Man,
isn't this bourgeois feminism for you? T-shirts cost a nickel apiece
(presumably that's printing cost, not the entire t-shirt), sell for $70.
In
a new investigative report published at the Mail on Sunday, a reporter
discovered that women in Mauritius who were hired to make shirts that
read "This is what a...
gawker.com|By Dayna Evans
- 117 people like this.
- 104 of 109
Nancy McClernan Wow I guess you told us feminists. Now that we are guilty as a group of exploitation I guess you made us all STFU now.- Nancy McClernan Now how about a list of non-bourgeois feminists so I am sure I'm associating with the right kind of feminist. Is there some radical barter-exchange based commune in NYC that I should know about?
- Nancy McClernan We are only friends of friends so no worries Arpi. And I'm not radical chic enough to be part of feminist-scolding Henwood's circle. I do occasionally drink Starbucks coffee.
- Doug Henwood Let's see, finding something distressing and hypocritical about a shirt carrying a feminist message that is made by exploited female labor is "radical chic." Got it.
- Nancy McClernan Yes because you immediately blamed "bourgeois feminism" instead of those directly responsible for the exploitation. I guess you saw a good opportunity to go after feminism no matter how tenuous the connection. Guess you showed that great Satan Sheryl Sandberg, didn't yah?
- Nancy McClernan Obviously until we solve the problem of 3rd world exploitation bitches should just shut up about the glass ceiling.
- Arpi Kupelian Nancy McClernan: I openly indulge in Starbucks Via but think there is grand hypocrisy in this t-shirt racket. No radical credentials, card carrying necessary.
- Nancy McClernan So apparently Hillary Clinton is also part of the evil bourgeois feminist conspiracy to destroy the manly Left. And according to the link provided in the Gawker article the Fawcett Society claims they weren't aware of the conditions.
- Nancy McClernan Of course they must be lying because what kind of monster is unaware of the source of all their consumer goods? I'm sure you all have carefully vetted every single thing you buy to ensure no exploitation was involved at any point in the production and delivery chain.
- Douglas J E Barnes How would anyone reasonably know that contracting out to the cheapest supplier would involve sweatshop labour?
John Halle Greenwald on Hillary.
"Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she's been around forever, the Clinton circle. She's a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She's surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she's going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It's going to be this completely symbolic messaging that's going to overshadow the fact that she'll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They'll probably have a gay person after Hillary who's just going to do the same thing."
So yes, this is essentially right: "apparently Hillary Clinton is also part of the evil bourgeois feminist conspiracy to destroy the manly Left." Thanks for making the point.
- Doug Henwood Nancy McClernan, you've got to be fucking kidding. Showing some concern for exploited women garment workers is "manly"? I wish it were.
- Nancy McClernan Yes Doug Henwood obviously my REAL problem is someone expressing concern for garment workers. Man, just like a bourgeois feminist! Our evil is well neigh limitless!
Liza Featherstone Nancy McClernan there is a rich tradition in left feminism of concern for women workers, and critiquing bourgeois feminism for often being oblivious to workers' rights. It's not an intellectual tradition invented by a lefty man. In this case, the critiques may cause Fawcett to find a better supplier that pays women decently and that would be great.- Nancy McClernan So you're really going to make me spell it out for you? You can't infer that I'm pointing out what raging hypocrites you and your sycophants are for holding feminists to a higher standard than you hold yourselves? Or do you all actually own artisinal cellphones?
- Doug Henwood Though it annoys me when people think they're being so hip by using Credo, even though it uses the anti-union Sprint.
Jd Hoff And Credo's service is TERRIBLE! I switched back to the dark side as soon as the contract was up.- Nancy McClernan Liz Featherstone, thanks for the lecture - obviously if I have an issue with sanctimony and hypocrisy it means I am a raging ignoramus on the subjects of labor and feminism.
- Nancy McClernan And one organization being careless in its supplier is such a weak excuse for deriding bourgeois feminists. And really anybody using the term bourgeois while living the same exact lifestyle as those they deride are more about self-congratulation than any useful economic analysis. But then I'm a fan of Krugman, who got all his best ideas from Doug Henwood.
Zeitgeist Boheme The problem with the t-shirt is not that it's hypocritical. The problem is it is perfectly consistent with mainstream, or from the socialist point of view, bourgeois feminism. If you aim to break the glass ceiling, but are uninterested in smashing capitalism, then you only want for us women workers to have the opportunity to become powerful enough to oppress each other. I don't care if my exploiter is a woman or a man and I don't celebrate the rise of women up the ranks at my expense.
Women need to struggle against the oppression of all. We should struggle with our oppressed and exploited sisters toward a society with greater social, political and economic equality for all.- Doug Henwood You want more excuses to deride bourgeois feminists? Two words: Sheryl Sandberg. Need I say more?
- Nancy McClernan Four words - what Katha Pollitt said (but what does she know about labor and feminism?)
http://m.thenation.com/.../173238-whos-afraid-sheryl... 
