
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petro-rich Saudi Arabia, where a single IVF cycle could be obtained for less than $5,000. Interestingly, Emiratis themselves were not exempt from these high fees. Like the foreigners flocking to Dubai’s IVF clinic, Emiratis were expected to pay full fare. Furthermore, due to demand pressure on the nation’s sole clinic, both Emirati and foreign couples began to experience long waiting lists. Increasingly disgruntled, infertile Emirati couples put pressure on the government, resulting in two decisive actions. First, the UAE Ministry of Health allowed private IVF clinics to open outside of Dubai, primarily in the neighbouring emirates of Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Such private clinics – run by non-Emirati IVF clinicians for both Emirati and foreign couples – were allowed to operate as long as they were “sponsored” by a kafil, or a local Emirati “silent partner”, who would invest in a clinic’s infrastructure, but would also reap at least 51% of the ongoing profits. As a result, several wealthy Emirati businessmen became both benefactors – and beneficiaries – of the resulting privatisation of IVF services in the Emirates. In addition, the UAE Ministry of Health decided to relieve demand pressure by opening a second government IVF clinic. Rather than placing it in glitzy Dubai, the MOH underwrote clinic construction in a government teaching hospital in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi. In a sweeping gesture of state largesse, IVF cycles were offered free of charge to both Emiratis and non-Emiratis alike. This marked the beginning of the UAE’s brief experiment in IVF public financing. Public financing is the term used by health economists to describe the funding of assisted reproduction either through direct payment by the state to IVF clinics, or through state-funded health insurance schemes that offer reimbursement for IVF to infertile couples.6 In the Emirates, the new government IVF clinic adopted the second system, offering reimbursable IVF cycles to both Emirati and foreign couples through the state’s national health insurance system. However, what the UAE government did not realise is that it had opened a veritable floodgate of infertility in the country. Foreign workers – from the most elite European expatriates to the poorest South Asian construction workers – began clamouring to the new government IVF clinic. Soon, long waiting lists formed, and because local Emiratis received scheduling priority, foreign couples living in the country had to wait months, even years, to be granted an
appointment. Such foreign flooding of the solo “free” government IVF clinic quickly became unsustainable. By the mid-2000s, less than five years after the clinic’s opening, this brief experimental moment of “IVF for all” had ended. The state returned to reimbursing IVF cycles only for local Emiratis, providing them with everything – from the costly IVF medications to the expenses involved in the IVF procedures themselves – so long as they were willing to travel to Al Ain to access this state-subsidised care. In retrospect, this brief experiment in Emirati public financing of IVF was an early manifestation of emiratisation. The UAE would become the only Arab country to fully subsidise IVF for its citizens7 – but not foreign residents of the country, who are rarely naturalised as citizens. Foreigners could still access IVF at government clinics, but they were required to pay full fare. In other words, the fiscal emiratisation of state IVF became a citizenship right in a country where only Emiratis themselves are citizens. The Legal Emiratisation of IVF The second aspect of IVF emiratisation involves religion and law. The UAE follows the dominant Sunni branch of Islam. In Sunni Islam, IVF is allowed only if it occurs between a husband and wife, using their own eggs and sperm.8 “Mixing” of eggs, sperm, or embryos – either intentionally or by mistake – is explicitly prohibited and carefully spelled out in numerous Sunni Muslim fatwas, or religious decrees on IVF, issued since 1980. Since then, this anti-donation religious stance has been upheld repeatedly, effectively instantiating a
The UAE would become the only Arab country to fully subsidise IVF for its citizens – but not foreign residents of the country, who are rarely naturalised as citizens.
Because local Emiratis received scheduling priority, foreign couples living in the country had to wait months, even years, to be granted an appointment.
powerful Islamic bioethical ban on third-party reproductive donation across the Sunni Islamic world, from Morocco to Malaysia. As a result, the vast majority of Sunni Muslims – who account for approximately 80 to 90 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims – will never consider undertaking such third-party reproductive donation, because they regard these practices as haram, or deeply immoral.9 Having said this, a little-known fact about the UAE is that it is the only Sunni Muslim country in the Arab world to have once allowed both egg and sperm donation. Furthermore, and quite ironically, third-party donation of both egg and sperm was offered from the very beginning in the UAE’s own government IVF clinic! At the outset, no one seemed to question what was going on in the Dubai government IVF clinic, which was run by mostly British staff members. British staff were quite comfortable offering third-party donation to the many infertile couples from Europe, America, Australia, and many parts of South and Southeast Asia. However, by the end of the 1990s, increasing disquiet among the local Muslim population began to take hold. Many Emiratis, as well as other Arab patients coming to the clinic, began to question the third-party donation services on offer at the clinic. By 1998, the Dubai Health Authority effectively suspended thirdparty donation, insisting that the clinic’s bank of donor sperm and embryos be destroyed. This marked the end of Dubai’s seven-year “permissive” period. From that point on, IVF in the Emirates would be conducted according to Sunni Islamic guidelines. These guidelines would be enforced through a new phase of legal Emiratisation. Namely, by January 2007, the Abu Dhabi-based Ministry of Health ratcheted into high gear. A national committee was formed to develop federal guidelines. Over a three-year period, from 2007 to 2009, the Ministry of Health worked out its comprehensive IVF legislation. Federal Law No. 11 regulating IVF clinics in the UAE was officially passed into law in early 2010, and was signed by all seven standing emirs, or rulers of the confederation.
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Quite significantly, the UAE’s Federal Law No. 11 can be described as one of the most comprehensive – but also one of the most draconian – assisted reproduction laws in the world. Of the 22 potential assisted reproduction procedures, only seven, or approximately one-third, are now allowed in the Emirates. Fifteen others are prohibited, including, most notably, cryopreservation, or freezing of embryos; third-party donation of eggs, sperm, and embryos; gestational surrogacy; or any kind of assisted reproduction outside of heterosexual marriage. The outlawing of the vast majority of possible IVF practices can only be described as a kind of legal emiratisation – the UAE’s own biopolitical attempt to prevent any form of third-party “mixing” from occurring on Emirati soil. Conclusion In short, IVF practices in the UAE have been increasingly emiratised over the past 25 years in response to government fiscal pressures and the cultural and religious sensibilities of the local Emirati population. An IVF sector that began entirely as a British import – transplanted directly into the womb of the UAE’s main government hospital – has gradually become indigenised in response to perceived local needs. This process of IVF emiratisation can be understood as a variant of the more formal government-mandated programme of emiratisation, which is designed to increase Emirati representation in the private labour force in the country. In the IVF sector, clinics have also come under increasing government pressure to cater to the needs of Emiratis over foreigners. As a result of this emiratisation process, IVF services that were once openly practiced and deeply desired by a globally diverse group of infertile couples have gradually disappeared over time. Emiratisation – in its moral, medical, fiscal, and legal forms – has proven extremely difficult for the millions of non-Muslim IVF patients living in, or travelling to, the Emirates in the hope of accessing high-quality,
An IVF sector that began entirely as a British import – transplanted directly into the womb of the UAE’s main government hospital – has gradually become indigenised in response to perceived local needs. 20
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medically cosmopolitan IVF care. Once they arrive, they are often shocked to discover a contemporary moral-legal environment in which many potential assisted reproductive technologies are entirely unavailable. For many of these reprotravelers, this conservative biopolitical regime is oddly out of sync with Dubai’s progressive image as a globally sophisticated, culturally cosmopolitan reprohub. A beacon of high-tech modernity on the one hand, and a bastion of Emirati privilege and local morality on the other, the UAE is trying to have it both ways – leading to significant paradoxes and complexities, as well as new forms of reproductive privilege and discrimination. Attempts by employers to eradicate discrimination must move beyond the obligatory diversity training session. Employers must take a serious interest in eliminating racial discrimination from the workplace. But the change in workplaces is not likely to happen without some outside influence.
Marcia C. Inhorn is the William K. Lanman Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University. A medical anthropologist focusing on infertility and IVF in the Middle East, Inhorn is the author of five books on the subject, including Cosmopolitan Conceptions: IVF Sojourns in Global Dubai (Duke UP, 2015). References 1. Adamson, G. David (2009) “Global Cultural and Socioeconomic Factors that Influence Access to Assisted Reproductive Technologies.” Women’s Health 5:351-353. 2. For a fuller explanation of this “reprolexicon” of terms, see Inhorn, Marcia C. (2015) Cosmopolitan Conceptions: IVF Sojourns in Global Dubai. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 3. Toledo, Hugo (2013). “The Political Economy of Emiratization in the UAE.” Journal of Economic Studies 40:39-53. 4. Vora, Neha (2013) Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 5. Simpson, Bob (2016) “IVF in Sri Lanka: A Concise History of Regulatory Impasse.” Reproductive BioMedicine and Society 2:8-15. 6. Brigham, K.B., Cadier, B., and K. Chevreul (2013) “The Diversity of Regulationi and Public Financing of IVF in Europe and Its Impact on Utilization.” Human Reproduction 28:666-675. 7. Jones, Howard W., Ed. 2010. International Federation of Fertility Societies: Surveillance 2010. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46123849_International_ Federation_of_Fertility_Societies_Surveillance_2010_Preface 8. Inhorn, Marcia C., and Soraya Tremayne, Eds. (2012) Islam and Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Sunni and Shia Perspectives. New York: Berghahn. 9. Inhorn, Marcia C. (2003) Local Babies, Global Science: Gender, Religion and In Vitro Fertilization in Egypt. New York: Routledge.
