The Labor Theory of Female Value
emma goldwoman | 29.05.2003 08:24
This is the latest in a series of essays. Please read also:
A MODEST PROPOSAL CONCERNING MASCULISM http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=25801
TEN THOUSAND YEARS IS ENOUGH!
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=13070&group=webcast
THE MOVEMENT FOR MALE RESTRAINT
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=13624&group=webcast
HOW TO CHALLENGE VIOLENT MALE DOMINATION
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=14156&group=webcast
A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF VIOLENT MALE DOMINATION
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=14726
THE PROBLEM OF MALE OBEDIENCE
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=20208&group=webcast
WOMAN'S GREATEST FEAR
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=22453&group=webcast
FREDERICK ENGELS AND MALE VIOLENCE
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=25102&group=webcast
INTERVIEW WITH emma goldwoman
http://www.portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=35304&group=webcast
RESPONS TO MY CRITICS
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=36278&group=webcast
WOMEN (AND MEN) OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/03/47034.shtml
The Labor Theory of Female Value
By emma goldwoman
Iraq Attack III is over (Iraq Attack I: Gulf War in 1991; Iraq Attack II: Twelve Years of Destructive Sanctions). Military occupation is underway. Iran Attack II (Iran Attack I: The CIA directed coup in 1953) looms on the Buscista (Bush style Fascism) horizon. The big ocean fish have almost died off. Kids are imprisoned in a death camp in Guantanamo Bay. The trade in sex slaves thrives. The United Nations proves again that it is the handyman of Mass Murder, as it prostrates itself at the feet of the War God whispering the prayer ‘Might Makes Right! Greed is Good!’.
Things will not get better unless we act. Now. Now is the time for a new paradigm of social change. A guide for action, for a movement. A theoretical understanding and a goal to move towards.
I suggest basing the new paradigm on two basic theories:
1: The Labor Theory of Female Value
2: The Conflict Theory of Organized Male Violence
Our new goal should be this: A society where all conflict is resolved through communication rather than through Organized Male Violence (war and the legal system).
Socialism and Anarchism and their less radical cousins Social Democracy and the Welfare State have failed. Why? Because they are essentially based upon Marx’s Labor Theory of Value: Labor is the ultimate creator of value, thus laborers are exploited when the product of their labor is taken from them by the Opressive Classes. Property is Theft.
In contrast, the Labor Theory of Female Value views Female Labor, specifically the labor of pregnancy and birth and childcare, as the source of all other value. Productive workers must be produced. Women are the productive source of all human beings, the primary producers.
We can imagine that for ten of thousands of years this fact formed the basis of a stable egalitarian human society. Men and Women worshipped the Great Mother, Nature, and her human representative, Woman.
With the rise of civilization and the development of the class system women became, as a group, the lowest oppressed class. They have remained there for 10,000 years, the essential slaves of all economic orders, Slavery, Feudalism, Capitalism. The product of their labor, their children, was expropriated by the means of Organized Male Violence, war and the legal system. Through this expropriation the children became slaves, wage slaves, soldiers and priests. The enslavement of women as a class coincided with the elevation of the Male God, the God of War in all his guises, Zeus, Thor, Ares, who eventually became the Monotheistic Male Idea Yahweh a complete fantasy disconnected from the real life of Gaia, Mother Earth.
We must recognize that we are still in this phase of history. The MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Bomb) death device was nicknamed ‘The Mother of All Bombs’, an explicit profanation of the concept ‘Mother’, and it was first dropped down onto Mother Earth in Florida, exploding into her skin. We must recognize the symbolic meaning of actual events. The hatred of the Mother which has developed with Organized Male Violence for 10,000 years is seen here literally and symbolically.
In the same way the courageous Rachel Corrie, who the ancient (pre-Neolithic) world would recognize as a Warrior Priestess defending the Home and the Family, was murdered by a Zionist Man (fueled by his belief in the Male God of Monotheism, the Male Idea), driving the ultimate male earth destroyer, a BULL-dozer, over her body, crushing her into Mother Earth. Rachel was a prophetess, the example of the spirit needed to stop the Male Destructive Machine. She died, yes, but then her murderer stopped the bulldozer and walked away. And her spirit endures, inspiring all of us to action.
