Barack Obama called this morning for a major public works investment. (As long as environmental concerns are given equal weight with job creation and transportation needs, I’m fine with the idea.) SusanG, who writes at Daily Kos, captures one aspect of Obama’s address today. Speaking about the fear generated by the current recession, Obama said:
Yesterday, we received another painful reminder of the serious economic challenge our country is facing when we learned that 533,000 jobs were lost in November alone, the single worst month of job loss in over three decades. That puts the total number of jobs lost in this recession at nearly 2 million.
But this isn’t about numbers. It’s about each of the families those numbers represent. It’s about the rising unease and frustration that so many of you are feeling during this holiday season. Will you be able to put your kids through college? Will you be able to afford health care? Will you be able to retire with dignity and security? Will your job or your husband’s job or your daughter’s job be the next one cut?
Your job, your husband’s job, your daughter’s job. Almost effortlessly offhand, and yet it centers women, as SusanG points out, in a speech that isn’t aimed at an exclusively “women’s issue”. SusanG:
In a speech about universal fears and hardship, he is addressing his primary listeners as women. Never have I heard sentence construction like that from a president — women addressed directly in a non-”women’s issues” setting as legitimate, fully fledged and very concerned and invested breadwinners. The effect is stunning.
Agreed. And no, my men’s rights advocate friends, this doesn’t mean men are being marginalized. Recognition that the economic angst touches everyone, including women, is long overdue.
Women outnumber men, ergo the “average” person is female. That, plus the fact that the generic has been “he” for so long means, to my mind, that the generic should be switched to “she”. Which is what I’ve done.
Well, of the seven the phrases referring to “you”, only “your husband” genders the comment. The others are gender-ambiguous, but could just as easily be read as family-centered or senior-centered or working class-centered. That is the function of the rhetorical “you.” It is meant to be applicable to anyone. So I would say in one instance Obama specifically referred to women, not that he was addressing his comments only to women.
Ironically, the above conclusion could be read as heterosexism, as it assumes only women marry men.
Interesting catch. I wonder if that particular choice was based on some sort of data, either about the election or the current economic downturn.
What I’m wondering is, realistically, what some hypothetical big public-works initiative is going to do in a year or two, or ten for that matter? You mentioned the environmental concerns Hugo, which implicitly relates to that. With the thicket of federal, state, and local environmental, local-impact, zoning, contracting, worker-safety and other regulations and rules we have in this country, it takes a very long time and is very expensive to get public projects going in this country, much longer than it did in the 1930s.
Look at the “Big Dig” project in Boston: it took more than 30 years from the time it was first proposed until it was “finished”, about 3 or 4 times over-budget. And then it started leaking. Look at the running tragicomedy over trying to build a mass-transit system in LA County. We’ve been kicking that one around for about 25 years, and probably aren’t any closer than 25 years to having anything like a functioning system. Hopefully, one where the trains don’t crash into each other.
Unless the Obama Administration and the Congress are ready to take a big look at streamlining regulatory and administrative processes on these projects, I’m doubtful that this is ever going to amount to much more than a dog-and-pony show. I can just see a bunch of people getting paid $30 or $40 an hour for make-work, like stamping papers or changing lightbulbs or adding a fresh coat of paint here or there and calling that “infrastructure”.
actually the average person would have slightly more then one female boob, slightly less then one testicle, half a johnson and half a vagina( although I’m not sure what half). everything else would, like they do now, spread out along a curve.
tom- while there is obviously much to be done and decided, the hope would be that the stimulus does something like the various new deal programs. drastically cut unemployment and build, sort of, kind of, the infrastructure that people will be using in 70 years. sort like all the airports, bridges, roads, trails, etc.etc.etc that we are still using.
“And no, my men’s rights advocate friends, this doesn’t mean men are being marginalized.”
1. We are not your friends. Seriously, being our enemy, why would you expect us to be your friends?
2. “This” alone wouldn’t mean men are being marginalized, but “this” taken together with Joe “My sister physically abused me but I still won’t acknowledge female violence” Biden as VP, with Hillary “Women are the primary victims of war” Clinton as SoS, etc. etc., _does_ mean men _will_ be severely marginalized.
I have friends who are MRAs, Basta, you are not one of them. Glenn Sacks is, as are a lot of fellows you’ve never heard of.
That said, it’s interesting about Biden — his support for VAWA was critical, and it’s one of the best things about him. I’m thrilled he’s the veep.
Glenn Sacks may call you a “friend” rhetorically, but seriously, has any of you been introduced to the other’s wife and kids? How often do you invite each other for barbecue (or the vegan equivalent)? Has any of you got the other out of trouble even once? What does “friend” mean, actually?
Biden didn’t merely “support” VAWA, he created it. If that’s one of the best things about him, it could be useful to learn about some of those worse things. And what exactly do you find “interesting”? You didn’t _know_ that his sister physically battered him as a kid, and when he tried to defend himself he was punished so severely by his parents that in the end he internalized (and later legislated) the notion of fundamental sex-based asymmetry in who is allowed to beat whom?
Basta, it’s really silly to argue with somebody about whether specific other people “count” as that somebody’s “friend” or not, unless that specific other person has actually told you that’s not the case. For what it’s worth, Glenn has actually told me, personally, outright that he likes and respects Hugo (and Hugo’s wife, too). I suspect Glenn’s said the same to anybody else when Hugo comes up in conversation, so…I’m kinda wondering why you’re taking this tack. Put more bluntly, who cares who’s “friends” with whom, especially after high school graduation?
Because, just as the word “green” has an established meaning, and no number of feminists maintaining that this blog’s background color is green will make it so (barring Hugo pulling a prank on me and editing the stylesheet), likewise the word “friend” has an established meaning too.
“Put more bluntly, who cares who’s “friends†with whom, especially after high school graduation?”
Anyone who realizes that “friend”, even with its meaning stretched beyond any communicational utility, is still a powerful word.
Meanwhile, anyone cares to elucidate me as to what those worse things about Joe Biden are, if authoring VAWA is to be regarded as one of the best things about him? If he has done things feminists consider bad, then there might still be hope.
Sometimes “friends” is just a name for a group of people you’re addressing, dude. See McCain, John.
And darn it all, Glenn and I are friends — we even thought about going into business together. And he has met my wife as well, as Lisa points out.
But I digress towards absurdity. Nav has the point down.
And I’m not going to drape the mantle of feminism over Biden’s shoulders, but on some key issues, he’s been pretty darned tooting good — VAWA chief among them. But he’s not exactly Barbara Boxeresque.
“And darn it all, Glenn and I are friends — we even thought about going into business together”
For Glenn’s sake and my grog, I’m glad you two are over that idea.
The point Nav has down is precisely _my_ point, if you care to try to think.
O, takiego VAWA! (ask a first generation Polish American for translation).
I doubt BASTA! is one of Glenn’s friends. Friends don’t normally barge around telling other people whether or not they are allowed to be friends with you or not.
Mythago, in case the doubt drives your sleep away, no, I am not Glenn’s friend. I am not even personally acquainted with him. I am just his supporter – and this is just a necessary condition of friendship, not a sufficient one.