Media
NEITHER WANTING Nor Seeking Truth BY BRUCE FEIN
The media brims with false, misleading or distorted news. But it is not primarily their fault. Their largely segmented audiences covet falsehoods or delusions to gratify ulterior motives for power, money, sex, fame, self-esteem, tribal pride, or creature comforts. But there is no remedy. Our DNA flees from the search for truth without ulterior motives to make power subservient to justice.
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ssailing the media for reporting false, biased, or distorted news is like Cleopatra striking the messenger for reporting Anthony’s marriage to Octavia. The fault is not in the media, but in us. The media does not report the truth because we don’t want it. Amour-propre causes us to think we are a cerebral rather than a hormonal species; that we are guided more by
reason than by emotional or psychological cravings or gratifications. The reverse is true. We believe things for ulterior motives that operate independently of truth. In deciding what to believe and in scavenging the media for confirming assertions or opinions, we instinctively ask, “What’s in it for me?” This may sound like no big deal, but it is indeed a Socrates was the ultrarare exception who proved the rule. He searched for truth without ulterior motives. But he was sentenced to death by the Athenian jury. That is a risk very few of us are willing to contemplate for no material benefit; and, very few words need be employed to dissuade us from the hazard. Our primary ulterior motives are power, money, sex, fame, creature comforts, self-esteem, self-aggrandisement, or tribal identity. They make us exalt falsehoods as gospel. Take several leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution like Nikolai Bukharin. They confessed in the 1930s to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s
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Media
concocted charges of espionage, sabotage, or plotting his assassination with western powers. They were psychologically unable to admit that the Revolution had proven worse than the Romanov disease – that their entire lives had been wasted. Up until the moment they passed from the scene, they convinced themselves that the Bolshevik Revolution had marked a glorious advance for the proletariat and human decency of the human condition. They shut their eyes to conclusive ocular evidence to the contrary. Their self-esteem and lifetime sacrifices demanded that they believe that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was the vanguard of justice and progress. The case of New York Times reporter Walter Duranty is similar. He secured a Pulitzer Prize for absurdly praising Stalin’s dystopia and gulag as a worker’s
paradise and denying definitive evidence of the Ukrainian genocide through starvation – the Holodomor. Many others in the West, like Duranty, also blinded themselves to Stalin’s malevolence, paranoia, and megalomania. They indulged self-delusion because of emotional or psychological cravings to believe Marxism-Leninism and the USSR had rejected the rebarbative nationalisms that had ignited World War I in which more than 17 million died to gratify the adolescent thrill of domination or killing for their own sakes. The mindless slaughters that earmarked the Great War gave birth to visionary fantasies about driving evil from our sordid DNA as Jesus drove the money-changers from the temple. The Kellogg-Briand Pact to outlaw war was one fantasy. Believing the USSR was heaven on earth was another. Even the
Bolshevik forces marching on the Red Square. ©Anonymous
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In deciding what to believe and in scavenging the media for confirming assertions or opinions, we instinctively ask, “What’s in it for me?” Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and Soviet aggression against Finland, Poland, and Romania at the outset of World War II could not shake that counterfactual conviction. Thereby hangs a more comprehensive tale. The mind is infinitely inventive in finding excuses for unhappiness or distractions from reflecting on their congenital, hormonal sordidness of the species. It endlessly searches for simple but wrong answers to life’s philosophical conundrum of why we exist. The mind abhors indeterminateness or uncertainty; and covets absolutes and commandments that absolves oneself from thinking or moral responsibility. We shun the chiaroscuro of reality, and embrace the prime colors of falsehoods. The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. They become true believers of anything or any person to fill a philosophical void: Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Judaism, Christianity, Protestantism, Islam, Mao’s Little Red Book, the Divine Right of Kings, Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Ho Chi Minh, ad infinitum. But graveyards are filled with professedly indispensable men, and the trash can of history is filled with professedly infallible ideologies. But we refuse to accept these truths because of our acute emotional need to believe in simple answers to life’s complexities. The 2016 presidential campaign in the United States is illustrative. A large segment of Hillary Clinton’s supporters were convinced that her election would
mean the emancipation of women from male bondage or subjugation. The same thing had been said by AfricanAmericans about themselves when Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, and had been proven false. The lives of African-Americans today may even be worse overall than when Mr. Obama entered the White House eight years ago. But the Obama lesson did not shake the convictions of Clinton’s flock. Neither were they disheartened by the fact that electing women to high office in other nations had not diminished gender discrimination, for example, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, or Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. But hopes no matter how baseless serve profound psychological needs, like always believing the grass is greener on the other side. Thus, Alexander Pope instructs in his Essay on Man, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Ms. Clinton’s female boosters were emotionally excited by believing her election would be the magic elixir to bringing them success and happiness. The falsity of the belief did not diminish the mental or emotional rewards. Additionally, there is a placebo effect on the mind induced by believing in false promises – even when they are proven to be false. Donald Trump has promised his crowds that he would end illegal immigration with a wall paid by Mexico; deport 2-3 million undocumented immigrants; deny all Muslims visas; maintain a registry of Muslim citizens; instantly destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by employing, among other things, torture and murders of the families of suspected international terrorists;
Saint Louis, MO, USA – March 12, 2016: Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton campaigns at Nelson-Mulligan Carpenters Training Center in St. Louis.
uplift ethnic minorities; slash taxes; make flag burning a crime punishable by deportation; hike defense and infrastructure spending simultaneously while cutting budget deficits; and, make America the respected locomotive of all mankind and the rest of the world the caboose. The probability that Presidentelect Trump will fulfill any of these extravagant or legally dubious promises is slim to none. But the mere fact that he has told his crowds that he will succeed makes them feel better about themselves and the world.
When he fails, they will predictably invent conspiracy theories to explain the failures on gremlins or demons. They have too much emotional and psychological investment in believing Trump is the answer to all their problems to believe he is as much a fraud as the Duke and the Dauphin in Huckleberry Finn. Ms. Clinton’s supporters are like Trump’s but with different ulterior motives and different fantasies. Like the Old Bolsheviks of the Russian Revolution, they cannot emotionally
The mind abhors indeterminateness or uncertainty; and covets absolutes and commandments that absolves oneself from thinking or moral responsibility. We shun the chiaroscuro of reality, and embrace the prime colors of falsehoods. www.politicalanthropologist.com
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Interpretation is inevitable in reporting on the human narrative in a way that is comprehensible and possibly useful to the audience.
accept that they are fundamentally flawed icons. She was probably the worst presidential candidate of a major party in American history. To acknowledge that truth would cast aspersion on their political judgment, and concede that their blood, sweat, and tears had been dedicated to an unworthy candidate. They insist on believing that Ms. Clinton was defeated by Trump because of the machinations of Russian President Vladimir Putin and FBI Director James Comey, not because she had occupied the highest levels of public life for decades with nothing to show except a fancy CV, and never formed an opinion until after she had consulted a focus group. Friedrich Nietzsche also explained that we flee from truth to avoid slights to our vanity or interferences with our ambitions: “[D]eception, flattering, lying and cheating, talking behind the back, posing, living in borrowed splendor, being masked, the disguise of convention, acting a role before others and before oneself – in short, the constant fluttering around the single flame of vanity is so much the rule and the law that almost nothing is more incomprehensible than how an honest and pure urge for truth could have arisen among men.” The mainstream media publishes falsehoods at which their audiences rejoice or applaud in lieu of truth because their business is making money. CBS’ executive chairman and CEO, Leslie Mooves, expressed this dynamic candidly. He unblushingly remarked about Mr. Trump’s predominantly fact-free, intellectually incoherent 2016 presidential campaign that excited every vice known to mankind: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” • Even assuming there were both a demand for truth and a mainstream media willing to supply it, any endeavor to supply truth may be impossible. Distinguishing facts from subjective interpretations is routinely problematic. Nietzsche observed: “[F]acts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations.”