The only way to control women is through Organized Male Violence. But before that occurs the more efficient system of mind conditioning and social convention do most of the work of keeping women slaves, worldwide.
The Women of the West live off the labor of women in poor countries. Their privileges are based upon the oppression of other women whose labor in bringing forth children and whose hand labor produce our wealth. And these privileges are reversible. Rollback of women’s rights in the U.S. is possible, just as is happening now to the women in Iraq. The fruit of war is a man grinding his heel on a woman’s neck. This is the reality for the past 10,000 years. Read your history with this in mind and it all becomes clear.
The male response to Injustice has been to look everywhere but at the Source: Organized Male Violence. Read this passage carefully:
“War is divine, that is to say it is primordial, essential to life and to the production of men and society. It is deeply seated in human consciousness and its idea embraces all human relationships. When history began mankind revealed and expressed his noblest faculties through war: religion, justice, poetry, the fine arts, economics, politics, government, nobility, bourgeoisie, royalty, property. In subsequent ages war tempered morals, maintained the balance of power between States, aided progress established the reign of justice and guaranteed liberty; Let us imagine for a moment that we can get rid of the idea of war. Nothing remains of either humanity’s past or present existence. We cannot conceive of what society could have been like without it. We cannot guess what it might become Civilization topples into the void. Its form existence becomes myth that does not correspond to any reality, and its future development is an unknown quantity that no philosophy could define.”
This prayer of praise to the male War God was written by anarchist hero Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (War and Peace, p. 23.)! Women and Men, should this man be your inspiration for social change?
This is but one example of how the philosophers of the left have blindly misaimed their critique of the Oppressive Society. They looked at the theory of economics, instead of at the reality of Organized Male Violence.
We are moving towards a militaristic and militarized culture. It is inevitable that this culture will try and take away the human rights earned by and for women.
My purpose in writing is to encourage Women AND Men to recognize the truth of the past 10,000 years of our history. Organized Male Violence has brought us calamity after calamity, to the point now that our species itself is threatened. Now is the time for Women AND Men to join together in a worldwide feminist movement. The left’s primary focus should be to bring women into the political process as quickly as possible, not in the service of Organized Male Violence, but in the service of a revolution AGAINST that violence, and FOR a society based upon Resolution of Conflict through Communication.
Men on the Left need to realize that Radical Feminism is the primary means to a better world, because Radical Feminism is the antithesis of Organized Male Violence. Analyses based upon class and race are necessary, of course, but are secondary.
I’m asking you to participate in creating this new paradigm of resistance and social change. Men and Women must free themselves from the old models of revolutionary change.
The new paradigm will be FEMINIST in the sense that the AIM is to replace the status quo of 10,000 years of Organized Male Violence with a non-hierarchical system based upon conflict resolution through communication, at every level of society where the Organized Male Violence now occurs.
The steps toward this world include creation of alternative institutions, for example non-violent peacekeepers who come to the scenes of conflict rather than the police, trained in the ancient skill of conflict resolution. It would include a systematic identification and description of every level of organized male violence, everywhere in the world, using the internet.
This is a PRACTICAL vision because it is based upon skills currently practiced by ordinary human beings everywhere.
We are responsible for being the ones who end the rule of Organized Male Violence, which will allow humanity to move into a sustainable way of living in harmony with Mother Earth.
emma goldwoman
e-mail:
emmagoldwoman2002@yahoo.com
Comments
Hide the following 19 comments
men and womyn are bonre equal
29.05.2003 11:43
As a male I don't like being accused of every crime committed by my half of the population.
Thomas J
Bio-determinism
29.05.2003 12:15
The trouble with such rad-fem stuff is that it is ultimately as biologically deterministic as the Nazis' theories about race.
Nazis thought that Jews, Slavs et al were "born bad", just as nutty radfems think we poor, maligned men are.
Its plain wrong to label entire groups evil because of their chromosomes rather than because of their individual choices and actions.
Equality for all! simple.
MM
Mad Monk
you are ignoring her argument
29.05.2003 13:36
queenie
Dont Bother
29.05.2003 13:59
at the end of the day the Straight Male Left only bothers about racism..they hate women just as much as the BNP if not more...
