On the way there

We're in traffic right now so watching the scenery pass to The Decemberists is not a very inspirational prospect. We're driving to Knox College in Illinois for the Love Your Body Conference (hosted by SASS- Students Against Sexism in Society). We = me, Anat, Rachel, and Julie.

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In “Choosing the Margin” from Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, bell hooks says that “Our survival depends on an ongoing public awareness of the separation between margin and center and an ongoing private acknowledgement that we were a necessary, vital part of that whole” (149). Often I see the undervalued qualities of oppressed groups remain undervalued in struggles against dominance. This was an issue with second-wave feminism: By making the solution to the housewife’s oppression letting her work for wages outside the home, domestic work—a “necessary, vital part of the whole”—remained undervalued. This led to either women working two jobs—one inside the home and one out—or the more economically privileged hiring people (usually women of lower class statuses) to take care of their house and raise their kids.

This has also been an issue within more contemporary class struggles. It has been established among these struggles that capitalism needs an underclass in order to function; it often has not, however, recognized that society needs a working class in order to function. There are a ton of jobs that are currently considered “low-“ or “un-skilled” that need to happen—domestic work being one, as well as service work, manual labor, etc. These jobs are mostly body-oriented, hence the tendency to see them as unskilled—everyone can use their body, right? It’s those that can use their minds that get the big bucks.

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