The mainstream media publishes falsehoods at which their audiences rejoice or applaud in lieu of truth because their business is making money. 24
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• The statement is obviously too sweeping. The force of gravity is a fact. Newton’s laws of motions are facts. The heliocentric theory of the universe is a fact. Your body temperature is a fact. The speed of light is a fact. Life would be very unpleasant and miserable if these facts or “laws” were treated only as debatable interpretations. However, even in science, these “laws” merely tell us what happens, but not “why” it happens. But in assigning motivations or causes of important events and drawing lessons from them, Nietzsche was right. The task is interpretive. It is not like an archeological expedition in search of artifacts. Consider reporting on the causes of the Glorious Revolution in Great Britain or the American, French, Chinese, or Russian Revolutions. Characterising these events as revolutions as opposed to evolutions involves interpretation, and enumerating their causes and effects even more so. Interpretation is inevitable in reporting on the human narrative in a way that is comprehensible and possibly useful to the audience. And they will be strongly influenced by the ulterior motives of the interpreter. If you sympathise with the North in the American Civil War, you probably believe the conflict was over slavery. But if you sympathise with the South, you probably believe the war was over States’ rights. Featured Image: Cameraman at the 2010 Winter Olympics © Leigh Righton
Bruce Fein is Former Associate Deputy Attorney general at the US Department of Justice and general counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald Reagan; he was counsel to the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran; is author of American Empire Before The Fall and Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy; and, is a founding partner in Fein & DelValle PLLC in Washington, D.C.
Race
Community Resistance In A Neoliberal Post-Truth Era: Is Self Care Becoming A Radical Political Act? BY ORNETTE D CLENNON
In this article the author traces the colonial origins of “post-truth” politics, and ponders whether we are witnessing the final iteration of neoliberalism – where colonial racial templates of social ordering have been liminally deracialised and adopted by the profit-obsessed market in order to subject an ever-widening demographic to social inequality. Our Colonial Legacy In a recent community discussion about Frantz Fanon’s essay Concerning Violence1, (as brutally visualised by Goran Olsson’s 2014 eponymous film2) I remember arguing why I rejected the idea that we are entering a new phase of fascism with a rebooted far right ideology that the mainstream media is now rebranding as “post-truth” populism. I have often argued that colonialism and its tools of racist and racial subjection have long existed before this so-called new populist phenomenon and these tools have even been used as a template for current political developments.3 But upon reflection, I am coming to realise that what is new is not the barbarity of current social inequality
Chicago, Illinois, USA – December 9th 2015: A Black Lives Matter protestor, surrounded by a crowd, during the Rahm resign protest.
or even its methods of subjection but its maturation as the ultimate product of capitalism. Frantz Fanon, in Concerning Violence tracks an unerring timeline that organically traces the development of colonialism into capitalism. He also explains how the brutality of colonial oppression was far more than just a physical reality because it penetrated deeply to an internal psychic level in the subject. Colonialism had perfected its methods of oppression and suppression by gnawing away at the layers of human agency. For Fanon, colonial objectification challenged the very core of understanding of what it is to be a human being. To be a human being is to have an internal world (as well as an external one in relation to others). However, when that interior world is denied to the subject because only their bodies are recognised as instruments of agency (only for others), we arrive at a pernicious form of psychic violation. A violation of privacy that paradoxically has been stripped away from the individual by its denial. What is even more violent is that by the time the replacement of the subject’s innate interior world is supplanted by a psychic
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representation of their external subjugation, their personal agency has all but disappeared. Nearly.4 When Fanon was treating his patients, he tried to remedy their stolen agency by getting them to see just how hollowed out their colonial psyches were. He also showed them how they could choose to respond to their distorted interiors and generate personal agency.5 Stealing Our Psychic Interiors So, at the height of colonialism, how was this theft carried out? It was quite simply but devastatingly executed by repeatedly telling the colonial subject that they had no history, identity or independent (pre-colonial) worldview of any value. Using state apparatus, such as education,6 history books propagandised distorted historical narratives of colonial nations and their colonised subjects. Laws were unevenly applied in ways that fixed the societal status of individuals within a systemic hierarchy.7 Social mores re-enforced the “immutable reality” of a status quo, out of which the subject was forced to performatively hail themselves into (social) being.8 The list of these forms of social conditioning goes on, of course. However, what is new is how all of these mechanisms have been truly co-opted by the market. What we are witnessing is how colonialism, which birthed capitalism that then morphed into neoliberalism has come of age. The child has now become an adult. Elsewhere,9 I write at length about how racial formation, racial rule and the resulting racial contract of colonialism has become a template for contemporary (“non-racial”) market relations between social actors. I also outline how the stripping away of human agency that is characterised by the colonial violation of the subject’s interior world has now been marketised and normalised in the form of “individuality” or “market freedoms”.10 Market Simulations as New Psychic Interiors in the New Era of Post-Truth It is worth outlining this process of market individuation again only because of its immediate and urgent political importance. The market strives
to innovate in order to accumulate capital and it does this by wilfully ignoring and indeed trying to erase historical innovation11 that undermines its property rights and ability to turn profit. The market is able to do this by convincing its social actors that they are “individuals” with “market freedoms” to do anything that they want. They are given “market freedoms” for Simmelian market re-invention12 only on the proviso that they leave their social knowledge at the threshold of the market place. As Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno13 correctly deduce, any ideas of personal agency that the subject has upon entering the market are seen as being superfluous or dangerous, so must be excised from the now market actor. David Graeber describes this as a form of social death.14 The consequences of this are that the histories and identities that make up the social knowledge of the individual before entering the market are deliberately stripped away leaving an empty husk ready to be filled with something else.15 The market then fills the individual with its own interpretation of how a market actor should be and presents this as the only acceptable form of (marketised) social knowledge. Obviously, this is not a social knowledge because the market actor is encouraged to act as a market individual; it is a market knowledge. It is a “knowledge of the market” that the market actor is convinced they can utilise and commoditise for the accumulation of personal profit. However, the knowledge of the market given to the market actor is just a mere illusion of agency designed to manipulate and secretly extract as much information from the market actor as possible to further its own systemic ends. Elsewhere,16 I write at length about how the market obscures this process of domination via super-complexity à la Friedrich Hayek17 or surveillance à la Jeremy Bentham.18 But remember that we are talking about smoke and mirrors, here. Since the days of colonialism, we have indeed already been operating at the level of Jean Baudrillard’s third simulation of reality where the deception (of subjugation) has been masquerading as (universal) truth.19 In real world terms, this means that the elites have always
What we are witnessing is how colonialism, which birthed capitalism that then morphed into neoliberalism has come of age. The child has now become an adult. 26
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issued edicts of “truth” about a mediated (curated) narrative of history or identity (that profits them to the demise of others). This “truth” has always been accepted as an infallible proclamation of the world as having been true in history and true in perpetuity according Pierre Bourdieu’s taste-making powers of habitus.20 Such colonial proclamations have been violating “coloured” psyches for centuries. However, with the arrival of the concept of post-truth21 especially within the arena of politics, we are now having to grapple with Baudrillard’s fourth level of deception, where crucially, deception no longer needs to masquerade as a universal truth. Here post-truth is a deception that openly rejects “evidence” in favour of its own self-importance and routinely invents provenance to back up its own subjectivities (mainly feelings of grievance). So, we are either witnessing the destruction of the myth of “universality”, the main ideological staple of Eurocentrism or its re-invention by a smaller circle of elite. Hard to tell right now, but it is ironic that today’s “experts” are routinely denigrated and their vilification is now becoming normalised. Whether it be the economists who argued that Brexit had the potential to do more harm than good to the UK economy22 or the judges whose deliberations to uphold parliamentary sovereignty were deemed treasonous.23 How the elite seem to have fallen! How these former stalwarts of our Eurocentric institutions seem to have fallen out of favour, where their former universal edicts of “truth”, previously supported by institutional and canonical “evidence”, are now being deemed irrelevant. But who are the new gatekeepers of this post-truth? This is an intriguing question because the elites who appear to be currently holding the balance of
“post-truth” power have seemingly emerged from the traditional ranks of the existing elite. Whether they are attempting to build a new universal “reality” or feel that they don’t need to be universal, just all powerful, is perhaps too soon to tell. What we can tell, however, is that the innate, colonial fascism of the capitalist project has matured into its own self-legitimising narrative with corresponding agency. As I have written elsewhere,24 neoliberalism has begun to cannibalise itself and is beginning to devour or emasculate its capitalist parents.25 I think that the neoliberal tendency to isolate its market actors has been given renewed legitimacy through its Baudrillardian “post-truth”. This market isolation is manifesting itself in grass roots forms of all sorts of cuts to public services.26 The market actor is progressively been cut adrift in terms of their systemic support. As the market forces the state to withdraw these services and also as the market actor becomes ever more surveilled by the state in their isolation,27 is there any way to fight back? Community Resistance? As Fanon’s Concerning Violence spoke about the violence of colonialism and its sometimes-violent ripostes from the oppressed, in our community discussion, we identified that violence takes many forms. Prompted by Audre Lorde’s ideas about self-care,28 we explored how merely looking out for one’s own interests in the face of market oppression can also be seen as an act of political violence. Here, we begin to see an interesting potential “post-truth” era of inversion, where building community in the face of market gentrification could be interpreted as a threat to society. Kronos’ violent changing of the guard could easily be represented by the potential
I think that the neoliberal tendency to isolate its market actors has been given renewed legitimacy through its Baudrillardian “posttruth”. This market isolation is manifesting itself in grass roots forms of all sorts of cuts to public services. recasting of David Cameron’s early ideas of Big Society,29 as political and cultural subversion. In community terms, viewed through a now normalised post-truth lens, marginalised groups who have always tirelessly striven to form “community” and enact Big Society ideals in order to survive and look after themselves, are now regarded as self-segregating communities who need to integrate.30 Through a post-truth lens, we also observe the market “violently” imposing its version of integration through the politely named process of gentrification, which the recent Casey review oddly seems not to address.31 Big Society communities are increasingly confronted by a market process that drives them out of their neighbourhoods because of rising property prices and (pop up) economies against which they cannot compete. I have written at length elsewhere,32 how black and minority ethnic communities have long been the canaries in the mine warning of this spread of social and economic oppression. Of course, by and large, they have been tolerated as Cassandras but now their unheeded warnings are coming to pass and the now marketised pain of past and present racial oppression is beginning to affect a wider demographic, we have, it seems, finally reached a point of ideological warfare. It looks as though we will
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increasingly have to get used to our resistance to this neoliberal post-truth machine as being seen as violent, even as we only go about trying to help our communities retain a sense of self and agency.33 Our traditionally marginalised groups have always fought this fight to protect their communities and communal sense of wellbeing. However, our grown up (populist) neoliberal Kronos is going to marginalise an even larger demographic of people, especially those who currently support him in the mistaken belief that he has their best interests at heart.34 So, will we come together in social unity to resist this? We do actually have the seeds of genuine revolution and of an equally genuine paradigm shift. But will the system alienate enough people who are willing to fight for change? We will have to wait and see but I get the sense that we won’t have long to wait, as we stand staring over a precipice.
