Disclaimer: We don’t, won’t and can’t follow all the causalities presented in the following article. Some we consider utter bullshit, actually. Nevertheless, we found some very interesting and true ideas and points in the text, so we decided to publish it anyway. That’s what the Internet is here for, isn’t it? Dan Simmons submitted another text years ago, when CRACKED was still a magazine, which sparked some arguments then. Does anybody remember? Well, maybe this article will start another interesting flame-war.

Disclaimer 2: This article is in no way related to or influenced by 9-11.  

My thesis is simple: The source of feminism and its immanent struggles is a societal movement caused by the disappearance of traditional war and the flow of men into the work-cycle. In other words: in former days women worked, while men fought wars. Nowadays the men don’t fight wars anymore, so they push women back down the societal stratas to inherit their places. From this viewpoint, feminism is nothing more than a defence-fight by women over their traditional place as the productive force in society. And, it is a loosing battle.

Are you sure, it isn’t the other way around?

Don’t fool yourself. Women always worked. From the beginning of mankind, through the middle ages up to the industrial years, women carried the main part of the workload. Gatherers, farmhands, factory-workers and, of course, ensuring the reproduction of the human race. Women, in contrast to the traditional picture of a household, never were restricted into the kitchen in large numbers. Of course, the women living in the rich and powerful elites enjoyed lifes of privacy and simplitude, but on the one hand, these people were always a minority. And, on the other hand, their men never really felt the struggles of a working life the same way the majority of people did. Think about the agriculture-dominated middle-ages as well as about the dark centuries of early industrialisation and robber barons: men, women, children and old people – all had to work to survive. In ancient societies only the kinds and lords enjoyed a life of pleasure and philosophy. The lower parts of society had to work. The male part was sent off to war, whenever the powerful called, while the women had to provide the next generation of workers and warriors.

With the beginning of last century and the first world war things changed. Tanks, rockets, airplanes and other industrial war-machinations changed the way wars were fought. At the same time industrialisation manifolded the output and productivity of mankind. The point we are headed to is that of an robotized war. Intelligent bombs, stealth bombers and the cyber-soldier are the latest steps into this direction. In the future, when information technology and cybernetics have taken the place of human material in wars, this change in history is finalised. Men aren’t needed to fight wars anymore. So, to find another occupation, they are pushed onto the free tasks at hand by technology: Work. As an effect of societal movements of this kind, the group already occupying this place is pushed away as well. It’s like a jostling in the supermarket when people get near the cashier. If one line closes, all the people look for new lines. And they are grumpy about it.

To further underline my point, I want to point out another coincidence: the suffragette-movement started with the industrialisation and the development of modern war. Suddenly rich women with nothing to do on their hands, stood up to demand “equality”, “right to vote” and “respect”. This is of course no coincidence. This was just the first backlash of the push women had felt when the first wave of men started to look for a new place in society.

No more wars, you must be kidding?

Wars have never been fought over personal disputes, ethical reasons or religious dilemmas. Don’t kid yourself. Wars have always been about ensuring the progress of one part of society over another part, usually separated by nation, language or culture. Whether a war was fought for money or for land (which were the two main reasons in the last millennia) the base underneath that was always to nurture your own society, to make it stronger, to survive better. The Darwinian principle.  

And, of course, women lose!

Actually, the physical gender of a worker is of no great matter in this game. The ones in power, the ones steering the ship, the ones forming the rules of the game, are not interested in the personality or individuality of those beneath them. They are merely interested in results, i.e. profits and resources. The problem is though, that gender as well as race and age still exist in this society as cultural symptoms. Every single person makes up society, there is actually no us and them, just a we. You can’t get out. Still, there are differences produced by linguistic endeavours, as Foucault tells us. The different parts of society have to find new positions and new structures, due to having been shaken up badly by the changes in society over the last hundred years.

That is why feminism fights the wrong battle. Women aren’t actually fighting for something more (equality, better jobs, respect…), they are fighting to hold their place. Feminism is about not losing any more ground. But since men have nowhere else to go, their place as fighters in wars not existing any more, they are with their backs against the wall. And as long as men are an important part in the structure of society, including their part in reproduction as well as their role as mavericks and free-thinkers to further progress society, so long will the structural undercurrents of society provide a place for them. Feminism, as a struggle to change society, remains futile. The act of holding your place on a shaking ladder that moves downwards.

So what!

Society, the world as we know it, is changing. As gender-roles dissolve into a unidentifiable mix in virtual reality, because they aren’t needed anymore, society will become more monolithic, i.e. stronger and more compact than before. At the same time it will become more diverse and dynamic on the inside, presenting more liberties and freedom to its members. But since we are society, it is just one part to view, analyse and grade what is happening. The other part is to play your own part in society. Change is what we make it. The average of everybody’s movements makes up the direction society takes. Very much like a school of fish there is great amount of irritation and false information influencing the decisions. So, if you want to take up a fight or a struggle, prepare yourself and inform yourself about what you are really up against. I’ll leave this short essay with the old I used to find written on the walls in my college years and years ago: TFYSQA. (Think for yourself, question authority.)

Dan Simmons, Alberquerque – Fall 2001

Sources:

Critical Art Ensemble: “The electronic disturbance” (1994)

Darnton, Robert: “The Great cat massacre and other episodes in french cultural history” (1984)

Deleuze, Gilles and F. Guattari: “A thousand plateaus” (1988)

Eubanks, Virginia: “The fortress of solitude: Travels in Hyperpornography” (1995)

Flax, Jane: “Postmodernism and gender-relations in feminist theory” (1992)

Foucault, Michel: “Discipline and Punishment” (1977)

Foucault, Michel: “History of Sexuality” (1978)

Habermas, Jürgen: “Communication and the evolution of society” (1979)

Parsons, Talcott: “The integration of personality and the relation of individual motivation to the stability of social systems” (1939)

Stone, Allucquere Rosanne: “Will the real body please stand up?” (1992)

Zinn, Howard: “The people’s history of the United states” (1980)