nika & silvia on divorce
Nika Dubrovsky In conversation with: Veronica Davidov and Silvia Federici
“Divorce as a State of Exception”
Panel Discussion (Zoom)
silvia here: doe – david w astra
nika dubrovsky and silvia federici
then 63 min video (above) posted (so added minutes back in)- re: von der poesie im recht: 7th of December discussion of Silvia Federici, Nika Dubrovsky
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notes/quotes from convo (25 ish on zoom call.. can’t tell how many at conference):
sonja (speaking from the conference in botania russia): theme is divorce.. introducing nika and silvia to the attendees.. interested in how you will tackle the concept of marriage.. have been talking about child custody
5 min – nika: silvia was great friend of david.. fem was important to him.. this movement changed everything.. i was interested in divorce theme because of my own situation.. started a comic book about divorce..
6 min – nika: when we see violence against women (or any marginalized person).. interp’d as isolated incident.. not connected to the overall power structures.. in each of personal tragedies we are persuaded that they are all separate misfortunes and there are no underlying power structures t.. beneath it.. and silvia in her text has cracked the social court and showed the decisive role of gender politics in our society as a whole and how it’s shaped basic relationship and reproductive (?) of our life
7 min – nika: so my mom was telling me that my aim in life was to love and be loved.. and that’s what i was trying to do .. but in society where i grew up this love work was primarily understood as work inside the nuclear fam, woman, man and 1-2 kids.. and now that’s distorted pic of world to say the least.. the major lie of contemp society is about nuclear fam.. fam values is one of the main idealogical basis for capitalism.. work hard.. go into debt.. submit to boss.. people will because they want to love and be loved.. raise children ..t
8 mini – nika: however think about this.. in developed countries almost 1/2 marriages end in divorce.. interestingly.. most of the patriarchal countries where woman rights are suppressed have lower rates than countries w progressive gender politics (gives stat ie’s) .. answer is obviously that harder for women in patriarchal society to get divorced.. sometimes not possible at all.. unless of course one thinks that patriarchy makes women more affectionate and men more nurturing by taking away women’s rights
9 min – nika: after the divorce.. in most cases.. children stay with their mothers.. and even if mother’s remarry.. children from previous marriages most likely would be their responsibility.. so it’s visible we actually living in a society of single mothers.. not in a society of nuclear fams..
nika: david and i were working on the yes woman project.. that was connected to the divorced women from the xgdr.. we wrote many text, did public intervention, i drew graffiti for them.. made slogans.. ‘divorce is not a crime’ et al..
10 min – nika: about the women of gdr.. there were 900 000 of them.. a lot for small country as is germany.. also significantly more worked/ed’d women in democratic germany than in capitalistic fed germany.. so why did this happen.. because in gdr there were social welfare system that took into account invisible work.. house/care work and so on..
11 min – nika: where as capitalism by defn shift public welfare and the cost of reproduction of life into individual responsibility and by far into the hands of the women.. and as always.. this happens thru violence.. ie: in germany in 70s husbands had the right not to sign a working permission for their wife if he thought she was not fulfilling family obligations.. essentially the husband was the wife’s main employer.. but he was also responsible for her welfare in the events of the divorce.. wife would get 1/2 of his pension.. during this reunification (?) from gdr lost both.. they didn’t get 1/2 of their former husband’s pension but they had lost welfare benefits due to the transition of the former country from socialism to capitalism.. poverty in loss of % of pensions.. are obviously social abuse .. but social insult are even worse
12 min – nika: this woman told david and me that they read articles in german media that said: ‘dear old ladies.. . you want too much.. to be able to divorce and at same time have social protection.. doesn’t work like this baby’.. so the newly united germany took in almost a million independent educated working women and immediately stripped them of their rights.. because they disrupted its patriarchal codes.. capitalist and fam values.. and in additions to suffering.. these women went thru.. it is important to note that this imparted the social fabric of whole german society and possibly the whole europe.. and i’m afraid we will find out more about this in coming years..
13 min – nika: so.. i just want to say .. it makes sense to think about how to reset the whole system and make it focus on the care and reproduction of life instead of production/consumption.. and if we wouldn’t be able to do that.. it looks like we will face barbarism and ultimately fascism and definitely right wing chief (?).. i think silvia is best person to answer all these questions..
