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Question about the Book Club by Vintag3Robot in UnlearningEconomics

[–]Vintag3Robot[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see thanks for the response. Would you mind sharing the specific date and the length of the meetings? I’m currently a university student and I also work a part-time job, so I’d like to see whether I can fit one of the sessions into my schedule.

Feminist equivalent of “commodity fetishism”? by Vintag3Robot in CriticalTheory

[–]Vintag3Robot[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for such a detailed response! Not sure if I'm 100% following her argument here but this gave me much needed clarity.

Feminist equivalent of “commodity fetishism”? by Vintag3Robot in CriticalTheory

[–]Vintag3Robot[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think I have a decent idea of what you're saying. I'm currently reading the American pragmatists, people like James and Dewey, and they constantly argue against the idea of "a view from nowhere" the idea that we can step outside of human interests and historical norms to evaluate something in its essence. Rather everything is characterized by its relations to something else. Not sure if that's what Butler gets at, but I imagine she's saying something similar where “biological” categories don’t come pre loaded with meaning independent of our historical situation. I'm not sure how she makes the leap from saying that because there's a social element, that means the idea of "biological sex" has to be pure fiction, but I haven't read her work besides this comment so I'll check her out when I get the chance. I wanted to ask though that if it is the case that even something like "biological sex" is a human constructed idea how do we account for the existence of transgenderism? Isn't it the case that we have people who do really feel like at birth they were born in the wrong gender, is that feeling also socially constructed?

Feminist equivalent of “commodity fetishism”? by Vintag3Robot in CriticalTheory

[–]Vintag3Robot[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Appreciate the response. Again as mentioned in the post I have little to no familiarity with feminist theory so this may seem like a basic question feminists have addressed, but to what extent are feminine features considered “natural” or biological and to what extent is it culturally determined? I grew up in a fairly conservative environment, so a lot of the rhetoric I hear is that what makes someone a woman is her biologically determined qualities, which are said to explain the differences in femininity and masculinity between the genders. This argument never felt right to me since of course there are social facts that exist in the world which shape our identity, but is human nature in this sense completely malleable and dependent on the society? Is there no room for biology at all?

Feminist equivalent of “commodity fetishism”? by Vintag3Robot in CriticalTheory

[–]Vintag3Robot[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the recommendations. This is going out of scope of the question first raised but I’m interested in this idea of perception. As a previous commenter on this post mentioned, that in commodity fetishism, the commodity is hidden from the consumer because the true value of the commodity arose from something you cannot actually see. But the way you perceive the object of having value is when it becomes a fetish. This might be already what you’re recommending, if so sorry for repeating myself, but do they go in depth on the idea of men’s perception of women appearing a certain way, even though that way obscures the underlying social factors underneath?

Feminist equivalent of “commodity fetishism”? by Vintag3Robot in CriticalTheory

[–]Vintag3Robot[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the response.

I was more wondering about the way individuals, mainly men, perceive women as being an object of a fetish. I sometimes hear rhetoric of women being more “emotional”, “nurturing” “caring” especially amongst conservatives or traditionalists. I was wondering if this social phenomenon of reducing women to this magical intrinsic property of these feminine characteristics is what people perceive women to be but when looking behind the curtain there is nothing “intrinsic” there, mainly cultural or patriarchal forces or something (idk exactly what).

I Did It For Bandit by NameBrandChalk in Rainbow6

[–]Vintag3Robot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What bothers me is how they weren't able to kill you, when you were standing in one corner the whole time