Heather
goldwoman2002 - pseudo-intellectual hater
29.05.2003 14:02
Consider the below text. Are are ACTUAL QUOTES from Emma Goldwoman's work, with the word "man" replaced by "Jew" and "woman" replaced with "Aryan". YOU tell me if it's violent:
-----
Fellow Aryans,
For ten thousand years humanity has been like a battered partner who must return again and again -- because of misplaced love, emotional and financial dependency, and the lack of alternative choices -- to the Jew who continues to abuse and control his life. The partner to which humanity keeps returning is called Jew leadership, the Jewish domination of all social institutions.
We must change, now, from a Jew dominated society to an Aryan dominated society.
Jews have brought us to this point. They have been the leaders for the past ten thousand years ... And look where their leadership has brought us. Look at the facts. Jews dominate every human institution in the world, and they have dominated these institutions for ten thousand years. Jews have led humanity to the cliff edge of species suicide.
Only by focusing on an achievable goal can a social movement hope to succeed. Our goal, which we must not waver from, is to form an Aryan dominated society. Aryans must control politics and education. A goal of parity will not work, as the last forty years has made perfectly clear. Jews, and therefore violence, will always dominate if parity is our goal.
First, if you are a working Aryan, you should, for now, keep your belief in the necessity of Aryan domination in the closet. What will happen if we dare advocate Aryan domination of the same order as the Jewish domination that currently exists?
Ask yourselves this question: By what right do Jews rule? Ordained by God? And who wrote the Holy Books? Ordained by Science? On the contrary, science shows us again and again the Jewish inability to resolve conflict, except through violence. Ask yourselves: By what right do Jews rule? Historical evidence? Jews have failed completely, that is the verdict of history. By what right do Jews rule? Because of tradition and force, yes. But, the real reason is that we allow them to rule. We accept their leadership.
Young Aryans, you who read these words, you are the hope of humanity. This is not an exaggeration. Are you going to follow Jews as they lead us into the night which does not end with sunrise, the eternal night of extinction?
Young Aryans, Jews will not lead you out of this Jew-made hell of a world. You are the leaders. Follow no Jews. I say it again, follow no Jews. Never forget, Jews have led us here, they have had their chance. It’s time for Aryans to depend upon themselves and take up their historic duty, which is to keep humanity whole, healthy, and most important, to allow humanity to survive.
We need to form a coherent philosophy justifying the necessity of Aryan political domination. This will not be difficult because of the obvious record of Jewish failure. This is because almost every Aryan is well aware that the Jewish leadership of human society is suicidal.
Once the movement gets going it will be impossible to stop it.
We must also encourage Jews to join the MOVEMENT FOR JEWISH RESTRAINT. This movement will be extremely important for the attainment of our goal.
We set the agenda. The agenda is not equality. The agenda is Aryan domination of political institutions, worldwide, [and not] [...] becoming aggressive, violent, selfish, short-sighted, competitive, cruel, and dumb. That is, becoming Jewish.
Signed,
ADOLF GOLDWOMAN
VJ
I responded to this a long time ago
29.05.2003 14:35
I responded to my use of the word 'domination' a long time ago, in my third essay, linked above:
"I was rightfully criticized for my use of the word ‘domination’ and I regret that my impassioned fingers hammered this word into my keyboard. I realized later, meditating on the responses to my article in a quieter moment, that ‘domination’ does not express the meaning I wish to convey.
‘Domination’ implies coercion through violence, which I DO NOT advocate."
I also responded to the term 'feminazi', in my 'Response to My Critics' essay, linked above:
About the term ‘feminazi’:
The term ‘feminazi’ is first and foremost a word used to try and shut people up, specifically feminists and their supporters.
As anyone who takes the time to read my essays can discover, I consistently advocate a resolution of conflict through communication, which is precisely what the Nazis were most afraid of, because their power rested on terror, pure and simple.
The term ‘feminazi’ became current (as far as I know, perhaps someone can do some research on the word and help me out) in reaction to the women’s movement of the late ‘60’s and ‘70’s. Rush Limbaugh is quite fond of this word.
