Posted by Julia from dhcp100049.res-hall.northwestern.edu (199.74.100.49) on Thursday, June 13, 2002 at 1:06PM :
In Reply to: Re: Lilly et Fred posted by panch from pool0343.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.251.88) on Thursday, June 13, 2002 at 12:24PM :
: +++What are you...another Aprim? I haven't told stuff about my Life...are you serious? Silly question.
====> I didn't ask you a question.
: +++She is bullshitting ALL of you and you can't see it! Is it my fault you're still in college afraid of your parents? In twenty years, when I'm 130 and you're still 23...we'll talk.
===> It's a conspiracy! Lilly's a baathey!
Yeah, I am afraid of a LOT of things. I am afraid of a shitload of things. I know that my parents are pretty damn strict. I used to "hate" them for the way they were to me. Now, i understand that my parents are the way they are because they grew up in a different culture and society. I can't impose my beliefs on them and neither can they. My goal right now is to ease into my adult life, without "hating" them or riding off in the sunset. I am making some progress, but my standard for success is certainly not yours. I feel like i accomplished a lot considering the constraints i grew up under...and my female cousins feel the same...but you gotta understand that people live their life at their own pace. If you spend all your time ridiculing people because they'renot tough enough or smart enough or enduring, and they don't meet your standards...well that is your problem. I have my standards of success, and "neekha neekha" I'm making things happen for me. But, above all, i care about my parents and idon't want to dissolve all ties with them just because they won't let me have a boyfriend or go to Mehico to see some artist guy. I feel like my parents and I are both changing...and it takes some time.
I don't WANT you or anyone to get "close" to me...are you NUTS??? You are such a treakly bottle of vinegar...you old Puss.
===> Well that is the first time someone compared me to HC2H302 (right naharen?? i forgot)
: +++Do you think having a whang makes you a man? Do you think having a pooter makes you a woman? YOU aren't women at all...you are still tied to men and their definitions and expectations...no matter how "freely" they pass you around like the Hells Angels do with THEIR broads. You are mildly rebellious...and a Rebel is just trying to fight against the chains that bind her...a revolutionary cuts the rope and walks away...Free...no angst bullshit...no twisting in the wind and downing copious amounts of COUGH SYRUP...fer chrissakes!
===>Sorry babe....not everyone is here to overturn the system. Not everyone wants to erase the slate and construct their utopia. Some people want to work with people, and have some degree of understandng despite difference..
: +++She MAKES IT UP!!!
===> Right..and you could be a seventy four year old Guatemalan woman who sells hand knit booties in the open air market.
"Working men of all nations, unite!" didn't really work because capitalists ended up co-opting the interests of the working class. And that co-opting, through collective barganing or later having a nice job with tons of fringe benefits...was a mutually beneficial thing. People liked having a nice car and 2.5 kids. Class identity lost its umph when people couldnt figure out who was the proletariat (a doctor and a janitor?) or thebourgeoisie (what about managers?) People identified more with religioius, ethnic, gender or geographic identities. Upward mobility shifted the worker to the producer...the economy didn't divide into this binary unit, part proletariat and part bourgeoisie...just because life isn't that simple...and for one to assume that class interests will override all other aspects of identity (race, gender, relgion, regional background, etc) to form some sort of worldwide class struggle just didn't happen. Oh yeah...and the middle class grew.
Similarly....just because some women at some point in time united with their sisters and thumbed the male species doesn't mean that i or other women today will get my identity from them. I don't have to rise up with my women and protest the system with my fist in the air for many reasons..
I'm more than a woman, im Assyrian, i believe in God, i'm a Chicagoan, i'm a student; it's foolish to lock people into one static identity. Just because i'm not Steinem or Friedan doesn't make me less of a woman...and i think they would agree with me.
-- Julia
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