14 min – silvia: nika the story you have told us now about what happened to women in gdr.. the victory of democracy .. the falling of the berlin wall.. and these women being stripped of the protection they had.. i was reminded of a slogan that anarchist women in argentina in the 20s forged.. ‘democracy in home/country.. democracy in country/home’ so there’s a very deep connection in every society between the way the so called ‘private’ relations which are not private and the political democratic politics are org’d .. and the story of these women being stripped.. particularly at a later age in life.. is scandalous.. but it’s not surprising at all.. becaUse actually this is a very generalized condition.. europe and in us et al.. the predicament/crises that divorced women encounter is very much rooted in the devaluation of house work.. the devaluation of the role of the house wife or as they call it here.. the home makers.. and the whole structure of the fam.. of the org of marriage and family life..
16 min – silvia: and i think it’s very important to establish a number of things there because this is really.. here begins the center of the problem.. not about family life and marriage as you suggested before as being covered by this ideology of romantic love.. the whole idea that this is a special sphere.. private/separate from the world of econ relation .. and we have all .. in many ways.. at least women of my generation were indoctrinated in this conception.. actually.. when we began to look into it we discovered there was nothing private.. in the org of the family.. on the contrary.. in fact the org of fam .. the fam was as sort of (or.. would start as) a factory.. a particular type of factory part of the capitalist assembly line of production.. because it has been org’d in capitalist society.. in particular in last century and a half.. it has been org’d as the center for the production/reproduction of the work force.. so in fact.. what takes place in fam is much more org’d than we often think.. we often think it’s the result of individual relation.. far from it.. and in fact the whole econ structure.. every kind of work activity.. and certainly wage labor.. is dependent on the work that has gone on in the home done by millions and millions of women..
18 min – silvia: and in fact the capitalist class has been able to accumulate an immense amount of money because their work has been defined as ‘private’.. as ‘non-econ’.. has been made invisible, etc etc.. so when we look at it this way.. of course we see right away also the violence.. the ineq that is built into fam structure.. as you mentioned and we wrote about it.. the state.. the capitalist class.. has delegated to the wage worker .. traditionally the male worker.. has delegated to the wage worker.. by means of the wage.. the wage has become an instrument for the wage worker to become the supervisor of the labor of the woman in the home.. it’s given the man the power to in fact control her work.. and also punish her if she does not perform .. t
19 min – silvia: we came to realize in the 70s.. that much of the violence.. domestic violence.. wife beating etc.. in the home.. that has always been totally related .. has never been seen as something really serious.. not as an assault on the person but kind of a fam quarrel.. and to do it with the fact that the state was complicitous.. in a way the state accepted.. that corporal punishment would be part of the management of fam relation.. would be an instrument that man would be allowed to have to ensure women would perform their reproductive work.. in other words.. the wage would not be wasted.. that the wage this man brought home would actually be used in a productive way to actually ensure that this same man would be brought back every day.. and which meant he had the right to good food, space, tranquility, the children are not crying, the house is clean.. and whether she’s tired or not.. every night she has to make sex.. or whenever he wants she has to make sex.. exactly exactly.. according to all women had to do.. cook, clean, children, sex.. and liberate his time so he doesn’t have to bother with the children.. and so the violence/beating becomes a way of enforcing this work.. because they can’t cut her wages because she’s not compensated anyway..
20 min – silvia: so the dissolved (or it’s all) structure of dependence .. that traditionally has made so many women dependent has been really implicated in the violence to which women in the home have been subjected to.. so i think when we begin to see that.. i have defined it.. ‘the patriarchy of the wage‘.. patriarchal power is being restructured in a capitalist society thru the management of the wage and wage relation.. but when we see this.. we that marriage.. the marriage contract is a labor contract.. and it’s actually quite interesting.. with more time we could investigate and talk about the evolution for ie.. of marriage legislation.. and the fact that a lot of the marriage legislation was refined/intro’d in europe in last part of 19th cent when .. in fact in the very moment when the capitalist class begins to invest in the reproduction of the workforce.. investing meaning organizing fam life.. the nuclear fam etc etc
21 min – silvia: so .. by looking at structure we came to look at the situation of the woman when she is divorced.. she’s already devalued as a wife.. and the divorced women is the women even further devalued.. because not she’s not performing the task.. from the pov she’s not productive any longer.. and therefore.. from pov of state.. she has no right..
