Luke Judge

Ross Douthat recently wrote an article for the NY Times that basically endorses feminism, saying that conservative female candidates are proof of its success. Whether or not women in high offices is a good thing I’ll leave up to individuals to decide, but there’s nothing benevolent about feminism, which is at its core a supremacist ideology.

Only a couple decades ago, the idea that conservatives would embrace and support feminism would have been ridiculous, but here we are with Palin declaring herself a feminist and male conservatives emphatically agreeing and supporting her:

The question of whether conservative women get to be feminists is an interesting and important one. But it has obscured a deeper truth: Whether or not Palin or Fiorina or Haley can legitimately claim the label feminist, their rise is a testament to the overall triumph of the women’s movement.

What Tuesday’s results demonstrated, convincingly, is that America is now a country where social conservatives are as comfortable as liberals with the idea of women in high office. More strikingly, they’re comfortable voting for working mothers — for women publicly juggling careers and family obligations in ways that would have been unthinkable for the generations of female leaders, from Elizabeth I’s Virgin Queen down to Margaret Thatcher’s Iron Lady, who were expected to unsex themselves before being entrusted with the responsibilities of state.

The real problem with conservatism is exactly what its name implies: it seeks to “conserve” whatever happens to be the standard value system. In the Soviet Union in the 1980s, a Stalinist Bolshevik would have been a conservative. In North Korea, a hardline follower of Juche thought is a conservative.

In America today, an androphobic feminist who supports female supremacy can easily be a conservative.

I and readers who oppose the feminist status quo are considered wacky radicals who are not right-thinking Americans. We should properly be cheering every time a man’s wife leaves him and takes his children. We should be clamoring for more severe extrajudicial police responses to men accused by their wives and girlfriends. The disappearance of the American male from college campuses should be cause for celebration, and the rising financial burdens on men even as they are pushed out of employment should give us a feeling of self-righteous satisfaction.

This is what has become of American conservatism.

Tagged as: conservative feminism, conservatives, NY Times, Ross Douthat

feminism & Gender Issues Books couple decades, elizabeth i, iron lady, ross douthat

Indian Lehenga choli has traveled an extensive way from the royal courts of Mughal Empire to a favored dress of Indian women for all types of ceremonial occasions. It is exciting to know about the origin of lehenga choli, which says that it was originally worn by women since Mughal era. At that time it was considered as a dress that had the skill to festoon Indian exquisiteness in the most unassuming manner. Even today, the spirit of Mughal culture is very much intact and is depicted in conventional Mughal designs.

Through history, the lehenga has undergone very little alteration. In fact even today leading manufacturers do not fail to lift customary patterns form the golden Mughal era. The ensemble still comprises a customary long skirt, the choli and the dupatta. The fabrics used to make the lehenga are in fact the same as those used during the reign of the great Mughal King, Akbar i.e. silks and brocades. The dupatta is currently made of silk, linen of chiffon which is a new improvement.

Lehengas are ankle length long pleated skirts held around the waist. The skirt is graceful and flares around the wearer. The length of tribal embroidered lehenga varied between the knees to ankle, while that of richer people was always lengthy enough to touch the floor as they stirred. Traditionally, all lehengas were skirt type umbrella shaped. Nowadays, in the fashion market, however, there are diverse shapes of the lehengas giving a new look to the ethnic dress.

The various styles of lehengas are Straight cut lehengas, Fish tail lehengas, Mermaid lehengas, Paneled lehengas, Kali ghagras lehengas, Circular lehengas, A-line lehengas, Lehengas with full flair and so on. As is well known, the conventional dress of women in Rajasthan and Gujarat is still the ghagra choli. While the ancestral and rural women prefer the embroidered lehenga choli made with cotton fabrics and decked with embroidery and mirror work, women belonging to royal families favour and afford more elaborate brocades, tanchoi and heavy satins even with real gold and silver embroidery, studded with expensive stones.

The lehenga choli is the envoy of the traditional Rajasthan/Gujarat style of dressing. When we talk of traditional, nothing is more conventional than the bandhani printed–the tie and dye ghagra cholis. This is immensely popular throughout the country. This is mainly of unadulterated cotton. Other fabrics like silk and other man made fabrics are also obtainable. Usually, the blouses have detailed mirror-work and patch-work on them and are very vibrant. Other designs that give an ethnic look to a ghagra choli are kalamkari, mangalgiri, maheshwari, ikat and so on. Hand embroidered ghagra cholis are also traditional.

Wearing of this traditional dress at occasions is the hottest trend. Traditional lehenga choli is worn during weddings, festivals like Navratri, Eid, Dusshera. In wedding seasons this traditional dress has its own worth. The Indian ghagra choli can be worn at main occasions like mehendi, dandiya/sangeet, the wedding ceremony and the reception. The Indian lehenga choli exuberantly brings out the essence of feminism.

feminism & Gender Issues Books ghagra choli, mirror work

Today I’m reviewing a Sci-Fi book that fans of that genre won’t want to miss. The book is called The Gender Divide and it’s written by David Boultbee. With it’s completely original story line, it’s draw-you-in-and-keep-you style, and it’s fast paced storyline, this is one book that Sci-Fi readers are going to want to grab a copy of.

Okay, so let’s talk about the book.

The Gender Divide is a futuristic science fiction novel with a unique storyline. In a world where women live 4 times longer than men, it has created a gender divide. The huge difference in lifespan has created an social-economic situation where women are in power, and where the world works in a completely different way than it does today.  The difference has created a shift in power wherein governments, the military, business, and most other aspects of society are now dominated by women.

