Work in and of itself used to have more social value. Both my grandmothers worked outside the home in education--normal career path for a woman of that era. They were able to get the necessary education themselves despite being part of larger families with varying degrees of wealth. The dream of bourgeois feminism was that women could enter different career paths, keep their money, and be seen as valuable contributors in all fields.
Now it's, oh, do we really need teachers? Do we really need engineers? Do we really need workers? There's AI and YouTube, why go into debt just so you can be seen as ChatGPT's little helper? ChatGPT doesn't have a pussy yet, though, just be glad you're not ugly or a man and you have something somebody wants!
the reality is that the woman told she has “something valuable” is supposed to sell it to a self-pitying and hostile man under such a system. without any value to humanity in general the gender wars are pointless
yeah, no point in arguing who has it better under this kind of system — both men and women are fucked in comparable ways that differ in their particulars.
Hi Evgenia. Would love your take on Albina Aliyeva, the rich kid (I presume would-be influencer) behind her own YouTube channel but a perversely fascinating channel called Privileged Few. She seems to be a Ukrainian rich kid spilling the beans on the lives of the children of New Money oligarchs. She even has a video on how she loves being new money. Kind of reminds me of what you said about the conservative immigrant in the US (she now lives there) during your Red Wake episode.
"Its good to admit the failure of liberal feminism..."
But it is the transition to something else that is a bitch.
In the mid-1970s I was a member of a Leninist/feminist women's group that was attempting to organize female clerical workers in downtown San Francisco since, at that time they did all the real work in most offices--before computerization.
The female leadership consisted of three women, two with working-class jobs and both mothers and the former wife of a prominent economics professor in the Bay Area who was also a mother of two young boys.
I could tell you some amazing "war" stories about this group of beyond liberal feminist women and a few guys. For a divorced male like myself the sex was great, although I did not ever succeed in sleeping my way into a decision-making position!
Appreciate the comparison with the Russian situation.
I do wonder if everyone's getting overly worked up off of a T-shirt not too different from other pithy fashion girl offerings.
And it wouldn't be hard to take this in a different capitalistic direction. Rather than interpreting too hot to "work" as implying you're a kept "trad" woman, it could signify you're an idle rich kid, a part time member of the creative industries, or involved in more feminine forms of hustle and grind. Imagine moreso influencers hawking goods and services off the back of their created image. Legions of podcasters, YouTubers, TikTokers, Instagram figures, even Roblox game designers (seriously) are seen as having independently made it with no man involved.
There's just as much of an impulse amongst young women to break free of "conventional labor" and be your own boss. It's an aspirational lifestyle free from a manager or a husband. Becoming internet famous or running scams to avoid a W-2 job and a suburban, dependent marriage in order to project an effortless blissful existence is valorized even if it objectively involves a lot of effort and hours.
Too hot to clock in might be more apt, but that just doesn't sell as well.
I think I have run into similar cultural phenomena in S. Korea in the 80s and early 90s. You don't run into these women anymore at least not randomly. Hopefully the economy and feminism have caught up with this sector of the economy. Your description fits them perfectly, cold or dead eyes that constantly appraised everyone for their value as targets or competition. This was never entirely legal in S. Korea but until the mid-nineties seemingly permitted. The highest class of these, "working women," as they were often called were surprisingly capable, educated, sophisticated and certainly, even at that time, capable of other work. One minor difference might be beauty and sexual appeal. Although I never met an ugly second wife, some of them were objectively average in appearance but never without talents that might include cultural education, musical ability, something that made them clever and charming. I never fully understood the economics of it but clearly some were also very well supported with houses, cars, all sorts of perks even as they remained at the edge or even, beyond the pale, of what was acceptable. Seems unmentionable in polite society there now despite being only a few decades from a time when second wives, legal or otherwise, for wealthy men was almost fashionable. I met numerous such women over the course of just a few years.
More excellent end-of-empire advice from a back-to-the-future Yeltsin refugee. The good news is that American ladies have something the commies never had: ozempic. So they will make the best of America's postimperial dystopia. OTOH if they want to redpill it and emigrate somewhere happy and wholesome, time to start those Mandarin lessons.
As this is more often the usual state of affairs for the human race under modern civilization, and as this is all biologically driven, and as socialism is never coming back, probably anywhere, for the US and our history, not Russia' self-destructive impulses, this is reversion, at best, for the United States.
We're simply going back to something not unlike the Gilded Age. I agree with a lot of what you write and don't care for the normalization of prostitution in the US again, but that's sadly where we're heading right now.
Seattle, a well known whore town is sliding right back to that past--but it's not Russia's, it's ours, which is how human history works. There are a lot of similarities to Russian and American society that you see in empires. I don't think that, therefore, "our past is your future," it's "our past is becoming our present, again." Your history, however entwined it's been in the past, is not ours.
Bravo! xoxoxoxo
Work in and of itself used to have more social value. Both my grandmothers worked outside the home in education--normal career path for a woman of that era. They were able to get the necessary education themselves despite being part of larger families with varying degrees of wealth. The dream of bourgeois feminism was that women could enter different career paths, keep their money, and be seen as valuable contributors in all fields.