22 min – silvia: and indeed it took a lot of struggle in the 70s.. a lot of feminist struggle of organizing around the issue of women who are divorced.. who basically had nothing .. many of them who go on welfare.. and many of them engage in this long battle.. when they could afford it.. to have the man pay a little bit of alimony.. take care a bit of childcare.. of supporting the children.. but generally not being able to really obtain the kind of resources that would enable them to survive
23 min – silvia: and it’s very interesting .. the first response to this feminist effort were a number of displaced home maker’ bill.. very interesting.. the definition of the divorced woman.. the displaced home maker.. so this very concept the woman like rooted in the home.. and she is displaced and here.. the metaphor is people were expelled from their lands.. the place they belonged to.. ancestrally.. and now she’s displaced from the home.. so there were all these displaced homemaker bill.. but they were fad (?).. the general trend in all of them was not really to recognize the work the women have done.. we know for instance the many many women when they were young stayed at home and took care of the children .. did all the housework.. and often allowing the husbands to build the careers.. many put their husbands thru college.. by liberating their time.. and nevertheless.. once they were divorced they had to fight for a pittance (?) .. they had to fight to make this demand (?)
24 min – silvia: so the homemaker’s bills that were proposed.. they had really nothing to do w recognizing the work that these women had done.. but rather their erection was enabling them to enter the job market.. in other words.. providing all these .. with the perspective of full employment and the perspective that they should be self supporting.. and so .. they should be retrained..
25 min – silvia: and by the way here.. we have to realize.. there’s a whole chapter .. one could speak for hours.. because of this ideology which is so connected to the vision of what is domestic work.. what is reproduction in the home.. and the distortions that are attached to it.. and i would say that even the fem movement is not really been able to give a full view of what is involved in this reproductive work.. because the ideology that has prevailed is that this is unskilled labor.. this is very unskilled labor.. so that traditionally when a homemaker.. a fulltime house wife has gone out of the home looking for a job and she’ll be asked what kind of work experience she had.. she had to put that she had no work experience.. and the homemaker bills that were intro’d in 70s and later .. all presumed that she had to be trained.. that the woman had to be going thru all this diff program where she could acquire some skills
oi.. no train et al..
message in chat: ‘We are not dependent on husbands anymore but now we’re answering to bosses and many of us are still doing the housework, not true freedom…’
yeah that .. chasing whalespeak goals.. et al..
26 min – silvia: and i want to say here.. this is such a distortion.. it’s humungous.. because in fact there are few jobs/tasks that are so complex.. so diverse .. and so relying on an immense amount of skills.. including intellectual, emotional, skills.. as domestic work.. t.. because the image is always very very reductive.. cooking, washing, and child care.. but even child care.. let’s break it down.. what is child care.. child care is a huge amount of work.. i can’t go into it
caring labor .. interpretive labor.. et al
27 min – silvia: but actually the domestic work is so much more.. first of all it’s really women who .. domestic, housewife, mothers, who do most of the work when a person gets sick, so in fact, even to this day.. attached to domestic work.. part of domestic work is the work of 1\ healing .. secondly 2\ cooking .. of course much depends on one’s income/time.. but cooking is not only a mechanical job .. cooking is also dealing w people’s health.. w people’s problems.. it’s understanding what is the nutritional character of food or for the food that is served etc etc 3\ emotional relations.. everyday keeping the domestic relationships smooth.. and resolving the cry scene (or crisis?).. keeping the connection w people w relatives w friends etc etc.. so 4\ budgeting .. the whole work of budgeting is really always falling on the shoulders of women.. making sure .. and she’s the one who does extra work shopping for cheaper places etc etc.. still providing something that is decent for the fam
28 min – silvia: so it’s a vast.. vast.. area of work.. i have to say also to younger women who think ‘oh i’m not interested in discussion of reproduction.. i’m not interested in talking about domestic work’.. i was one of those women.. for a long time figured.. housework.. never.. because i saw my mother who was always complaining that her work was not appreciated and she was working and working.. picking up things for instance.. picking up things in the house.. what a work.. a house is like a classic ie of entropy.. everyday it falls apart.. everyday you have to re.. it’s like a (ceaseless?) project .. and these women are doing all this work of picking things up, recreating an atmosphere that is not only reproductive in a physical sense but repro in an emotional sense as well..