Ornette D. Clennon is Visiting Research Fellow and a Critical Race scholar in The Research Centre for Social Change: Community Wellbeing, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK where he leads the Critical Race and Ethnicity Research Cluster. He is also Visiting Professor at the Federal University of the Amazonas, Brazil. He has written and published widely on a range of topics including community engagement, education and multiculturalism. References 1. See F. Fanon, ‘Concerning Violence’, in The Wretched of the Earth, C. Farrington, (trans), Grove Press, New York, 1963, pp. 35 - 106 2. See Concerning Violence, film documentary, Final Cut for Real, Helsinki, 5th December, 2014 (US)
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3. See O.D. Clennon, ‘Populism, the era of Trump and the rise of the far right’ in openDemocracyUK. December 4th 2016, viewed on December 19th 2016, https://www.opendemocracy.net/ornette-d-clennon/ populism-era-of-trump-and-rise-of-far-right 4. See W.E.B DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (Second ed.). A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1903, p. 264 for his thoughts about “double consciousness” (p. 8) that describes the internal struggle for personal agency for the racialised as black subject. Also see O.D. Clennon, Polemics of CLR James, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2016, p. 129 for a parallel argument that uses Lewis Gordon’s ‘bad faith’ to describe a comparable internal struggle for personal agency for the racialised as white subject. 5. Nelson Maldonado Torres introduces us to Fanon’s concept of sociogeny, which seeks to explore the interior nature of hierarchical colonial oppression within the subject. See N. Maldonado Torres, ‘Frantz Fanon and C.L.R. James on intellectualism and enlightened rationality’. Caribbean Studies, volume 33(2), 2005, pp. 149 - 194. 6. See P. Bourdieu & J.-C. Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, R. Nice (trans), Sage, London, 2000 [1977], p. 288 for a discussion about the symbolic violence of education and how it is used to oppress us on behalf of the state. 7. See B.J. Fields, ‘Ideology and race in American history’. In J. M. Kousser, & J. M. McPherson (eds), Region, race and reconstruction, Oxford University Press, New York, 1982, pp. 143–177 and B.J. Fields, ‘Slavery, race and ideology in the United States of America’. New Left Review, volume 181(May/June), 1990, pp. 95 – 118 for a full explanation of racial contract theory and its role in fixing racial hierarchy in place . 8. See J. Butler, The Psychic Life of Power, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1997, p. 228 9. See Clennon, Polemics of CLR James 10. See O.D. Clennon, ‘The Black Face of Eurocentrism: Uncovering Globalisation’. In O. D. Clennon (ed), International Perspectives of Multiculturalism: The Ethical Challenges, Nova Science Publishers, New York, 2016, pp. 91 - 128 for an exploration of the psychopathological structures of the Hegelian whiteness/blackness dialectic that are in turn transformed into market relationships. 11. See L. Gordon ‘Disposable Life’ in Histories of Violence, February 10th 2016, viewed on December 19th 2016, https://vimeo.com/154827028 and P. Nora, P. (1996). General Introduction: Between Memory and History. In L. D. Krtizmann (ed), Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, Vol 1: Conflict and Divisions, A. Goldhammer (trans), Columbia University Press, New York pp. 1-20 where both Gordon and Nora describe the post modern tendency of the market to constantly reinvent the present. 12. See G. Simmel, G. (1971). In D. Levine (ed), Georg Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1971, p. 412 13. See M. Horkheimer & T. Adorno (1944[2002]). Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, G. S. Noerr, Ed., & E. Jephcott, (trans.) Stanford University Press, London, Stanford, CA p. 304 14. See D. Graeber, ‘Turning Modes of Production Inside Out: Or, Why Capitalism is a Transformation of Slavery’. Critique of Anthropology, volume 26(1), 2006, pp. 61–85. 15. See “corporate globalization is thriving precisely by emptying out the subversive potential in culture” p. 108 from R. Krishnaswarmy, ‘The criticism of culture and the culture of criticism at the intersection of postcolonialism and globalisation theory’. Diacritics, volume 32(2), 2002, pp. 106 - 126. 16. Clennon, The Black Face of Eurocentrism 17. See F. Hayek, ‘The Market-order or Catallaxy’. In F. Hayek (ed), Law, Legislation and Liberty (Vol. 2), Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1976, pp. 107-32 18. See J. Bentham, Panopticon: or the Inspection-House. Thomas Byrne, Dublin, 1787, (online book https://library. villanova.edu/Find/Record/889906#description) 19. See J. Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation. University Michigan Press, Michigan, 1981, p. 164
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20. See P. Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. R. Nice, (trans), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1984, p. 613 21. See A. Flood, ‘Post-truth’ named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries’ in The Guardian. November 15th 2016, viewed on December 19th 2016, https:// w w w. t h e g u a r d i a n . c o m / b o o k s / 2 0 1 6 / n o v / 1 5 / post-tr uth-named-word-of-the-year-by-oxforddictionaries?CMP=twt_books_b-gdnbooks and also see M. Weigel, ‘Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy’ in The Guardian. November 30th 2016, viewed on December 19th 2016, https:// www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/ political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantomenemy-donald-trump?CMP=share_btn_tw that describes how the established discourse around social equality has been labelled as ‘political correctness’ in order to push back against any perceived loss of historical racial privilege. This is an interesting development that explains the rancour and pent up frustration behind the post-truth voting intentions of the white working (and middle) classes. 22. S. Sodha, T., Helm & P. Inman, ‘Economists overwhelmingly reject Brexit in boost for Cameron’ in The Guardian. May 28th 2016, viewed on December 19th 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/28/ economists-reject-brexit-boost-cameron 23. See C. Phipps, ‘British newspapers react to judges’ Brexit ruling: ‘Enemies of the people’ in The Guardian. November 4th 2016, viewed on December 19th 2016, https://www. theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/04/enemies-of-thepeople-british-newspapers-react-judges-brexit-ruling 24. See Clennon, Populism 25. I am particularly reminded of the castration of Uranus by his son Kronos in Greek mythology, as an apt allegory for describing contemporary political developments. 26. From the provision of social care for our elderly and the vulnerable, to the closing down of local bus services, to the closing down of libraries, to cuts to mental health services, to cuts to children services, the list goes on and on. 27. They are hemmed in and partially blinded to these growing inequalities by their knowledge of the market for personal gain. 28. See “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is selfpreservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” (p.131) from A. Lorde, A Burst of Light: Essays, Firebrand Books, Ithaca, NY, 1988, p. 134 29. See D. Cameron, ‘Big Society Speech’ in GOV.UK. July 19th 2010, viewed on December 19th 2016, https://www.gov. uk/government/speeches/big-society-speech 30. See L. Casey, ‘The Casey Review: a review into opportunity and integration’ in GOV.UK. December 5th 2016, viewed on viewed on December 19th 2016, https://www.g ov.uk/g overnment/publications/ the-casey-review-a-review-into-opportunity-and-integration 31. Dada & Ferjani write passionately about how gentrification is negatively transforming many parts of inner London. See Z. Dada & B. Ferjani, ‘Immigrant hustle in the face of gentrification’ in Media Diversified. December 5th 2016, viewed on December 2016, https://mediadiversified.org/2016/12/05/ 18th immigrant-hustle-in-the-face-of-gentrification/ 32. See Clennon, Populism 33. Nigel Farage publically attacking Brendan Cox, the widower of the murdered MP Jo Cox, for supporting the anti-hate/racism/fascism campaigning group Hope Not Hate is a case in point that graphically illustrates posttruth Lordean subversion. See N. Ferrari, ‘Farage: Brendan Cox Knows More About Extremism Than Me’ in LBC. December 20th 2016, viewed on viewed on December 20th 2016, http://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/ farage-brendan-cox-knows-more-about-extremism/ 34. See L. Haddad, ‘Speaking the truth in the posttruth era’ in Aljazeera.com. December 19th 2016, viewed on December 19th 2016, http://www.aljazeera. com/indepth/opinion/2016/12/speaking-truth-posttruth-era-161218111206262.html
Race
A Change Must Come: Race and Reform in Workplace Law BY PHILLIS H. RAMBSY
Racial minorities seeking legal recourse for racial discrimination in the workplace often find that, if the law offers any remedies at all, there are insurmountable obstacles to obtaining justice. Any reforms in workplace laws must recognise the long-standing pervasiveness of systemic racism. This essay aims to spark discussion on the reforms needed in anti-discrimination laws within workplaces that are definitely not characterised by post-racial sentiments.
