There was an interesting comment in a previous thread that deserves some further discussion:
” The vast majority of those women who were writers, judges, and legislators before the 1970′s came from the upper-class of white women. In other words, the females at that time (before the 19050′s) who were most powerful became powerful because they were related somehow to powerful white men and/or they came from a powerful family.”
Is it really any different today? Class mobility is not that great.
In fact, feminism seems to hinder social mobility. Back in the day, one reason men were preferred to women was because women would quit, get married and get pregnant. In lean times, nobody wanted to waste economic resources educating or employing women when they’d just take that knowhow back into home life anyway. Women themselves preferred their husbands, brothers and sons to have good career prospects.
Nowadays, careerist feminists (often from the upper classes) take positions that could otherwise be filled by more men from somewhat lower social classes.
Business leaders and politicians, who used to marry off their daughters (sometimes to rising upstart outsiders) to boost their own influence, may now run those daughters as candidates in their own right for political office or for a position on the board of directors. Is that really good for a society, to allow further concentration of power like that?
The Economist reported on this very phenomenon recently:
Ms Yingluck’s victory in Thailand’s general election on July 3rd is the latest example of an intriguing and, it seems, growing trend: for the sisters, daughters and widows of former leaders to take over the family political business on the death, retirement or—in Mr Thaksin’s case—exile of the founder. There are now more than 20 female relatives of former leaders active in national politics around the world. They include three presidents or prime ministers and at least half a dozen leaders of the opposition or presidential candidates (see table). There are no historical numbers for proper comparison, but it is hard to think of another period—certainly no recent one—when so much dynastic authority has been flowing down the female line.
Some of these women have made it on their own. Others are at last getting a fairer share of the dynastic privileges that used to accrue to men. Family name confers brand recognition, useful contacts and financial contributions—all of which are vital in democracies, and become more so as retail politics become more important. So America has not only its Bush and Kennedy clans, but the Daley family of Chicago, the Cuomos of New York, the Udalls of the Rocky Mountain states. As politics becomes more professional and specialised —with politicians increasingly knowing no other walk of life—the advantages of being brought up in its ways and wiles grow greater. Violet Bonham Carter, daughter of H.H. Asquith, a British prime minister, told Winston Churchill that her father had talked to her about affairs of state as a child. “I wish I could have had such talks with mine,” was Churchill’s reply, of his austere parent. Many of today’s political daughters have Lady Violet’s advantages.
Alte
September 29, 2011
Let’s move the conversation here, from the “Outnumbered” post.
Stadt-Land-Fluss
September 29, 2011
In Germany you have Ernst Albrecht’s daughter, Ursula von der Leyen.
Alte
September 29, 2011
Yes, it’s everywhere.
I thought the comment was interesting in that it noted that the pull of women into the dynasties actually further-concentrates the power of the male head of the dynasty. Before he had to compete ideologically with his son, nephew, or daughter’s husband, who might have some ideas of his own. Now he can groom his daughter from birth to be a “cuter, sweeter” version of himself. The Economist notes this in their article:
In other words, politics is coming to mimic corporate management, with alpha males in the board grooming a herd of docile, female managers.
And am I the only one tired of hearing people describe these Yes-Women as “fresh faces”?
joanna
September 29, 2011
Ugh, fresh faces.
Leonidas
September 29, 2011
“Others are at last getting a fairer share of the dynastic privileges that used to accrue to men.”
Because evidently as mere mothers, daughters and wives of the rich, powerful and privileged they weren’t rich, powerful or privileged enough. Meanwhile, the men, women and children of the lower classes (ie everyone since “lower” is relative) are still poor, powerless and downtrodden – but hey, at least it’s fair.
joanna
September 29, 2011
“Because evidently as mere mothers, daughters and wives of the rich, powerful and privileged they weren’t rich, powerful or privileged enough.”
This. There is always a plethora of discontent to be had.
Alte
September 29, 2011
Moreover, they’re preventing “upward mobility” among the men by crowding them out of politics. Politicians used to have to mentor other men, now they can groom women.
van Rooinek
September 29, 2011
Politicians used to have to mentor other men, now they can groom women.
Among other things.
Stadt-Land-Fluss
September 29, 2011
Well, Mitt Romney presents here the classical form of a political dynasty:governor and son of a governor.
So don’t worry dear Americans, you can trustfully pit your country in his hands.
http://cache.thephoenix.com/i/OldBlogs/MediaLog/romney-glove.jpg
Steffen
September 29, 2011
Romney bugs me. (let me count the ways)
One: A New England Republican is likely to be less conservative than a Democrat from Texas.
Two: His “frontrunner” status is propped up bu a leftist media that firmly believes my first point.
Three: Romneycare ran out of money in no time at all. Let’s make it national!
Four: The government’s spending addiction is our primary problem. #3 tells me Mitt is part of that problem.
Next, please!
terri
September 29, 2011
Romney seems to be picking up steam, though. I don’t have many feelings abut him either way. The thing that bugs me about him is that the MSM seems determined to see him as the nominee. That’s enough to make me wary of him.
bike bubba
September 29, 2011
Romney is too much of a corporatist for me, and I abhor his Romneycare initiative (that is way over budget, by the way). That said, I think he still would be a lot better than the current occupant.
Sept29
September 30, 2011
I hadn’t considered the psychological differences between a son and a daughter of an elite man, that’s another good point.
I’ve long wondered how the U.S. Democrats, which were a pro-SAHM party in the New Deal era, morphed so quickly into the feminist party that they are today.
The “elite daughter takes the place of working-class upstart man” is surely a factor. There have been strict gender quotas in the party since the McGovern Commission of the late 1960s, which obviously limited the pool of male upstarts.
Feminism as a whole doubled the manpower of the progressive-minded wealthy, and it doubled the manpower of the businesses they owned. It simultaneously curbed the political and social power of the working and middle classes. There were fewer non-elite SAHMs involved in local party politics and in policing their communities’ morals, since new cultural and economic pressures pushed women into the workplace.
If Murray Rothbard’s essay The Progressive Movement and American Education is accurate, this phenomenon dates back even to women’s suffrage. That functioned to empower feminist classes and cultures over non-feminist ones with traditional ideas about women’s roles in public and private life.
Svar
September 30, 2011
Read this:
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2011/09/30/am-i-a-threat-to-national-security/
Re: Der Spiegel
I love how the anti-racists in Der Spiegel are whining the hoooooribble racism against the Gypsies in Eastern Europe, but does it acknowledge the true reason? Gypsies are actually worse than Albanians.
Also, I love the Vladimir Putin-hate. The liberals and Neo-Cons of the West are just pissed off that Russia has a Orthodox Christian and Conservative leader. That’s why Putin is soooo evil.
Svar
September 30, 2011
I mean, come on, gypsies live their lives around committing crime.