It seems that this divide in genders will be the new norm for society for decades to come. That is until Ryan Peters, an anomaly in this futuristic world, decides to set things right.

I’m not going to give away anymore of the story (you can read the book for yourself), but I will say that David Boultbee’s book does an excellent job of painting a picture of this original world of the future. The storyline stands on it’s own in a genre plagued by copycat types of books, and The Gender Divide is an engaging read right from start to finish. It includes elements of sci-fi, romance, and includes enough action to keep you tied into the story right from the start.

If you enjoy Sci-Fi, you won’t want to miss out on this one. Here’s a short excerpt and then links to get the book.

Excerpt

“You do realize this all sounds like a paranoid fantasy, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer as she continued. “Just how much of what we had is real and how much is because of this?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Sometimes I don’t know. My whole life changed forty years ago. I basically threw away the life I had back then and began a new one, all of it focused on this day. There were only two things I took from my old life. One was my relationship with my sister. She supported me and provided a cover story for me by agreeing to raise ‘my’ baby. The other thing was my feelings for you. I was still in love with you and thought perhaps this was what we needed to be together. I carried those thoughts with me for forty years, and when I first started here it tore me apart. I wanted to tell you the truth, but I also needed to access the data and I didn’t know if you would believe me. I finally decided I couldn’t be selfish enough to risk losing access to the data and so I didn’t tell you the truth. I even hesitated about starting up a relationship with you again, afraid it would compromise my objectivity.”

“But you did,” Olivia said softly.

Ryan nodded. “Yes I did. I really wanted to and while I could list dozens of reasons why I shouldn’t, I was able to rationalize every single one of them away.” He paused and laughed. “I still remember that comment you made years ago, that the ability to rationalize terrible decisions was what really separated humans from animals.”

Quick Links

Multiple eBook Formats From Champagne Books: The Gender Divide by David Boultbee

Paperback Edition: The Gender Divide in Paperback

You can also learn more about David Boultbee on his site: Official Gender Divide Site

feminism & Gender Issues Books fantasy, governments, job, ryan peters, science fiction novel

Human capital or human capitalism has become the explanation of the labor market and earnings inequality put forth by economists. While not a theory of racial and gender inequality in the labor market, this line of reasoning has major implications for minority and gender disadvantage in the labor market.

Human capital is the education, skill levels, and problem solving abilities that will enable an individual to be productive worker in today’s society. It contends that investment in education will improve the quality of workers and, consequently, increase the wealth of the community (Spring, 2006).

Human capital as put forth by proponents such as Jacob Mincer (1962) and Gary Becker (1964), argue that inequality exists in the labor market because some workers are more productive than others. Productive workers are more productive because they have invested more in themselves in human capital that will potentially increase their future monetary income. If everyone invested the same amount of resources in human capital, the distribution of earnings would be exactly the same.

In short, inequality in the labor market occurs because (1) some people have more education than others, (2) are willing to invest more in their human capital, and (3) choose to work in jobs that pay higher monetary incomes than those who like being on the low end of the economic totem pole.

However, this mentality is one of the many shortcomings of human capitalism. This theory does not take into account life altering variables such as racism, sexism, classism and massive amounts of inequality in the educational system. Because of these variables, Latinos and African Americans are three times more likely to live in poverty than Whites. Women account for two-thirds of the poor. Proponents of this theory would like to think that these individuals are incapable of achieving the same financial success as their better educated, wealthier counterparts and have not invested the proper amount of human capital to achieve success. This argument is aligned with social Darwinism; survival of the fittest, the notion that the poor are biologically unfit to compete and are to blame for their own poverty stricken existence.

Individuals who have not been able to accumulate large amounts of human capital are not powerless due to their lack of extraordinary ability but because of the same systematic barriers that have existed in this country since its existence: discrimination and institutionalized racism. The federal government’s continuing disregard for the overwhelming majority of its citizens has become more apparent as the incessant suffering of the working class and the abysmal excuse for an educational system are not only ignored but antagonized with rudimentary policies and expedient solutions.

This is all done at the expense of the most vulnerable members of society, the children. One of the most astonishing and under reported statistics in this country is that children are forty percent of the poor but is only twenty-six percent of the population. These children not only lack money but the opportunity for a decent education. Students upon embarking on the first day of school are immediately inundated into a government employed tracking system that has been used since the 1920s when the government decided to separate students by academic ability (Spring 2006). This system places students on predetermined paths based on subjective criteria, creating pathways that will inevitably socialize the students into their expected role in society. Infested with inequality and discrimination, this system degrades children based on their ascribed status (race, class, gender). These categorizations for the most part, will determine who will eventually succeed in society and who will not and are based on laws that riddled with negative perceptions. Children who are designated a lower track are usually minorities and from the inner cities of America.

The main shortcoming of the Human Capital Theory is the belief that education alone will end poverty. Even if there was a law that made it mandatory for every child born in America to receive a free college education, there would have to be enough jobs in the labor market for the influx of future college graduates. According to Spring, during the early 1970s, an educational inflation occurred when the labor market was flooded with college graduates and the occupational structure was not able to supply these individuals with jobs. As a result, people with doctorates were driving taxicabs and waiting on tables. In the end, the labor market proved to be the main factor in determining employment, not education (Spring, p27).

Horace Mann’s noble if misguided idea that the equality of opportunity would reduce social tensions between the poor and the rich by instilling the belief in people that everyone has an opportunity to succeed has not come to pass, at least not in minority communities. Only a ninny would believe that the educational system in this country provides everyone with an equal opportunity for advancement and potential wealth. In Jonathon Kozol’s book, Savage Inequalities