29 min – silvia: so i’m saying to the younger women.. remember that housework is waiting for you at some corner or another.. when you grow up it’s very difficult to escape it.. and it’s important to know that to this day.. even though since the 80s.. the doors of wage labor have been wide open to women.. and so many women now have a second job or even a third job .. because often a job is not enough to give you economic autonomy.. so you need 2 jobs even to begin to make ends meet.. nevertheless.. it’s still women who do the majority of housework.. stat is still women do majority of housework.. even in us..
caring labor.. interpretive labor
30 min – silvia: so there’s a lot of things that have to be addressed in relating to the org of reproductive work.. fighting against its devaluation.. to deal with the issue of divorce ..
31 min – silvia: because as i was saying.. the conception of reproductive work is not work.. that this work does not entitle to benefits of your own.. so the divorced woman for instance.. may have some benefits.. in like the states.. she has some benes.. but if she’s been married for 10 yrs.. and after 10 yrs of marriage.. if she divorces .. she may have some access to her husband’s benes.. more than that.. if it comes to alimony or sharing of property in recognition of the work that she’s done.. she will have to negotiate.. and there will be a state authority that will have to decide what kind of rights she had or what kind of rights she does not have.. so it’s a very very very precarious situation.. and it’s a precarious situation also because economically women are in a much much worse position than men..
32 mi – silvia: so the stat.. and i just checked it.. is that when women divorce in us.. the majority have a drop of 40-45% in income.. so if divorce.. access to resources to reproduce yourself will drop 40-50%.. another stat this is really worrisome is the stat concerning nursing home.. the majority of inmates in the nursing home.. the ones that are publicly funded.. the ones that are basically stocked w people w no income.. in us those who benefit from medicaid.. which is a welfare program for the very very very poor.. are women..
33 min – silvia: because many of them.. even if they’re not divorced.. they work all their life.. do not earn an income.. they depend on their husbands.. then the husband die.. and they have taken care.. spend all their time caring for others.. helping them to live.. but also helping them to die.. they always say that women die after their husband.. well.. i say.. they’re not allowed to go on any vacation.. they have to work until the end of their family’s life.. because they’re the ones who do most of the work of caring for the ill.. helping people not only to live but also helping them to die .. this is very important.. it’s a kind of work that is more invisible than the generally invisible reproductive work.. it’s the most invisible of all the work.. t.. we see child care but we don’t see the work that takes place around the bed where the person is dying.. but at the end of their life.. they end in nursing home .. which are across the world .. the nursing home for poor people are some of the worst places to which you can go.. because usually they’re under staffed/funded.. and elder people are not given half of the care they would deserve..
bj miller.. palliative care.. but today.. we have an even better way.. if we just org around legit needs
34 min – silvia: so i’d say and i’ll conclude here.. that we need a very strong.. and i’ll say family’s org.. but not only family’s org.. because i think that this question of reproduction and the devaluation of the reproduction is an issue that concerns everybody.. everybody wherever we are.. at least those who do not manage capital.. those who are not in control of capital and are not benefitting from the exploitation of other people’s labor.. if you’re not in that position then you should be concerned with the devaluation of the reproductive work..
35 min – silvia: because that is the devaluation of our life.. that deval of the reproduction activities.. the activities that reproduce our lives.. at all levels.. in all forms.. it’s really the deval of our life.. and if there’s a condemnation of capitalism.. which in a way goes beyond what the marxist traditionalists told us.. is precisely this question.. capitalism is a system that not only exploits people by not returning to them what they produced in the so called workplace.. but it is a system that is committed more broadly to the devaluation of people’s lives.. because in that deval is really the principle of the accumulation of wealth..
36 min – silvia: so i think first of all as feminists.. as women.. who have a direct interest because our grandmothers and generation and generation of women.. have been in that condition and gone thru that calvary of working working .. not seeing that their work was recognized.. being dependent on the men .. which is a very humiliating situation.. despite all the rhetoric of all the .. romantic love etc.. and once they are divorced they are really completely at the mercies of negotiation and the good nature of their previous spouses.. because another stat ie: even when women are able to negotiate.. a satisfactory alimony condition.. it’s very difficult to get the man to really pay..