D'an Smith I'm not sure how one exists in a world in which capitalism is so pervasive that most of us aren't complicit in numerous ways. If such complicity precludes critiques of complicity -- unless one occupies a putative space of innocence/purity -- then we might as well give up. Moreover, I think there's at least a difference when something that purports to contribute to spreading "progressive" values and practices is itself reliant upon oppressed labor. Degrees/types of hypocrisy? I dunno. Anyhoo . . .- Zeitgeist Boheme This has nothing to do with innocence or purity. There's no way to do away with capitalism through consuming the right products. Proclaiming feminism on a t-shirt does nothing in the first place to advance women's struggle to change society in fundamental ways.
- Doug Henwood Oh, this is fun! http://ktempest.tumblr.com/.../holy-crap-shes-back-nancy...
karnythia: “madgastronomer: “ Nancy McClernan, who I...ktempest.tumblr.com 
- Zeitgeist Boheme From the article by Katha Pollitt. "but Sheryl Sandberg's household staff are women!" "But, she acknowledges her middle-class upbringing and that she was mentored by Larry Summers." LOL! Too lulzy to keep reading.
- Zeitgeist Boheme Something that should be considered in the discussion is what exactly is the money from the t-shirts being used for?
- Bratislav Peplinski Nancy, the capitalists doing the direct exploiting are a problem, for sure, but as they say, if there weren't a market...
It is a problem that there are nicompoops who purchase these fetishistic t-shirts in the first place. - Zeitgeist Boheme The Guardian article "How feminism became Capitalism's Handmaiden" is not helpful. A counter-revolution is not any sort of "wave" of feminism. The article blames feminists for "critiquing the family wage." That never happened. Men's wages fell when women entered the workforce due to the logic of capitalism. Discrimination against women contributed to depressed wages across the board. You hardly need a social movement to make that happen and why would any social movement strive for that?
Chris Horner A Good example of the mess liberals get into when apparently effortless cause branding gets entangled in the way our economy and society actually work. Radical change via pro feminist t shirts on politicians? Ha! Which then may be produced 'unethically ' ( i.e. under the widespread conditions in which poorer people are made to work for our consumer goods every day) double ha!
None of this means feminism isn't crucial to bettering women's lives, to put it mildly, but this mess highlights how feeble people can be at actually thinking about / doing stuff that isn't pain free posturing - eg about capitalist exploitation. The reality of the sweatshop is in your high street, and vice versa . And the most exploited workers are often women. Has Nick Clegg or the others got a t shirt or a policy for that?
Bruce Holsinger Once, in Berkeley, I passed a high-end bakery displaying a $70 cake in the window. The icing letters read "Fight the Power!" and there were marzipan fists dotted across the top. I've always regretted not buying a slice and tasting that raspberry coulis tang of sweet dissent.- Nancy McClernan Wow Doug Henwood you are a piece of shit. I was smeared by Mikki Kendall (see the Goldberg article in The Nation about what a nutjob she is) because I said that the Lennon/Ono song "Woman is the Nigger of the World" is not racist. Thanks for siding with that Google-bombing freak. Now I know where you're coming from.
- Nancy McClernan And BTW she's part of the SJW mob who attacked Colbert for his satire of the Redskins and also attacked Katha Pollitt - read this while you're trolling my name in your effort to smear one of your critics -
http://mcclernan.blogspot.com/.../social-justice-warrior... - Nancy McClernan Pollitt thanked me for standing up for her against the attempted SJW smear job against her.
- Nancy McClernan And K Tempest Bradford reblogged the Kendall smear - that's how they retaliate against anybody they disagree with - by lying about them freely. Good to know you're in sympathy with those trolls.
Eric V. Kirk We all buy stuff which is made in sweatshops all over the place. We buy food, cars, clothing, and pretty much everything made by people who are exploited. Certainly that Che poster on the rich white kids dorm room wall wasn't made from high paid unionized workers with organic papyrus and non-gmo ink delivered with the use of environmentally clean carbon combustion engines. This reminds me of the right wingers who troll-concern over the litter left by environmental demonstrators.
Abby Tallmer Nancy McClernan: "Woman is the Nigger of the World" is & always WAS both racist & banal. And you are an embarrassment to all feminists & women, not to mention critical thinkers, everywhere. (And let the record show this comment written by a woman & a feminist, but one with a brain & the ability to distinguish between Feminism as Meaningless or Worse Than Meaningless Exploitative Capitalist Product that *actually uses abused & ill-paid (female, non-American) sweatshop workers to purvey its purported "message" on a useless in any case "feminist message t"* & Feminism as an actual radical socio-political -economic movement & ideology.) Suggest you stop while you're ahead or rather suggest you STFU before you air yet more callous outlandish & indefensible opinions.- Nancy McClernan Go to hell asshole. Lennon and Ono are not racists and they wrote the song to make a feminist point. Only a clueless idiot would fail to get that - the same clueless idiots who called Colbert a racist for his parody of the Redskins name. Unfortunately clueless idiots have the power to smear others thanks to the confluence of Tumblr and Google. What the people who smeared me - including Doug Henwood - do is try to shut down the discussion rather than to honestly debate others.