Women can challenge this word directly, by refusing to be cowed by the people who throw it at them. We can calmly break the word down and expose the assumptions buried within it.
The word is made by combining ‘feminist’ with ‘Nazi’.
Feminists, women who have organized and struggled to promote the rights of women, have never held political power. Far from it. They are considered dangerous, however, just as Palestinians are considered dangerous for Zionists, just as wage slaves are considered dangerous for owners, just as critics of American foreign policy are considered dangerous by the men (mostly) implementing that policy. Feminists are considered dangerous because they challenge the right of male violence (individual, legal, war) to rule the world.
The other word, ‘Nazi’, refers to an actual political movement which taught that some people are slaves, others are masters. The Nazis, naturally, considered themselves to be masters, and thus anything, ANYTHING, they did was justified, in their eyes, because THEY did it.
The people who use this word, ‘feminazi’, thus combine two words which, logically, cannot be combined. The word is meant to frighten, to condemn, and to intimidate. A man who uses this word is nothing but a coward, afraid of talking sensibly about human society. Women have to put up with this type of male intellect, this bullshit, day in or day out, this male intellect which assumes it is oh so logical, oh so intelligent, when in fact it has the mental age of an eight year old moaning that his pretty toy has been taken away. His pretty toy, in this case, is his own image of himself as the rightful ruler of our world.
The word ‘feminazi’ is interesting though, because the Nazis were an example of what I have been talking about in my essays.
We often hear that Hitler was a ‘failed art student’. We rarely hear, though, that he was a ‘successful soldier’. He was. He was a war hero, just like Timothy McVeigh. Just like Ariel Sharon. Just like ……. you fill in the blank.
The Nazi party was started by young men, soldiers, who had been through the sadist training school called war. The sensitivity necessary for healthy human life had been destroyed. They became killing machines, and after the war they remained killing machines, looking for a killing ideology and a killing leader to follow.
The Nazi party was the modern expression of undiluted male violence: efficient, cold, filled with the false coin of maudlin sentimentality and patriotism, racist, arrogant, self-satisfied, cruel, and completely unable to allow the sensitivity of direct emotion and relationship to affect their mentally constructed self-image.
The Nazi party is blustering George Bush calmly contemplating the violent deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqi people in order for the white boys from Texas to take control of the world’s oil supplies. That oil belongs to Bush because he has the power to take it. Because he has the power, he is superior. That is the Nazi ideology, in a nutshell.
Ask yourself why the word ‘masculinazi’, or some such tortured coinage, doesn’t exist. The reason is that ‘Nazi’ equals male violence. And any woman who challenges the right of male violence to order and rule the world must be condemned as the imagined shadow of male violence.
Men, you men who call feminists feminazis, take a deep breath, relax, and ADMIT THAT YOU HAVE THE MATURITY OF AN EIGHT YEAR OLD. (I do eight-year-olds an injustice by using them as my point of comparison) Women do not want to hurt you; you hurt yourself by holding on so tightly to your image of yourself. Women want peace. We want to walk the streets in peace. We want to live in peace. We are sick of men running the world like it is a video game, where you win if you kill enough people. I say it again: TEN THOUSAND YEARS IS ENOUGH!
emma goldwoman
Reverse misogyny is still misogyny
29.05.2003 14:55
You are so bitter. You are so full of hate for others. You have no sense of humour or you would be able to see that your hatred of others is no more than a mirror of those prejudices you claim to want to eliminate.
You dismiss all criticism as "Typical men! They all hate women!"
Juvenile. Inadequate response to a real problem. Sorry, but it is so.
I don't hate women, I greatly prefer their company to men, on the whole. but I'm not a woman, nor are 50 per cent of the population.
If that pisses you off, then its your problem, not mine.
I campaign for all people, I don't exclude any group, except arseholes. And that includes the sort of people who change their name to "Goldwoman" because they are so eaten up with hate that they can't BEAR to have the three letters M-A-N in their name.
As if it matters.
The idea that all men are part of some worldwide conspiracy to keep women down is infantile. Reverse prejudice and you've still got prejudice. Your response to dissent is abuse and more hate. It won't do.
You need to think again.