L
egal recourse is beyond the grasp of many aggrieved employees. More specifically, employees who seek justice for racial discrimination in the workplace may find themselves in an unenviable position. They are often abandoned in the chasm between the stated purposes of anti-discrimination laws and the limited ways that those laws may actually operate in practice. The laws may not offer sufficient remedies for the hardships the employees have endured. That is, if any remedies are even available at all. Many employees who have been discriminated against find that the law actually offers no sufficient remedies. Even when remedies are available, employees must often overcome apparent insurmountable obstacles to get their cases heard.
President Johnson issued Executive Order 11246, which bans government contractors from discriminating in employment decisions, and requires them to ensure that employees are treated without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin. ©Anonymous / AP
Racial discrimination in the workplace mirrors that which exists in the larger society. Therefore, it has the power to impede employees’ opportunities for advancement; deny employees the security of income stability; and cause employees significant emotional distress. Employees who are racial minorities, in other words non-white employees, and have experienced racial discrimination in the workplace often find that justice is beyond their reach. Title VII (and similar state and local laws) is designed to protect employees in certain “protected classes” from unlawful discrimination. But legal recourse still remains beyond the grasp of many minority employees. This disturbing observation points to the need for employee-centered reforms in employment law. Reforms in employment law must recognise that, even in a constantly changing world, systemic racism is still prevalent. Meaningful reform must make allowances for these modern realities. Reforms in workplace protections must recognise that the workplace, like the larger society in which it exists, is not post-racial. Reform must include revamping laws and opening access to the legal system and the ability to obtain legal representation. Additionally, the workplace itself must change, and employers must have serious incentives, to prevent the perpetuation of discrimination in the workplace.
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Reform in the Law Many employment laws are written from a perspective that discrimination will be explicit and immediately recognisable. As a result, when employees cannot immediately point to overt acts of discrimination, their legal claims are often discarded. Anti-discrimination statutes such as Title VII seem straightforward and simple. For instance, Title VII, codified at 42 USC § 2000e, et al provides that: It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer – 1. to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or 2. to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Attempting to bring a claim for discrimination based on race, pursuant to Title VII or similar statutes is far from simple. A plaintiff can prove racial discrimination by direct or indirect (circumstantial) evidence. However, to prevail on a racial discrimination claim, a plaintiff must prove that race was a “motivating factor” for any adverse employment action (i.e. termination, demotion, etc.).1 On the surface, this motivating factor standard may appear to be relatively uncomplicated. In practice, however, minority plaintiffs continuously find that this standard means that justice remains out of reach. Systemic racism is so entangled within the larger society that its pervasiveness is
often overlooked. Racial bias is a seamless part of the fabric of a society – a society which the workplace then mirrors. Consequently, claims of racial discrimination are often met with rebuttals steeped in implicit biases which, in defending against discrimination, actually rely on racial stereotypes or other forms of discrimination. Imagine an African-American employee who claims that racial discrimination is the reason that she has been terminated. This employee’s claims include allegations that her work was unfairly criticised. The employee may also note that she was isolated from any meaningful interactions with her supervisors and other colleagues. In this case, the employer will likely rebut the plaintiff ’s claims by alleging that the plaintiff did, in fact, have poor performance. The employer may characterise the employee as being unable to grasp the responsibilities required by her job; or even argue that the employee is unwilling to do the job. The employer may respond to what the employee calls isolation with arguments that the employee simply does not fit in with the employee’s culture. Rampant implicit bias may cause a judge or jury to accept the employer’s aforementioned defenses. This will mean an acceptance of stereotypical notions about the particular African-American plaintiff. Because racial discrimination is so engrained, it is unrealistic to assume that finders of fact – judges and juries – have not been impacted by such bias. Anti-discrimination laws must recognise that the same racial discrimination to which many employees are subjected, also exist in the implementation of the laws designed to provide protection from such discrimination. Reforms must recognise that, in many instances, racial discrimination is the status quo. When legal claims
are made, the laws, as written, assume that something occurred that would not ordinarily occur. However, because racial discrimination is so prevalent, evidence of discrimination is often viewed as normal. Racial discrimination is not an anomaly; therefore, it is easy to disregard claims that challenge the long-accepted workings of society. Any reform must specifically denounce the acceptance of discriminatory stereotypes and acknowledge the existence of implicit biases. Reform in Access to the Law Even when the law offers viable options for recourse, employees who have cognisable claims may not necessarily be able to pursue them. Legal services are expensive. If employees are facing discrimination in the workplace, they likely have concerns about job and income security. These employees are likely not in a position to pay for expensive legal services. For racial minorities, the difficulties involved in finding an attorney may be magnified. Research by the American Bar Foundation indicates that, in employment discrimination cases, racial minorities are unable to access legal counsel at the same rate as whites. In a press release detailing the results of a study on race and legal representation in employment cases, the American Bar Foundation notes that, “racial disparities in representation mean that the groups most affected by discrimination lack the resources to mount effective challenges through the courts”.2 The results of the American Bar Foundation’s study are detailed in Race and Representation: Racial Disparities in Legal Representation for Employment Civil Rights Plaintiff authored by Amy Myrick, Robert L. Nelson, and Laura Beth Nielson.3 The American Bar Foundation’s study notes that finding an attorney is
Because racial discrimination is so engrained, it is unrealistic to assume that finders of fact – judges and juries – have not been impacted by such bias. 30
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a “complicated and time consuming process”.4 Employees searching for an attorney will likely have jobs or other family obligations. Therefore, they may lack the “material and emotional resources” to invest in finding a lawyer, while still fulfilling other obligations.5 Even if a minority employee gains access to an attorney, there is no guarantee that the attorney will take the case. Bias on the part of attorneys also excludes minority employees from being able to access the legal justice system. Being well-versed in the applicable laws, attorneys who represent employees are familiar with the obstacles faced by minority employees, and this knowledge may result in a refusal to represent minority employees. Anti-discrimination laws impose very specific limitations on the amount of damages that a plaintiff can recover. Damages can be based an employee’s salary. Income disparities mean that non-white employees will, therefore, recover less for damages for lost wages. Low-income employees, who are overwhelmingly minority employees, are significantly impacted by a calculation of damages that considers the employee’s salary.