37 min – silvia: in other words.. you might have it on paper.. but so many women have not been able to actually have the resources that have been negotiated in the law office or in the court room..
so.. again.. i’d say.. this is an issue that is urgent.. and fortunately.. or unfortunately .. the covid pandemic has exploded this crisis.. has driven this crisis to a point of great intensity.. because so many women been forced to go back to the home.. and having to deal with the children, taking care of the children home from school, taking care of the housework and everything, including all the protection the extra washing.. the extra care because of the fear of contamination.. the fear of infection..
38 min – silvia: and then.. having to do the zoom.. because many have had their own jobs .. not to mention those who are working outside the home.. or having all the other problem of having the fear of bringing home to the family the contamination from their encountering customers.. first of all the nurses.. by the way the nurses are now organizing.. protesting.. against the deval of their work.. and the fact that the sate has completely undermined the sanitary system.. and put them in position not to even be able to care for people in the hospital/wards.. and that again.. the dismantling of the healthcare system is part of the general devaluation of reproduction.. there’s an important essential structural connection between the devaluation of the reproductive work in the home and the fact that during the last 30 yrs.. govt of the govt of the govt has practically dismantled .. reduced funding to clinic.. those that are publicly funded.. those to whom the majority of people depend upon.. to whom them go etc etc.. and the nurses today are those who are in fact part of a great pop of women.. who’s repro work is made invisible/devalued.. and at the same time.. is so essential.. is what allows people to live/thrive
40 min – silvia: so i think we need to take advantage of this moment.. in which a crack in the system has opened.. because we are seeing that the system is not able to reproduce us.. we have seen a system that is completely indifferent.. and now.. tell us about all the vaccine.. the new varieties, etc etc.. and vaccine vaccine vaccine.. but the crisis is not produced by virus.. the crisis produced by whole system who in so many ways has undermined the condition of our reproduction.. has devalued the condition of our reproduction.. i wouldn’t even talk about the ecological condition.. the industrialized food.. the contaminated air/water/land etc etc.. because when you begin to look at the world from the pov of reproduction.. then you see there is a whole spectrum.. which means that a lot of movement have to come together..
41 min – silvia: but i think that the question of the divorced woman .. the displaced homemaker.. is a perfect window to look at why the system is not sustainable.. and why we have to change it.. t
huge
we need to org around legit needs
42 min – nika: on fight club q&a on astra sharing about her student debt and realizing she’s not the only one and.. shouldn’t be there in first place.. by understanding the structure of the situation they become quite strong.. i wonder if something like that could happen w divorced women.. because so much stigma/privacy.. esp if with child.. or older woman.. a bad situation
pluralistic ignorance et al
43 min – silvia: yes.. very very bad situation.. many living on welfare in 70s and in us cut welfare.. when didn’t have welfare and are divorced.. what happened.. a whole population of completely impoverished women.. they earn so little because employers know they are very desperate .. so they will end up accept anything that comes along.. because they are stranded.. so what happens is you have a large population of women who do have jobs.. but they only survive thru indebtment.. by taking a debt.. they use their wage to have a loan.. if you don’t have a wage can’t even take a loan.. in 80s in us when so many women began to enter the work force.. because they were encouraged to enter.. there was a restructuring of the labor force that basically degraded wages .. degraded working conditions.. precariorized work.. and of course women were the privileged subject .. so the doors open were opened.. women entered.. and the jobs the get are totally precarious.. poorly poorly paid.. they do not allow them to survive.. so in that moment you have the development of what came to be known as pay-day-loan companies.. co’s whose only job is to give women who have no collateral.. they have nothing.. all they have is a little wage.. to give them loans.. so they can survive.. but they give them at very high interest rates like 50%.. so now in us you have some women who have some jobs.. they earn some wages.. ver very low.. and they get by by taking loans.. work work work.. as women working 24 hrs so to speak.. because they have to pay the loans and jobs are not enough.. so that has become .. what we have now we call debt economies now.. everybody has a debt.. but particularly women.. medical debt, student debt, credit card debt, .. often this ends up in a crash.. this is a whole level of crisis.. but this is what is happening.. indebtment is very deeply rooted.. in the devaluation of reproduction.. which then is a devaluation .. because have to do all this work.. opens you up to the great exploitation of labor.. (on min wage that you can’t live on et al).. loan means taking more work, loan means taking any kind of work.. this is a crisis and not a crisis only of women of course.. but it’s a crisis where women are the ones most exploited of all
48 min – sonja asks question (moderator in russia): about women of advantage (having a job) still having disadvantage.. (in divorce court case) expelled from families.. and court asking how would they raise their children if they have other interests.. so not just to precarious ness.. but women having disadvantage for advantage
first off putting ness.. is she saying women of advantage are ones that have jobs.. we’re messed up with that thinking..