MM
Mad Monk
no-one here called you a feminazi
29.05.2003 15:34
Neither I, nor the person who originally posted the comment, used the word 'feminazi'. I agree it is a purely pejorative and illogical word, but you appear to be trying to make it more justifiable and relevant.
With the exception of the two subsitituted terms, the words are yours. The target of your verbal violence, in essence, matters less than the underlying substance. It certainly bears a resemblance to nazi biological determinist hatred, with a thin veneer of political rhetoric and pseudo-intellectual nonsense.
"In the same way the courageous Rachel Corrie, who the ancient (pre-Neolithic) world would recognize as a Warrior Priestess defending the Home and the Family, was murdered by a Zionist Man (fueled by his belief in the Male God of Monotheism, the Male Idea), driving the ultimate male earth destroyer, a BULL-dozer, over her body, crushing her into Mother Earth."
I laughed when I read this, then I felt sad. This quotation is so preposterous, so over-worked, ostentatious and pretentious, it utterly trivialises Corrie's death AND the Palestinian struggle.
VJ
Listen up...
29.05.2003 15:50
Thomas J
hmm
29.05.2003 16:59
-
wake up use your head VJ
29.05.2003 17:47
even the post above with the substitutions, what is not true? are men the political leaders? have they been the political leaders for 10,000 years (99.9%, yes i know the thatcher argument, i've responded to it many times)?
so, what exactly do you disagree with. be specific. i worked hard, why don't you do a little work yourself, if you disagree with what i say!
emma goldwoman
Re:Emma Goldwoman
29.05.2003 19:00
Thomas J
Wimmin should be given an equal chance
29.05.2003 19:11
In fact, they should be given an equal chance to make a bigger mess.
After that, it is the turn of the children. The boy type.
And after that, the little girls.
If there is anything left, we can then give the hamsters a chance too. The male ones.
And of course, after that, the female ones.
Where we can, we should not leave out the cockroaches.
butch cassidy
Male Left
30.05.2003 08:15
That when it comes to defending the 'right' of islam to beat up women, to rape them and, yes, even pimp their own daughters (people who dispute this:first take a deep breath, well done, and then read the SOURCES i give in my posting on the SWP/muslim party thread)...then the Male Left falls over itself to bemoan the 'oppression' of muslims (in fact treading on the bodies of muslim WOMEN in so doing)...
But god forbid that WOMEN should speak out against sexism because then its all a matter of 'oh us poor downtrodden men are the ones oppressed by you nazi women' whats a matter you pricks? scared that assertive women wont take your facile crap any longer?
Heather
Gawd is right, yes, She is
30.05.2003 09:27
Yes, I am scared of "men" like that.
Full of sound and fury signifying defeat.
maid for men
passive/aggressive
30.05.2003 09:46
Most worrying of all, last year was the first for over twenty years where womens' average earnings FELL as a proportion of mens' average earnings. Mostly due to massive pay rises for a few very wealthy men, but still..
Time for a backlash against the backlash, methinks! Time, crucially, to organise as women. Some men will whinge, but ignore em. The more thoughtful will see the need.
But as to Heather.. Your frothing anti-Muslim racism has nothing to do with any feminism I know. Under your worldview, where do Muslim sisters stand? Must they reject their faith to qualify as women? Ever thought of asking them if they want your kind of 'help'?
kurious
Believe what u wanna believe heather
30.05.2003 11:11
Do us all a favour - fuck off and die.
Thomas J
Hmm...
30.05.2003 14:05
It's interesting to see a heirarchy of 'worthy' issues. Nasty misogynist practices - often horrifically violent ones - are apparently permissible if the perpetrators belong to a particular religious or ethnic group.
An aquaintance recently told me that having female officers interview inmates at Guantanamo Bay was an example of torture and humiliation. Even if we ignore the fact question of why the inmates are there at all, which seems more important to me, the implications of the 'female officers' issue are very disturbing.
And E.G. - I respect the effort you have put into your various essays and articles; I don't agree with you entirely, but you're right, I don't have the time or patience to respond to your work in depth. I understand if that devalues my opinion in your eyes.
VJ
not proper women?
03.06.2003 10:53
kurious