In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Mommy Wars: The Video

Jill

Linda Hirshman and Leslie Morgan Steiner on the Riz Khan show:

I haven’t watched a whole ton of Al Jazeera, and my views on it are largely colored by conservative American talking about points about it — that it’s a network of terrorist apologists (and promoters), that it’s biased anti-Western journalism, etc etc. And, as it is only a television network and our own television networks are biased against the “East” and the global south, I’m sure there’s a degree of fairness in some of the criticisms. But I found this show to be particularly impressive, and a world away from the shouting-match-style political “debate” that we see on American TV (as Jon Stewart so beautifully put it on Crossfire).

There’s lots of good commentary to be had on about this video, so check it out.

16 thoughts on Mommy Wars: The Video

  1. I’ve actually used some Al Jazeera stuff for Reality Cast commentary, because on women’s issues—especially in the area we Americans call “international”—they’re top notch.

  2. Check out the documentary Control Room, about Al-Jazeera in the months around the beginning of the Iraq War. It’s a little dated but still very impressive, I think.

  4. The viewer email on slavery was ridiculous IMO…

    Linda’s comparison to slavery was unnecessary (tyranny would have done fine) but it made her point – the people with the “stuff” don’t want to give it up. Change is always harder for the people benefitting from the status quo. I think her point was that the end of slavery was wonderful for former slaves but not so great for former slave owners.

    Likewise, the end of “childrearing and homemaking is women’s responsibility” could be wonderful for mothers but will make fathers’ lives a lot more difficult because they will have to do 1/2 the homemaking and childrearing.

  5. I second the recommendation of Control Room. My knowledge of the network doesn’t extend much beyond that work, but I was very impressed based on that.

  7. Change is always harder for the people benefitting from the status quo. I think her point was that the end of slavery was wonderful for former slaves but not so great for former slave owners.

    I think that that is where I have the greatest problem with the argument. The change over from slavery was difficult for both the former slaves and the slave owners as the entire culture was tossed out and a new one had to develop without an instruction book. Many slaves found their new freedoms frightening and without a support network were taken advantage of by outsiders. Many slave owners reverted to repressive methods simply because they had no idea how to function any other way and there was no legal structure to stop them.
    This is where having change supported by governmental programs makes the transition easier, especially for the young who have less to unlearn. I think that alot of the problems with the move to family/workplace fairness has been a result of the unwillingness to have governmental supports put into place as the changes are instituted. There is nothing wonderful for mothers who suddenly have 100% of the home, 100% of work and 100% of childrearing dumped on them while training their spouse on where to put the dishes. Transitions are always the most stressful times.

    The al-Jazeera talk show format was refreshing and reminded me of what got me interested in talk shows way back when the format was young.

  8. When I lived in Kenya I used to watch a lot of Al-Jazeera English and I love almost everything about the way they do the news (aside from devoting hours every day to the world of professional cricket). Their news is actually balanced across all regions of the world, not so western-focused. They were running an ad for a couple of months advertising the quality of the staff in their Pacific Islands bureau. When was the last time CNN even ran a single story on the Pacific Islands?

    It is so refreshing to see a news segment and feel like by the end of it you have an actual working understanding of the issue at hand.

    Yep, I loves me some Al-Jazeera. I think it could take off in the US among thoughtful people who want some actual international news. I assume that “terrorist appeaser” stuff is either a whole lot of right wing noise, or the arabic language station is handled very differently than the english.

  9. The more I hear Linda Hirshman speak for herself, the more I like her.

    We’ve had 10 years of feminism and 30 years of backlash.

    Indeed.

  12. I imagine Al-Jazeera english has a link online?

    Linda Hirschman is my kind of feminist, although a bit classist, but I’ll give her a break on that today.

    I do though, wish she’d be more specific about teaching young girls about priorities. I can’t stand when no one recognizes that women are a product of the world they grew up in and a home-life repressive to women is not going to get Janie off to college and free from early pregnancy.

    Failing to put some responsibility on the shoulders of those who instruct and have access to young girls and making a public case for it, is disappointing to me. It also seems like guilt mongering of those women who haven’t been able to follow the ideal path to freedom, which again, I think fails to recognize the enormous pressure to subsume to baby making and caretaking that many women are under in this country.

  13. I’m a fan of Al-Jazeera. And, coincidentally, the American University in Cairo has an interesting lecturer this week.

    And in case that link doesn’t work:

    Al Jazeera’s London bureau chief and chief investigative correspondent Yosri Fouda will be speaking in Oriental Hall on November 18, 2007 at 5:00 pm. The title of his lecture is “Covering Al Qaeda: Reality and Spin Doctoring.”

    Should be interesting…if anyone is around Cairo on this date…come with me and check it out!

  14. In my old flat, I used to get Al Jazeera in English, and it was good for in-depth coverage of especially issues of poverty and media in the Muslim world.

  15. Al-Jazeera pisses off everybody they cover, from the most reactionary Arab dictatorship to the Bush administration. To me, that shows they’re doing their job right.

  16. The thing that always bothers me is that devoted participation in this twisted, racist, misogynistic entity called, “corporate America” is held up as the ultimate goal. I don’t get it. I don’t accept that “cog” is a worthy aspiration and I certainly think it’s wrong when women like Ms. Hirschman decree that it should be a goal for all women. The fact that “paid work” is considered the only acceptable choice is symptomatic of the poisoning caused by total immersion in a greed driven, capitalistic society. Why should women voluntarily submit to this destructive system? I know many women who have “opted out” for this reason and although they may be sorely lacking in the material rewards of participation their skills are put to use bettering their communities and schools, working for true justice and searching out alternative ways (cooperation, barter, pro bono volunteerism) to actively create a better world instead of merely searching for ways to profit from this one.

Comments are currently closed.