50 min – silvia: wondering if that’s happening here in us.?.. because i don’t see that here.. i think having a good position/job is a big plus for women who can show.. they can take care of their children.. and it’s understood that they won’t take care of their children.. they’ll hire maids et al.. so they don’t have to prove that they will be able to stay home part of the day.. but they will be in the evening.. but during the day they will have usually immigrant women ie: i go to park in am.. and see dozens of women from africa or caribbean taking care of white children.. i don’t know if this is something specific of germany because i think in us it’s a plus.. and first of all.. the men are usually even more busy than the women.. it’s not so easy for the men to show they will be able to care since most of them will have occupation.. unless they will be unemployed..in which case a judge would be very suspicious.. that they can take care of the children.. an unemployed man or a man who has very precarious.. shifting from one job to next.. will not be a man who will be easily given custody of child.. and man w a lot of power econ power.. will have better claim than woman w.. econ power.. i don’t think will have a better claim than a better positioned woman.. the court system here i think still favors the mother and it’s understood.. that she can hire someone.. so very intriguing.. i’m very curious now..
sonja: strings attached in notion of mother and motherhood .. in court.. the role of the victim.. weak person.. is the safest.. level of sympathy.. trust worthiness more to mother
55 min – silvia: here i think the entrepreneurial (?) woman is very much admired.. seen as someone who can raise children to be independent.. self asserting.. i think there is a less of a bias to the woman who ‘made it’ and the who can be ‘as good as a man’.. much less bias.. i think there’s so much admiration for ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘making it’ .. ‘money making’ is so important that a woman who actually makes a good salary.. she’s seen as a perfect role model for her children.. *particularly since she will be able to hire people who will take care of them
thank you for those quotation marks silvia.. huge
all the quotationed phrases are oi.. but *this.. oi oi
56 min – nika: yes germany is very diff than us.. a very patriarchal country but in a diff way.. you’re right.. women should be weak and man’s supposed to be *strong.. and then women will get everything.. and that’s why xgdr women were punished.. because they were the strong women who were working.. were educated.. dress well.. speak good.. just like in a fairy tale.. woman should be an obedient kitchen wife and then society will take care of them.. even the govt.. in the us it looks like capitalism.. winner take all.. doesn’t matter if it’s man or woman.. but i’m still interested to hear if it’s possible *to org somehow and go into the crack that now’s system chose us.. t
but again.. dangerous when we’re equating jobs with strong
*yes yes yes.. if we org around legit needs.. for all of us..
to (virus) leap et al
59 min – nika: reading question.. in this situation is it more important to make people realize the house is important or to build more kindergartens
silvia: both both.. there’s no conflict
oi.. there’s a huge huge huge conflict..
if we want to address the deeper issue that keeps getting referred to.. we have to let go of any form of m\a\p.. the supposed to’s of school/work are killing us all.. keeping us in tragedy of the non common
60 min – silvia: we should have this discussion.. because *you can’t have one w/o having the other.. but it means of course.. **housework has to be restructured.. i’ve been writing a lot about it.. because a collective, cooperative way of domestic work .. as well as services.. but also services that we control.. this is where the importance of collectivizing .. creating housework in a more coop way is connected to also the fact of yes.. we want certain things.. we want the kindergarten whatever.. we don’t want the state to org them.. we want the state to give.. no.. we want to reclaim.. words are important.. because this is our wealth/resources in order to have the kindergarten, elder care, care for the chronically ill.. etc etc.. ***all this is fundamental.. 1000s and 1000s of woman are dying everyday locked in their home.. taking care w a burden that is destroying their life.. physically, emotionally, intellectually.. and ****they are prisoners of the home.. that has to end..
*oi.. dang.. wish we could talk silvia..
**yeah.. if restructure is to org around legit needs
ie: oikos (the economy our souls crave).. ‘i should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’ – gaston bachelard, the poetics of space..