Anti-discrimination statutes such as Title VII base amounts for compensatory damages such as emotional distress and punitive damages on the number of employees that a company has – with such damages ranging from $50,000$300,000. The triers of fact decide damages for emotional distress. There must be an acceptance of a plaintiff ’s argument that workplace discrimination negatively impacted her emotional well-being. Discriminatory ideas that minorities are somehow mentally strong; are accustomed to discrimination; or are simply being dramatic may cause a judge or jury to refuse to award significant damages for emotional distress. Employment laws also require employees to mitigate their damages. This means that even if an employee is unlawfully terminated, the onus is on that employee to find another job. For minorities, this can mean a constant cycle of discrimination. Minority employees may face the same discrimination in trying to obtain alternative employment that they faced before being terminated. If an employer can successfully argue that an employee did not sufficiently mitigate her damages, the employer escapes some liability for damages. Even more, once an employee is able to obtain a new job, she is no longer entitled to lost wages. In essence, anti-discrimination laws lessen an employer’s financial liability by requiring a terminated employee to find new employment, and then reducing the employer’s liability once the employee complies. When an attorney takes a case on contingency, the client does not have to pay for the services of the attorney, but the attorney will get a percentage of any monetary amounts obtained by the employee. The clients whom attorneys agree to represent on a contingency basis can also point to a form of bias that excludes minorities from obtaining legal representation. Attorneys taking cases on contingency have to believe that those cases
Anti-discrimination laws lessen an employer’s financial liability by requiring a terminated employee to find new employment, and then reducing the employer’s liability once the employee complies. will eventually result in some [significant] monetary reward. Attorneys recognise that the largest monetary awards will go to those employees who earn higher salaries. Attorneys also know the difficulties involved in order to prevail on a racial discrimination claim. Attorneys may therefore, refuse to offer representation to clients whose cases do not appear to involve readily apparent egregious racial discrimination. Attorneys may refuse to offer representation to those employees who do not meet certain other discriminatory criteria. The American Bar Foundation study points out that the screening methods of attorneys can favour some clients for reasons unrelated to the merits of a case. Attorneys may choose clients based on their ability to compellingly “sell” their cases or the client’s connection to someone who can vouch for them. The study points out that these methods may particularly work against African-American employees who are statistically poorer, and as a result of possible educational disparities and segregation in low level jobs, may have more difficulty at selling their cases.6 The American Bar Foundation found that attorneys may also relate an employee’s demeanor to whether claims of discrimination are true. Attorneys may perceive a minority employee as simply trying to “work the system”. Or minority clients may be viewed as “difficult” to work with, or even unlikely to present well to a judge or jury.7 The legal profession is one of the least diverse professions in the United States
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– with eighty-eight percent of attorneys being white.8 Therefore, most minorities who seek legal representation will most likely encounter an attorney who is white. The negative impact of implicit bias in these interracial encounters between attorneys and minorities seeking representation cannot be overstated. Reforms that will make it easier for minorities to get legal representation in employment cases must start with the attorneys who practice in this area. This is not to suggest that plaintiff ’s attorneys should not be concerned about making money or should take all cases. But anti-discrimination attorneys must recognise the ways that bias impacts their own work – and work to address the discriminatory actions in their own practices. Collectively, attorneys must encourage more diversity in the legal profession. More specifically, more minority attorneys will mean greater likelihood that minority employees will find attorneys who find them credible, take them serious, and will offer them a chance to at least gain access to the legal system. Reform in Access to the Law It would be too idealistic to assume that workplaces would eradicate discrimination simply because it is the right thing to do. Instead, employers must have substantial incentives to address racial discrimination. Tying the damages that an employer may have to pay solely to an employee’s salary and/or the size of an employer is not sufficient incentive to address or cure discrimination. Employers may decide that such costs are simply a necessary risk of doing business. Reforms in anti-discrimination laws
The disturbing reality is that discrimination even pervades the very justice system that is supposed to offer protections. 32
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should consider more significant consequences for those employers who have been found to engage in racial discrimination. For instance, anti-discrimination laws can, in addition to allowing the award of damages to individual plaintiffs, can also impose financial sanctions on employers. If significant enough, these sanctions can provide employers a tangible incentive to address and cure racial discrimination. Sanctions collected from employers may also aid in solving the barriers that minorities face in attempting to access legal assistance. These sanctions could support programs which offer legal assistance to those employees who would not otherwise be able to obtain it. Attempts by employers to eradicate discrimination must move beyond the obligatory diversity training session. Employers must take a serious interest in eliminating racial discrimination from the workplace. But the change in workplaces is not likely to happen without some outside influence. Work to do in Workplace Law Consultations with minority clients often involve some discussion of the harsh reality that racial discrimination creeps into those places that extend far beyond the workplace. The disturbing reality is that discrimination even pervades the very justice system that is supposed to offer protections. The intersection of racial discrimination from so many angles means, particularly in the employment context, the risk of continuing financial insecurity and income instability. These compounded discriminations means a high risk that minorities will be unlikely to gain the financial strides necessary to eliminate a history of income disparity with whites. These risks are simply too great. A legal system that offers no adequate recourse or resources to racially marginalised employees is no system of justice. Legal reforms must close the gap between
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what the law says and what the law does. Stronger protection for employees; the availability of more significant damages; and better access to legal representation are all needed to ensure that minority employees do not endure multi-level instances of discrimination.
Phillis H. Rambsy is a partner with the Spiggle Law Firm, which has offices in Arlington, Virginia, Washington, DC, and Nashville, Tennessee. Her legal practice focuses on workplace law where she represents employees in matters of wrongful termination and employment discrimination including racial discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, and other family-care issues such as caring for a sick child or an elderly parent. To learn more, visit: https://www.spigglelaw.com/teammember/phillis-rambsy/# or connect via Twitter or Instagram: @blackbellesouth. References 1. For a discussion of the “motivating factor” standard see E.E.O.C v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 135 S.Ct. 2028 (June 1, 2015). The Court in this case notes that Title VII prohibit making a protected characteristic (i.e. race, religion, gender) a “motivating factor” in an employment decision. This case is a religious discrimination case involving the refusal to make accommodations for an employee’s religious practices. However, because Title VII includes prohibitions against racial and religious discrimination, the standards would be the same in a racial discrimination case brought pursuant to Title VII. 2. See “New Study Examines Racial Patterns of Lawyer Use in Employment Discrimination Cases”, www. americanbarfoundation.org/news/402 3. Myrick, Amy, Nelson, Robert L, & Nielson, Laura Beth (Fall 2012). “Race and Representation: Racial Disparities in Legal Representation for Employment Civil Rights Plaintiffs” N.Y.U. Journal of Legislation & Public Policy. 15(3): 705-758. 4. Id. at 736 5. Id. 6. Id. at 743-744 7. Id. 745-746 8. See Rhode, Deborah L. (2015, May 27). “Law is the least diverse profession in the nation. And lawyers aren’t doing enough to change that.” Washington Post, https://www. washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/27/ law-is-the-least-diverse-profession-in-the-nation-andlawyers-arent-doing-enough-to-change-that/?utm_ term=.0f8a9e4f1f71
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Gender
Enduring Gender Inequality in Politics: Where to from here? BY EMMA DALTON
Women political leaders are no longer anomalies. But gender parity in politics is still a long way off. This paper considers why politics remains so male-dominated, why the importance of increased women’s presence in policy-making is important, and explores some potential approaches to address the problem.
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is that women do not have what it takes to occupy such powerful and prestigious positions. Yet we know that women are as intelligent, competent and qualified as men, and legislation exists that mandates gender equality, so the issue of political underrepresentation – why it continues, what it reflects, and how to address it – is a curious and pressing one.
If a woman can be elected to arguably the most powerful position in the world, it sends a powerful message to women and girls that they are as important as men.
The Problem Clinton’s loss notwithstanding women heads of state are no longer unusual. Taiwan, South Korea, Iceland, Pakistan, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines are only a few of the countries that have elected women national leaders. Despite this, parity in the realm of political leadership still appears to be a long way away. Women occupy, on average, 23 percent of seats in national assembly lower houses around the world. Broken down by region, the most gender equal lower houses are found in the Nordic countries where the proportion of women in national assemblies is approximately 42 percent, followed by the Americas at approximately 28 percent; Europe at approximately 25 percent; Sub-Saharan Africa at approximately 23 percent; Asia at approximately 20 percent; the Arab states at approximately 19 percent and the Pacific at approximately 14 percent.1 Why is it that politics remains so stubbornly male-dominated and why is it important for women
South Korea’s embattled President has put her fate in the hands of the country’s parliament.
