Tag: class

Also I Don’t Really Love “Sex shaming”

as a term for the behavior either because it’s actually got relatively little to do with actual sexual behavior (as studies mentioned previously show).  I mean it’s really more “enforcing codes of bourgeois femininity and maintaining class divisions through setting up working class and especially working class out-group women as deviant and hypersexual” but that’s kinda wordy.

Oliver Twist Syndrome

Y’ know how the point in Oliver Twist is that working class people are just as good as posh ones (sorta) but in order to make Oliver sympathetic Dickens gave him a posh background and most importantly gave him a posh accent and wrote his speech in a posh dialect?

It’s interesting to me how working class people are only sympathetic, are only relatable, are only given cultural space when they can speak bourgeoisie.

Y’ Know What Really Fucks Me Up

Seeing some of my comrades who are from lumpen prole/prole backgrounds be SO fucking bright and having had ZERO access to education (the lucky ones have and the difference it makes to like… being able to pass and institutional access and shit– damn that’s a thing)

Like they’re smart, and they’re curious and they soak up information like a sponge and analyze it with such intelligence and just… they give a fuck, they’re intellectually engaged, and like there are just these gigantic gaps in informational and educational access… and it’s just so fucked up.

Like I know so many fuckin’ bougie prep school kids who were utterly intellectually lazy, gave not one single shit about immense amount of culture and information at their finger tips and like laughed at people who did care, and like the fucking best and brightest are fucking working cashier jobs and don’t even know how to find academic articles let alone being able to afford access to them while shitty little whoopit is getting drunk with his gross startup bros.

And it’s just like on top of everything it’s so fucking unfair.

Am I the only one who’s kinda uncomfortable

When other sex workers make fun of working class dudes while praising bougie dudes?

Like take his money, by all means, and like focus your energies on what gets you paid and don’t let anyone demand unpaid labor from you (a dude who expects as much emotional labor as a client who doesn’t pay like a client, nuh-uh, no way) but don’t be a snob, you’re a member of the working class too.  I’m not saying ‘date poor dudes’ or whatever, like I said, get paid, get the lifestyle you want, but just… don’t say mean shit about people because they’re poor, it’s a shitty thing to do.

And also like it makes me sad when I see sex workers acting like they oughta be grateful to this dude for paying for their labor… even if he’s paying you real well, you’re still doing a job, it’s a paycheck, not charity.  You shouldn’t have to get all ring kissy over that crap.  

Strange to think that even today, when confronted with the autonomy of the Black movement or the autonomy of the women’s movement, there are those who talk about this “dividing the working class.” Strange indeed when our experience has told us that in order for the working class to unite in spite of the divisions which are inherent in its very structure‐factory versus plantation versus home versus schools‐those at the lowest levels of the hierarchy must themselves find the key to their weakness, must themselves find the strategy which will attack that point and shatter it, must themselves find their own modes of struggle.

Selma James – Sex, Race and Class

A Metaphor For Privilege Under Capitalism

Let’s say there are three groups of mice, one has a 7/8ths of a cake, one has 1/8th of a cake, and one has no cake.

The mice with no cake are like “Hey it’s pretty shitty we don’t get any cake”

And the mice with 7/8ths of the cake tell the mice with 1/8th of the cake “Well I mean you could divide it with them, but then you’d only get 1/16th of the cake then”  and the mice with 1/8th are like “HELL NO” and attacks the mice with no cake.

And then sometimes one of the mice with 1/8th of the cake go to the mice without cake and go “you know if we joined together we could get those guys’ whole cake”

And the mice with no cake are like “…you won’t share your cake with us and you attacked us for asking for any cake at all so we don’t really trust you… maybe if you were less shitty to us?”

And then the 1/8th cake mouse accuses them of dividing the working class.

Also sometimes one of the 7/8ths cake mice is like “We should both give them 1/16th of the cake, I know it’s a huge sacrifice, but it’s the right thing to do”  but it’s really just doing that to keep the 1/8th mice focused on making sure the mice with no cake don’t get any of their slice so that they don’t gang up with the mice with no cake and take the whole cake and divide it in half. 

Also I think bourgeois women have a kind of patriarchal power over prole women on top of the class thing, and white women over WOC and so on.

Like bourgeois women feel entitled to regulate our reproduction, and sexuality.  Feel they have the right to comment on and criticize our appearances.  They feel entitled to us sexually (the way bougie female strip club patrons treat the dancers, also like the way bougie women will appropriate prole women’s, especially sex workers’, style of dress for a naughty thrill or to be daring,) and like also how they go to high powered jobs or skip off to spin class and leave domestic and often emotional labor to us.

For examples see:
The rise in demand for domestic labor as bougie women entered the workforce

The fact that all the modern hair removal women do started with sex workers (I don’t have a source but the modern trend for removing your pubic hair started with sex workers too) 

This shit

a bunch of other stuff I’m not going to look at right now because I need a bath and to find my glasses

Also like how even straight white women will use black women as sexual props and toys (hey Miley, hey Iggy) as mentioned in the essay I linked to right there (also in the post before this because it’s that fucking good) and like WOC have written better stuff on this than me.  OH also Laurell K. Hamilton’s orientalist submissive lotus blossom bullshit (google it or maybe don’t it’s depressing here’s a link and another).

Also like straight women using sga women as experiments and props and so on and so forth but like mostly I wanted to talk about the class thing because other people have written better on the other stuff.

Class Is Different From All Other Axes Of Oppression

Class is a material difference based on a social relation, and to abolish the social relation one must abolish the material difference.

All other axes of oppression are social relations based on (often vague and always arbitrary) material differences.  One can leave the material difference alone when abolishing these (e.g. you don’t need to abolish people having different skin tones to abolish to social relation of race)

Which I think is why you can have like men who are genuinely committed to anti-sexism and can be trusted, but no bourgeois is a true comrade.  This is also why international working class sympathy and solidarity is crucial (with the most privileged members of the working class needing to be the ones who aren’t shitty before they can expect help from the rest of us) 

Class is A Material Difference Based On A Social Relation

To abolish the social relation you must abolish the material difference (E.G. You must abolish private property.)  All other axes of oppression are social relations based on some random (often vague) material difference, and the material difference can be left alone (E.G.. You do not need to abolish people having different skintones and hair textures to abolish the social relation of race)