Now it's, oh, do we really need teachers? Do we really need engineers? Do we really need workers? There's AI and YouTube, why go into debt just so you can be seen as ChatGPT's little helper? ChatGPT doesn't have a pussy yet, though, just be glad you're not ugly or a man and you have something somebody wants!
Precisely--try being a man in the midst of an oligarchy. Women at least have these options, as bad as they are. Men's are far and away worse, grimmer.
the reality is that the woman told she has “something valuable” is supposed to sell it to a self-pitying and hostile man under such a system. without any value to humanity in general the gender wars are pointless
yeah, no point in arguing who has it better under this kind of system — both men and women are fucked in comparable ways that differ in their particulars.
Biological determined particulars.
I think biology is telling us all of this in the end. Agreed on the last point.
No sooner than I read this that I see a waifish girl on the streets of Paris wearing a print t-shirt that said "Born To Slay, Forced To Work"
85% of women here in Paris work, with maternity leave and crèches etc and plenty have several kids
Hi Evgenia. Would love your take on Albina Aliyeva, the rich kid (I presume would-be influencer) behind her own YouTube channel but a perversely fascinating channel called Privileged Few. She seems to be a Ukrainian rich kid spilling the beans on the lives of the children of New Money oligarchs. She even has a video on how she loves being new money. Kind of reminds me of what you said about the conservative immigrant in the US (she now lives there) during your Red Wake episode.
"Its good to admit the failure of liberal feminism..."
But it is the transition to something else that is a bitch.
In the mid-1970s I was a member of a Leninist/feminist women's group that was attempting to organize female clerical workers in downtown San Francisco since, at that time they did all the real work in most offices--before computerization.
The female leadership consisted of three women, two with working-class jobs and both mothers and the former wife of a prominent economics professor in the Bay Area who was also a mother of two young boys.
I could tell you some amazing "war" stories about this group of beyond liberal feminist women and a few guys. For a divorced male like myself the sex was great, although I did not ever succeed in sleeping my way into a decision-making position!
Appreciate the comparison with the Russian situation.
I do wonder if everyone's getting overly worked up off of a T-shirt not too different from other pithy fashion girl offerings.
And it wouldn't be hard to take this in a different capitalistic direction. Rather than interpreting too hot to "work" as implying you're a kept "trad" woman, it could signify you're an idle rich kid, a part time member of the creative industries, or involved in more feminine forms of hustle and grind. Imagine moreso influencers hawking goods and services off the back of their created image. Legions of podcasters, YouTubers, TikTokers, Instagram figures, even Roblox game designers (seriously) are seen as having independently made it with no man involved.
There's just as much of an impulse amongst young women to break free of "conventional labor" and be your own boss. It's an aspirational lifestyle free from a manager or a husband. Becoming internet famous or running scams to avoid a W-2 job and a suburban, dependent marriage in order to project an effortless blissful existence is valorized even if it objectively involves a lot of effort and hours.
Too hot to clock in might be more apt, but that just doesn't sell as well.
I think I have run into similar cultural phenomena in S. Korea in the 80s and early 90s. You don't run into these women anymore at least not randomly. Hopefully the economy and feminism have caught up with this sector of the economy. Your description fits them perfectly, cold or dead eyes that constantly appraised everyone for their value as targets or competition. This was never entirely legal in S. Korea but until the mid-nineties seemingly permitted. The highest class of these, "working women," as they were often called were surprisingly capable, educated, sophisticated and certainly, even at that time, capable of other work. One minor difference might be beauty and sexual appeal. Although I never met an ugly second wife, some of them were objectively average in appearance but never without talents that might include cultural education, musical ability, something that made them clever and charming. I never fully understood the economics of it but clearly some were also very well supported with houses, cars, all sorts of perks even as they remained at the edge or even, beyond the pale, of what was acceptable. Seems unmentionable in polite society there now despite being only a few decades from a time when second wives, legal or otherwise, for wealthy men was almost fashionable. I met numerous such women over the course of just a few years.
Social democracy feminism is definitely better than liberal feminism.
Great article Evgenia
More excellent end-of-empire advice from a back-to-the-future Yeltsin refugee. The good news is that American ladies have something the commies never had: ozempic. So they will make the best of America's postimperial dystopia. OTOH if they want to redpill it and emigrate somewhere happy and wholesome, time to start those Mandarin lessons.
Weird take-also, people from east of Berlin typically didn’t need ozempic, they weren’t eating a North American diet.
"Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism by anthropologist Kristen Ghodsee"
Heh! Was wondering if you were going to get to her . . . .
Great minds think alike, eh?
Fantastic !
As this is more often the usual state of affairs for the human race under modern civilization, and as this is all biologically driven, and as socialism is never coming back, probably anywhere, for the US and our history, not Russia' self-destructive impulses, this is reversion, at best, for the United States.
We're simply going back to something not unlike the Gilded Age. I agree with a lot of what you write and don't care for the normalization of prostitution in the US again, but that's sadly where we're heading right now.
Seattle, a well known whore town is sliding right back to that past--but it's not Russia's, it's ours, which is how human history works. There are a lot of similarities to Russian and American society that you see in empires. I don't think that, therefore, "our past is your future," it's "our past is becoming our present, again." Your history, however entwined it's been in the past, is not ours.