so i was reading feministing today, and they did a post about Mao Ze Dong offering women to the US in trade. everyone started going off about the one child policy and how now there are not enough women in china, and how Mao was just being a “diplomat to a backwards culture”, which i don’t agree w/. china and it’s culture is not backwards…their government and how it treats it’s people are. they started toting off about how the one child policy is the devil. i will admit that anything that stirs a nation to commit gendercide is pretty fucked up…any policy that forces women into or prevents them from having abortions is messed up.
but i do know a few things about it. ya know…i took a few moments to look over chinese history and culture while i was spending all those HOURS A DAY learning such things FROM ACTUAL CHINESE PEOPLE!!!!
and i made a comment about why it doesn’t work…how i though Mao was insane, and that i thought the communist government was backward in it’s thinking and treatment of people. i also said i feel sorry that the chinese have to deal w/ that. sure…i guess it’s wrong to pity someone…but being belittled, berated, and misquoted is not something i deserved.
i respect and admire Jessica and the other ladies at Feministing, but many days, the commenters there really get to me. it’s like a big game of “who’s the better feminist” and a pissing match of “how you are wrong in your thinking”. they couldn’t even bother to quote me right…and mixed me up w/ someone else, someone who actually DID say the culture was backward. i even got a recommended reading list…how nice…and implications that i am superior b/c i am american by a “latina living in the west”…which i have no idea what fucking difference that makes.
so, it’s wrong to feel sorry for people. that is my crime. i feel sorry that the people of china are oppressed and are having their culture obliterated by the fucking communists. i feel sorry that the Dalai Lama can’t go back to his home b/c the fucking communists have labeled him a terrorist. i feel sorry that i can’t do more to help those people who work their asses off at great risk of personal injury to try to make their lives better. i feel sorry that the actual Panchen Lama has never been seen since shortly after he was named such. that is the crime for which i am being stoned.
and this is why it is hard for me to move into circles w/ feminists outside of my comfort zone…people jump all over me and call me “superior” b/c they assume that i must be white and think that my way is better…that i must think that america is god’s gift to the planet…that i must think that our way is the right way…i call bullshit on people thinking they know what i think…
i will take a break from that board…there is no reason for me to agonize over it…someone just wants to be a big superior cow and tell me how i am all kinds of wrong…me and my superiority…and wants to play the “i am more oppressed than you” game…someone needs to get over herself.
so, as for china…i stand by the beliefs i have about them. Mao was an idiot who almost drove the nation to ruin, no matter his supposed “forced feminism” (tell that to the countless women who were “mao’s girls”). the people of china are good, hard working people who do the best they can w/ the shit hole of a government that they have. a government that thinks they can take whatever control they want of whatever they can reach. oh how i wish i could spout off more…i don’t need your fucking reading lists to know what i know…experience gives me more than your supposed education.
few things drive me crazier than people on high horses…but i think people misquoted and misconstruing things that i write and using it to pretend i am on a high horse might be one.
i will not apologize for what i think. maybe that makes me anti-feminist in your eyes. being wrong about something might be a new concept for you.
maybe you’re wrong about me.
WORD.
I keep Feministing on my feed too, but I don’t post a heck of a lot for exactly the same reasons you describe. Sometimes it’s like a whole nother world, isn’t it?
word.
If I should know what Mao and Ciu En Lay did,I should ask to get few China women to help me,they being not in drugs involved ,like ours women,they are very hard workers and good house keepers.So,Mao was thinking to make some investments to USA business,but someone kept secret not too many people to get rich.
usaeuroarts~
i am approving this comment cautiously, b/c i encourage discussion. it sounds to me like you are saying that you would like to get some Chinese women to help you b/c they don’t do drugs and are good housekeepers? WTF? stereotype much? if you mean by “our women” that women in the US (especially Florida where you are?) are all lazy drug addicted slobs, then know that that type of attitude and comment is not welcome here. i am not sure what you meant by Mao trying to make “some investments to USA business”, but i don’t really like where this is going. tread cautiously here.
i think i am going to have to update the comment policy.
Indeed. You’ve hit the nail on the head as to why I’m usually happy to comment on The Curvature, but not Feministing. I wrote my thesis on women’s roles in Maoist China… and damn it, I agree with you!
amy, one of my professors, who was a girl in Maoist China, would agree w/ me too, and apparently you too! it was a dark and crazy period, and while i didn’t specialize in the period specific to Mao Ze Dong, you can’t learn Chinese History from Chinese people and not discuss it. Perhaps I do need to do a little reading on the so called “Maoist forced feminism”…but i stand by my opinion…
and to think, my whole point over there was that the one child policy, while an abomination of a policy, hasn’t had time to “work” yet…and that is simple math…
thanks for stopping by! hope to see you again…and i would be interested in learning more about women’s roles in Maoist China…
oh! and amy! kickin the Michigan love! i am from Michigan (all over the peninsulas) but live in Hawaii, right now! thanks again for stopping by!