Taking the bait

Women can't be friends under capitalism?

I doubt that's true, in fact I have absolute certainty that it is not. I think Nina's statement needs to be ammended to include the phrase "if she ascribes to the tenets of capitalism". Undoubtedly there are some elements of truth to Nina's post (as there are in all parodies) but quite a lot of it is likely nonsensical to the women I know. (Still.... as a female who knows Nina... I wonder if she bitches about me or wants to fuck me).

In any case, why all of this concentration about what is so bad about women? There is an inherent danger in thinking in this way, especially when we are aware of the absolute pervasiveness of capitalism:

If the structures of capitalism are everywhere;

And the structures of capitalism make women hate eachother;

Then all women must hate each other.

Crap logic (never studied it) but evidently true if that is all one concentrates on. If one concentrates upon the problems between a few women then one is liable to ascribe it to all women. The women I know who think that women hate each other, or hate women, are those who are always talking about hating women, or the problems of hating other women, or how they wish they "could find another woman that they liked". Those who are always talking about the problems of competing with other women, who set themselves off against other women instead of other men - boring since who's really 100% male or 100% female?(... surely its preferrable to set up ones adversaries philosophically, or ideologically, or politically, or even economically).

As a woman who is very much surrounded by capitalism (I like shoes, shopping, shit tv and every so often fall for advertising) I don't hate women. I like women.... probably more than I like men. Although this is a delicate balance... I like more men than I do women, but the women I like I love fiercely and far more intensely. Why? Probably because men can't be likeable under capitalism. Another sweeping generalisation, but why not make it? Whereas women must be bitched about or fucked, men must be pitied or despised. Pitied because capitalism has bred them to be so neurotic that they are unable to ever look beyond their own subjectivity. They crave the gaze of the other, but it's only ever actually the gaze of themselves-as-other. And despised.... because they're aggressive, violent, competitive, threatening and misogynistic.

When it comes down to it, it's probably a problem of philosophy. Having spent the past years in academia in a philosopy department I have come to realise that the chances of me making many female friends in Philosophy is unlikely (I have 3, I think) whereas I have loads of male friends. Years and years surrounded by men (theory men, no less) is bound to make one think that men = good, safe, nice, talk about theory; women = bad, threatening, nasty, talk about shoes. Afterall, what females do we encounter in mass media but bitches, girly girls, the occasional wacky "intellectual", & competitive corporate types. (Sex & the City, Desparate Housewives, Ally McBeal, The O.C., Mean Girls, Working Girl - Whoever thinks all women are like that needs a lobotomy).

I like being a woman, and not only because we have better orgasms. Men are crap.

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