***i’m thinking that those things would actually be irrelevant s.. if we org around legit needs
****we are all prisoner of sea world.. we need to get out .. first
61 min – silvia: at the same time we cannot allow the state to decide how our children are going to be taken care of.. so there has to be this interchange.. this control that we exercise collectively .. *having to do w healthcare, childcare, education, .. **so we need also reduction of time of work time.. reduction of wage labor time in order to be able to be present in the org of reproduction.. which definitely has to ***open up the walls of the home.. i agree completely that it cannot be this self enclosed cocoon.. suffocating unit.. the way it has been which has imprisoned women..
*all whalespeak.. we have no idea what legit free people are like.. what they need.. but those 3 are not something legit free people would need.. so organizing around them.. like we keep trying to do.. just perpetuates our crisis.. it doesn’t get at the root.. it’s part\ial ness.. for (blank)’s sake
**oh my.. yeah.. that’s a band aid solution.. we need to let go of earn a living ness.. get back/to graeber stop at enough ness..
***yeah that.. in the city.. as the day ness.. imagine if we
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from emma goldman’s anarchism and other essays:
96
11 – marriage and love
THE popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs. Like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on superstition.
Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. No doubt some marriages have been the result of love. Not, however, because love could assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few people can completely outgrow a convention. There are to-day large numbers of men and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. At any rate, while it is true that some marriages are based on love, and while it is equally true that in some cases love continues in married life, I maintain that it does so regardless of marriage, and not because of it.
On the other hand, it is utterly false that love results from marriage. On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable. Certainly the growing-used to each other is far away from the spontaneity, the intensity, and beauty of love, without which the intimacy of marriage must prove degrading to both the woman and the man.
Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact. It differs from the ordinary life insurance agreement only in that it is more binding, more exacting. Its returns are insignificantly small compared with the investments. In taking out an insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, however, woman’s premium is a husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, “until death doth part.” Moreover, the marriage insurance condemns her to life-long dependency, to parasitism, to complete uselessness, individual as well as social. Man, too, pays his toll, but as his sphere is wider, marriage does not limit him as much as woman. He feels his chains more in an economic sense.
marriage\ing.. nika & silvia on divorce.. et al
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From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed towards that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that. Yet, strange to say, she is allowed to know much less about her function as wife and mother than the ordinary artisan of his trade. It is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to know anything of the marital relation. Oh, for the inconsistency of respectability, that needs the marriage vow to turn something which is filthy into the purest and most sacred arrangement that none dare question or criticize. Yet that is exactly the attitude of the average upholder of marriage. The prospective wife and mother is kept in complete ignorance of her only asset in the competitive field — sex. Thus she enters into life-long relations with a man only to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged beyond measure by the most natural and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe to say that a large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and physical suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. Nor is it at all an exaggeration when I say that more than one home has been broken up because of this deplorable fact.
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It is like that other paternal arrangement — capitalism. It robs man of his birthright, stunts his growth, poisons his body, keeps him in ignorance, in poverty and dependence, and then institutes charities that thrive on the last vestige of man’s self-respect… The institution of marriage makes a parasite of woman, an absolute dependent. It incapacitates her for life’s struggle, annihilates her social consciousness, paralyzes her imagination, and then imposes its gracious protection, which is in reality a snare, a travesty on human character.
c like marriage
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Love needs no protection; it is its own protection. So long as love begets life no child is deserted, or hungry, or famished for the want of affection. I know this to be true. I know women who became mothers in freedom by the men they loved. Few children in wedlock enjoy the care, the protection, the devotion free motherhood is capable of bestowing.
pearson unconditional law et al.. no fear
The defenders of authority dread the advent of a free motherhood, lest it will rob them of their prey. Who would fight wars? Who would create wealth? Who would make the policeman, the jailer, if woman were to refuse the indiscriminate breeding of children? The race, the race! shouts the king, the president, the capitalist, the priest. The race must be preserved, though woman be degraded to a mere machine, — and the marriage institution is our only safety valve against the pernicious sex-awakening of woman. But in vain these frantic efforts to maintain a state of bondage. In vain, too, the edicts of the Church, the mad attacks of rulers, in vain even the arm of the law. Woman no longer wants to be a party to the production of a race of sickly, feeble, decrepit, wretched human beings, who have neither the strength nor moral courage to throw off the yoke of poverty and slavery. Instead she desires fewer and better children, begotten and reared in love and through free choice; not by compulsion, as marriage imposes. Our pseudo-moralists have yet to learn the deep sense of responsibility toward the child, that love in freedom has awakened in the breast of woman. Rather would she forego forever the glory of motherhood than bring forth life in an atmosphere that breathes only destruction and death. And if she does become a mother, it is to give to the child the deepest and best her being can yield. To grow with the child is her motto; she knows that in that manner alone can she help build true manhood and womanhood.