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any women were extremely disappointed when Hillary Clinton failed in her bid to become the president of the United States. Their disappointment was exacerbated by the triumph of her opponent, possibly the most overtly misogynistic president-elect the United States has ever seen. My 78-year-old Aunty was very hopeful that a woman would be president of the world’s biggest power during her lifetime and felt, as a woman, betrayed and heartbroken by the result. She was not necessarily a Hillary fan, so why did she, and so many other women, want a woman to win? Do they believe that women make better leaders? For my aunt, it had more to do with symbolism and validation. If a woman can be elected to arguably the most powerful position in the world, it sends a powerful message to women and girls that they are as important as men. The troubling message that we hear instead, with stark and enduring gender imbalance in politics in most parts of the world,
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to be present in political decision-making roles? Feminist political scientist Carole Pateman has shown that the theory of the “social contract”, which developed during the era of Enlightenment to explain the contract citizens have with each other and society, was also a sexual contract that subordinated women to men in all realms of life, from family to politics.2 The political process that governs much of the world – liberal democracy – emerged during the same era when the superiority of men over women was a takenfor-granted assumption. Women were understood to belong in the “private sphere” and were believed to lack a sense of justice and an ability to reason. The exclusion of women from the political sphere was thus naturalised. When theories of “equality” emerged during the Enlightenment, they were theories devised for, by and about men. These theories and political structures and processes have been gradually altered over time to now include women and racial minorities, but many feminists have been critical of the “add women and stir” approach because it remains premised on the idea that the male as the benchmark human being. As Pateman notes, liberalism itself is patriarchal but this reality is obscured because the political world is imagined as a neutral space, underpinned by egalitarianism.3 Under these circumstances, women in politics are implicitly encouraged to emulate the prevailing norms in order to succeed. Some are hopeful that as women’s presence increases in legislative assemblies, the less pressure there will be to assimilate to masculine norms, because women will start to change the culture. There is an often quoted suggestion that once a minority group reaches 30 percent of a group, the members of that minority begin to have an impact on the group.4 This is difficult to measure, but some studies have suggested that, in some cases, this applies for women in politics as well.5 The kind of differences women can make if they are well represented include introducing anti-domestic violence policies, agitating for gender quotas, and anti-discrimination policies. Others argue that regardless of the number of women present, making changes to the political culture is extremely difficult because of deeply-embedded and long-standing traditions of masculine norms. Masculinised informal norms permeate political institutions and present obstacles to women’s participation. Some basic examples of
The kind of differences women can make if they are well represented include introducing anti-domestic violence policies, agitating for gender quotas, and anti-discrimination policies.
Sexual harassment is an overt manifestation of a culture that is hostile to women who participate in traditionally male spaces.
this include the shortage of women’s toilets6 (many buildings were constructed at a time when women did not participate thus women’s toilets were literally an afterthought), the practice of holding meetings after normal work hours (on the implicit assumption that participants have no family care responsibilities), an aggressive style of debate and the sexual harassment of women. Sexual harassment is an overt manifestation of a culture that is hostile to women who participate in traditionally male spaces. It is one way of reminding women that they are “out of place”, and can have an impact on women’s capacity to fully participate in politics. Japan is an interesting case study with regards to this issue because of recent harassment incidents and consequent feminist consciousness-raising projects.7 A culture of sexual harassment of women politicians has been uncovered that points to a particular code of sexist male conduct in politics that seems to be less censured than it is in other spheres of public life. It also underscores a lack of awareness of the damaging nature of sexual harassment to women and to a workplace environment. It is tempting to believe that when Japanese women occupy the “critical mass” of 30 percent of seats in legislative assemblies, sexual harassment will cease, but data uncovered by the survey would appear to suggest that we should not necessarily hope for this. Almost 50 percent of women from councils where women constituted more than 30 percent of seats had experienced sexual harassment. Little research is available on sexual harassment of women politicians in other countries, but in Australia and the United States, there is well-documented evidence of media harassment of women political leaders.8 Research from other countries also contains messages of caution against assuming that things become easier for women to have influence in politics once they reach a critical mass.
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In Sweden, a country often held up as a bastion of gender equality, and a country with a high level of female political representation, some researchers have found that there is a possible tipping point where women’s increased presence may have actually a negative impact on male politicians’ willingness to act in the interests of women.9 Furthermore, despite feminists’ general hope for more women in office, most also acknowledge that presence of women leaders is not necessarily an indication of gender equality in politics or in wider society. Will More Women in Politics Lead to More Gender Equality? The push for more women in politics is premised on a number of beliefs, the two most significant ones being a) it is a matter of democratic justice that both genders be represented equally, and
b) women are more likely to represent women’s interests better than men. The first point involves unpacking concepts like democracy and representativeness, a task not possible in this article. Instead, I will briefly flesh out the second point, which is, perhaps the more contentious one, particularly because we know that some women leaders do not act in the interests of women and can even be anti-feminist. Some query whether we can even talk of “women’s interests” given the divergent lives of women. However, as a result of women’s socialisation as women they often have priorities that differ from men’s (such as a need to be safe from sexual or other violence, a need for support for carework that is usually women’s responsibility, access to women’s health and reproductive rights, and so forth.). Yet, the presence of one or two women leaders in a country does
FEMALE WORLD LEADERS
Female head of state Female head of government Female head of state and government
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not usually lead to, or reflect, gender equality in broader society. Korea, for example, whose female president Park Geun-hye was impeached in 2016, has the second lowest proportion (after Japan) of women in politics amongst OECD countries. Despite having had a woman president, Korea fares poorly in indications of sex equality in society, with the largest gendered wage gap amongst OECD countries, at 36.7 percent, and poorest representation of women in national level politics, at 17 percent. Japan is very similar to Korea in its international standing with regards to gender inequality. At just 12 percent, Japan has the lowest proportion of women in its national legislative assembly amongst OECD countries and has never had a woman head of state. In 2016, however, three women were elected to positions of political power in
GENDER QUOTAS ARE NOT THE SILVER BULLET BUT ARE A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION IN CHANGING THE VERY NATURE OF THE BODY POLITIC IN ORDER TO “CREATE A PROPERLY DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY, WHICH INCLUDES WOMEN AS FULL CITIZENS”. Japan, prompting commentary about the possibility of the political glass ceiling being smashed in that country.10 Notwithstanding the symbolic significance of the emergence of women in politically powerful positions, a closer look at the women who were elected to power suggests that we can expect minimal positive changes for women in Japan (particularly for those in most need, such as single mothers, victims of domestic violence and those in poverty).11 Nevertheless, in 2001, in the same country women politicians formed a cross-partisan bloc to push for enactment of the Domestic Violence law, a significant indication of the potential for women politicians to act in women’s interests. Studies from other countries also suggest that increased women’s presence in politics has the capacity to “feminise” politics by, for example, giving social welfare issues a wider scope.12 Gender parity in politics is not only about representativeness; having a more gender balanced body politic is important for a healthy democracy. So what are some solutions to the under-representation of women in politics? Approaches to the Problem In general, there is little evidence to suggest that voters favour male candidates over female candidates. The problem with the lack of women in politics must be addressed by changing the structures and processes of political institutions. Political parties need to seek out suitable women candidates and run them in winnable seats. Electoral systems need to change so that incumbent men and dominant political parties are not the obvious shoo-ins. Proportional representation systems, for example, are more friendly to women and other minority candidates than majority systems, which favour big political parties and candidates with institutional support. Implementing gender quotas is another method that has gained currency around the world. The success of gender quotas in raising the number of women elected to office and maintaining high
rates of female political representation has been mixed, but overall, uptake has been remarkable. Some suggest that the doubling of women in politics over the last twenty years is due to quotas.13 The path to gender quota adoption is not necessarily straightforward. A number of contextual paths can make the implementation of gender quotas more likely. These include, among other things, a strong women’s movement and support from political party leaders.14 Gender quotas are not the silver bullet but are a step in the right direction in changing the very nature of the body politic in order to “create a properly democratic society, which includes women as full citizens”.15
Emma Dalton is Lecturer at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University.
References 1. Inter-Parliamentary Union website. “Women in National Parliaments.” http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm 2. Pateman, Carole (1988). The Sexual Contract. Cambridge, Polity. 3. Pateman, Carol. (1989). The Disorder of Women. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press in Association with Basil Blackwell Ltd. 4. Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. (1977). Men and Women of the Corporation. New York, NY: Basic Books. 5. Dahlerup, Drude. (2006). “The story of the theory of critical mass”. Politics & Gender 2(4): 511-22. 6. Madoka, Yoriko. (2000). “Kokkai no josei sabetsu ni mono osu.” (Pushing back against discrimination against women in the Diet). Fujin Ko-ron (1052), 35–37. 7. Alliance of Feminist Representatives (Femigiren). (2015). “Jijitai gikai ni okeru seisabetsu taiken anketo hokokusho” (Report on the sexual harassment questionnaire in municipal councils). 8. Baird, Julia. (2004). Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians. Melbourne, Scribe. 9. Kokkonen, Andrej. and Wängnerud, Lena. (2016). “Women's presence in politics and male politicians’ commitment to gender equality in politics: evidence from 290 Swedish local councils.” Journal of Women, Politics and Policy. 10. Dalton, Emma. (2016). “Japan’s new icon for gender equality”. East Asia Forum http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/10/02/japans-new-icon-for-gender-equality/ 11. Dalton, Emma and Miura Mari. (2016). “Japan’s politics is opening up to women, but don’t expect a feminist revolution yet” The Conversation https:// theconversation.com/japans-politics-is-opening-up-to-women-but-dont-expecta-feminist-revolution-yet-67243 12. Wängnerud, Lena. (2000). "Testing the politics of presence: Women's representation in the Swedish Riksdag." Scandinavian Political Studies 23(1): 67-91. 13. Sawer, Marian. (2015). ‘The case for quotas in politics: the absence of women isn’t merit-based’ The Conversation https://theconversation.com/ the-case-for-quotas-in-politics-the-absence-of-women-isnt-merit-based-45297 14. Caul, Miki. (2001). ‘Political parties and the adoption of candidate gender quotas: a cross-national analysis’, The Journal of Politics, vol.63, no. 4, pp. 1214–29. 15. Pateman, Carole. (1989). The Disorder of Women, p. 52.
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Why Gender Inequality Persists BY MARY EVANS
Gender inequality persists throughout the world. Even if the forms of that inequality differ from those of the past there are still important ways in which women are marginalised , excluded and discriminated against in many contexts. The reasons are complex, but not least – and perhaps most surprising – is the way in which the assumption of the 'emancipation' of women masks the continuity of inequalities between men and women.
Malmö, Sweden – August 9, 2014: Members of the Feminist party 'Fi' participating in the Pride Parade in Malmö, Sweden
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here has seldom been a moment in the past three hundred years when the “woman question” has not been on the intellectual and political agenda of much of the global north. It is therefore all the more remarkable that there is still manifest gender inequality throughout not just this part of the world but many other parts of the planet. We have been thinking about this issue for generations but clearly have some way to go before we reach any kind of resolution of this form of inequality.
We confront in these issues a general human need for different forms of emotional capacity whilst at the same time we remain deeply conflicted about the gender of that characteristic. 38
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The question therefore is not so much what gender inequality is (that is made clear in any number of contexts from Laura Bates’s Everyday Sexism to the many governmental and NGO reports published throughout the world) but why – and how – this persists. The responsibility of women for much of the personal care necessary to keep the world functioning, the lower pay than men that women receive globally, the various forms of violence against women and the very limited presence that women have in many forms of social and political power all make up the case for inequality. Indeed, in some parts of the world women are formally regarded as second class citizens, every aspect of their social existence mediated through male power and privilege. This – and these – are forms of inequality, undeniable and stark. Yet, as already suggested, the question is why this continues. In answer to this enquiry there are some usual suspects: women bear children, do a great deal of unpaid caring that very effectively keeps them out of paid work and forms of power, there are all kinds of ancient religious myths that suggest some kind of natural gender order in which women are “naturally” subordinate to men. All these answers are important, particularly perhaps, and paradoxically so, in those many societies that are deemed “secular” in the twenty
first century. In these very places there are many who persist in supposing that women are that inferior form of humanity known as “Adam’s Rib”. It is not so much that millions of people actually believe as fact the creationist fantasies of the Book of Genesis but that what remains is an extraordinarily lasting and very powerful sense that somehow biologically female people do not have the same “natural” rights and place in the social world as men. What is important here is that we often refuse to countenance the ways in which we are not secular, and the ways in which some kinds of assumptions about gender, drawn from sources with which few people have any direct contact or loyalty, still inform our behaviour to each other. If religious mythology still continues to play a part in our society at least as important is our belief in ideas about progress and the “emancipation” of women. This I would argue is similarly important in explaining the persistence of gender inequality. It is undeniably true that many aspects of everyday, material life in the twenty first century is a great deal better for millions for people than it was in previous centuries. Many of us have access to clean water, once fatal forms of disease have been brought under human control, the vast majority of people in the global north are literate and communicate and travel in ways that were only dreamt of a hundred years ago. Those are generally changed and improved conditions of life for millions of men and women. More particularly for women, contraception has made possible the control of fertility and many of the once punitive codes about “fallen” women have considerably diminished. All this appears as, and indeed is in many respects, a very powerful argument for supposing that “progress” has been made and that women have been “emancipated”. Again, yes, it is important to recognise that women have control over their own lives in ways once legally impossible: rights to property, to paid work, to vote and to be educated. All these factors have made possible the view, made since the early nineteenth century, that the condition of life for “modern” women is very different from that of previous centuries. That view in itself also constitutes the basis for assuming that somehow the “emancipation” of women has gone too far; a
The persistence of gender inequality is that gender itself is an issue around which there is a constant narrative of the sensational. position which so comprehensively demonstrates that somehow the determining situation of humanity is male and that men should own and decide access to it . “Modern” women have, however, always been threatening. In Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park (published in 1814) the heroine, a penniless young woman named Fanny Price is upbraided by her rich uncle for refusing a marriage to a wealthy young man. In fury at Fanny’s refusal of this match her uncle remarks that he had always thought her free from that “modern” spirit which can so infect young women. Autonomy and agency for women were as problematic in the early nineteenth century as they are for women in the twenty first .It is not that the form of agency and autonomy are the same – not many women in the UK in 2016 are actually forced into marriage – but what continues are two things: a refusal of the recognition of the forms of power through which gender inequality is maintained and a constant sensationalism around the achievements and behaviour of women. In the first of those cases – the forms of power through which gender inequality is maintained – we have to look at our present, globally significant, investment in continuing our commitment to those human forms of masculinity and femininity. Both these forms of human subjectivity have important, indeed in some contexts essential, material importance. It matters to individuals, to families and to the state that femininity is associated with caring and that biologically female people are assumed to have this characteristic. This unpaid work of women is always thought to have achieved recognition only in the feminism of the late twentieth century but well known women in the nineteenth century such as Harriet Taylor were as fully aware of it as those other millions of women whose daily lives were made up of this form of work. But the associative link between women and care persists; a link which is often interpreted in terms not of this association becoming extended to men but in terms
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of the “loss” from expectations of the feminine. Yet these associations of gender and behaviour are further complicated by those studies of the work pace which suggest that although a greater emotional awareness, a degree of the feminine, is welcomed in men, the reverse is not true. Thus women who exhibit what is seen as “masculine” behaviour are not seen as positive. We confront in these issues a general human need for different forms of emotional capacity whilst at the same time we remain deeply conflicted about the gender of that characteristic. The consequence of our confusion and incoherence is that existing, and rigid, patterns of the emotional differentiation between genders persist. A second area which merits attention when we discuss the persistence of gender inequality is that gender itself is an issue around which there is a constant narrative of the sensational. “Sensation” as a form of news and public debate is ancient but the changes in communication in the twentieth century have made this into a formative part of our public media. The consequences of this for perceptions of gender and gender difference cannot be under-estimated. From the very explicit instances of the ways in which women’s bodies are subject to scrutiny and comment to the more implicit cases where women in public life are presented and discussed one refrain in all narratives continues: it is acceptable to police the
Toronto, Canada – May 25, 2012: Protesters marching during ''Slut Walk 2012'', a protest event about sexual assault and victims' rights, among other related issues.
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ways in which women appear and behave. This form of attention sells newspapers and magazines, creates needs and anxieties about appearance and puts into a global context models of desirability to a gaze which may once have been male but is now gender neutral. As Michel Foucault observed we increasingly police ourselves. But what Foucault did not do was to point out the way in which that policing was different for women from that of men. If we add here that concept of “moral panic” so vividly voiced in the work of the sociologist Stan Cohen it is possible to see how a constant social anxiety is created and maintained about what women are and what they should be. That is a pressure that other aspects of “emancipation” has not changed or challenged. Norms about sexuality have shifted – even if they still need a great deal more shifting in many contexts – but what endures is the way in which women and womanhood constitutes the “other” position of humanity. Even as women and men have come to occupy increasingly similar positions within the laws of the global north so new forms of gender inequality emerge; political power shifts between institutional contexts and to places which are in some ways often inaccessible to women. Social changes in the twenty first century are generally of a much greater benefit to the privileged than to others; those outside that privilege include many women whose structural position has changed little for centuries. The crinoline and explicit forms of male control have disappeared, other subtle but equally discriminatory forms of gender difference remain.
Mary Evans is currently a Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics where she teaches an undergraduate course , Gender, Politics and the State. Her many publications include studies of Jane Austen, Simone de Beauvoir and detective fiction as well as wide ranging work on aspects of feminist theory.
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