hari rat park law.. hari present in society law.. krishnamurti measure law.. et al
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gangubai kathiawadi
from speech at 2:12.. oh my
2:12: if there was no kamathipura.. the city would turn into a jungle.. women will be raped, families will fall apart.. that’s why i’m as proud of being a prostitute as you are of being a dr or a teacher.. you are applauding my speech.. but it’s funny that you’re still hell bent on making us homeless..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangubai_Kathiawadi
The film (2022) is loosely based on the true story of Ganga Jagjivandas Kathiawadi, popularly known as Gangubai Kothewali, whose life was documented in the book Mafia Queens of Mumbai written by S. Hussain Zaidi. The film depicts the rise of a simple girl from Kathiawad who had no choice but to embrace the ways of destiny and swing it in her favour.
and at 2:20 to prime minister
2:20 – pm: prostitution is not for the welfare of society; gangu: but as long as society exists, so will prostitution, as we speak some girl is being sold off or someone is buying her.. the seller and buyer should be punished.. but who gets the punishment? that innocent girl.. ; pm: have faith in the law; gangu: which law.. we’re the victim and yet treated as a criminal.. the daughter of eve needs help..
and end narration:
2:24: a woman w a golden heart.. the woman who tried to legalize prostitution.. to give women dignity in an undignified place and.. taught them to breath freely in stifling cages
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I am going to take part in the exhibition about divorce.
We are told that we live in a world of nuclear families. In fact, more than half of marriages end in divorce and most children are raised by their mothers.
We live in a world of single mothers. https://t.co/55kaPpkVh8
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/nikadubrovsky/status/1585245554816081920
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from against history (last section of ch 1):
Instead of abandoning ourselves, instead of savoring what little we can of their powers, we define and categorize.
We speak of Matri-archy. The name is a cheap substitute for the experience. It is a bargain, and we’re always on the lookout for bargains. Once the name is on the door, the door can be closed. And we want doors to stay closed.
The name Matri-archy is on the door of an age when women knew themselves, and were known by men, as the conceivers, as the creators of life, as embodiments of the first being, as first beings.
To know the name on the door is to know nothing. Knowledge begins on the other side of the threshold. Even the name on the door is wrong. Matri refers to mother, but archy comes from an altogether different age. Archy refers to government, to artificial as opposed to natural order, to an order where the Archon is invariably a man. An-archy would be a better name for the door. The Greek prefix “an” means “without.”
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tweets from nika:
Preparing for the “Bureaucratic Violence” (exhibition about divorce).
https://t.co/Zd7WY4dcEB https://t.co/JiyJnxyZSB
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/nikadubrovsky/status/1589699412326223872
Curtains compiled from actual letters I received over the years from various bureaucratic and judicial organizations during the divorce process. https://t.co/Dr160QfXuJ
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/nikadubrovsky/status/1589701739049259008
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via nika fb post [https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10160355249233959&set=a.40039648958]:
Getting ready to talk to the lovely curator Sonja Lau tomorrow about the divorce exhibition I participated in.
There is an offensive word in Russian for “divorce”, which describes the humiliation and misfortune of a woman left alone and defenseless in the patriarchal society we all live in.
I keep repeating that our society is thought to be nuclear families, but in fact, it is single mothers.
It’s easy to calculate: more than half of marriages end in divorce and the majority of children stay with their mothers.
It is also known that young single mothers are the poorest category of the population, poorer than elderly pensioners.
Although with this part of the population, it is also interesting: it is women who live for a long time, and the stratum of the population consisting of poor grandmothers in all countries is quite large and very unhappy.
Neither I nor the curator of the exhibition “Guilty! Guilty! “not one of the unhappy tormented single mothers, but perhaps that’s why we were able to participate in the exhibition.
What survives in the field is not up to art.
However, I do hope that little by little we can change the public opinion and the position of our divorced mom friends who need help and support.
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be you. 