- Nancy McClernan Initially I thought Henwood was merely part of the brigade attacking Sheryl Sandberg as discussed in the Katha Pollitt article I linked to, but now that he's attempted to shut down the discussion by posting a stupid extremist smear against me I realize he's much much worse than I thought.
- Abby Tallmer Nancy McClernan: "Go to hell asshole" always a good way to start a rational, reasoned, well argued response. You are clearly a complete & total troll. Done with you. Please go away. In sisterhood, A
- Nancy McClernan It is a rational response to a creep like you. And nobody asked for your obnoxious 2 cents in the first place, so what right do you have to tell me where to go?
- Nancy McClernan You want to fight with me so badly you keep posting my entire name so that I get a notification every time. I'd say you need to get a better hobby than trying to smear me as a racist.
Annette Burgess i agree Zeitgeist Boheme - that's the huge difference between a feminist and a womanist.- Abby Tallmer I posted exactly two references to you: one in my original less than a paragraph long response, and one in my reply to your crazed rant (*the one directed at ME in particular*, to distinguish it). Blocking you now. And Annette Burgess you are right that there is a diffference between a "feminist' and a "womanist"; there is also, sadly, no real guarantee that anyone calling themselves *either* is rational, humane, or even an actual human being.
- Nancy McClernan Exactly Eric. Henwood and his fans are a bunch of holier-than-thou hypocrites who are using this as an excuse to attack feminists.
- Nancy McClernan The real problem is that they believe deep down that a woman like Sheryl Sandburg has no right to talk about women succeeding in business as long as there is poverty and exploitation in the world. In other words women's aspirations should wait until the important problems are solved first.
Douglas Lain Ahhhh, there is nothing better than rerunning these ancient internal battles on election day.- Douglas Lain Isn't it? I voted for legalizing GMO marijuna in Portland...or I think that's what I voted for. I was sorta high at the time.
- Douglas Lain I do have to say that Tempest Bradford hardly ever enacts the labor to explain. But I disagree with Nancy. Fun talk all around.
- Abby Tallmer Oh but Doug Henwood look what you've done: Now you've gone and alienated ALL 20 of Nancy's followers. Think you might want to reconsider blocking this influential thinker. #RegretsIveHadAFew...
- Douglas Lain To be clear, none of what I said was meant to be supportive of Nancy. I'm just pretty down on Bradford's style of politics too is all.
- Abby Tallmer Doug Henwood's New FB profile: Under "occupation" reads "much much worse than originally thought."
- Douglas Lain Here's the line that cinches it for me, the moment when Nancy gives the game away: "And one organization being careless in its supplier is such a weak excuse for deriding bourgeois feminists."
The thing is, if you're against Capitalism and exploitation you don't need an excuse to deride bourgeois anything. The bourgeois are, by definition, the bad guys according to the anti-capitalist left. The end. - Barbara Babs Kitty Early To be fair, calling someone an "embarrassment to all feminists & women, not to mention critical thinkers, everywhere" and saying you "suggest you STFU" is not a very nice thing to say, either. Not surprising someone would respond badly to that is it?
- Barbara Babs Kitty Early To be clear I am not defending her position or her words, but suggesting maybe raising the level of the debate a tad above name-calling is more productive, imho.
- Jรณn Steinar Guรฐmundsson critiquing commodity production is not a dismissal of feminism in the first place, although it can be a dismissal of bourgeois ends. but no ethical consumption under capitalism and all
Elayne Tobin Doug--I got so enthralled with the elevated dialogue here, I forgot what time our NYC barter-exchange-based commune meeting is? I think I have some Lennon/Ono records to swap out?
- Abby Tallmer <--------------------- her="" lady="" mean="" nice="" shun="" span="" the="" to="">
Diana Salles Who Does Not Wish To Be Tagged & Barbara Babs Kitty Early: As I have already pointed out, I posted exactly two responses to Nancy McClernan's extensive posts on this thread. Was not in fact planning to enter the debate at all, as I thought that others had rather handily dispensed with the twisted & absurb notion that a British textile company that employs women in Mauritius who are paid roughly a dollar an hour to produce t shirts that sell for the equivalent of $70 US reading "This is what a feminist looks like" (& who have the pleasure of sleeping in no doubt luxurious dormitories that house 16 women to a dorm while doing this glam and high paying work) is in any way defensible as a "feminist" statement or in any way consistent with ethical humane values towards all people, including women, including non-Anglo women from developing countries.
I only jumped in after reading her 97 odd postings in which she launched wild ad hominem attacks on all others who opposed her contention that *anyone having the *nerve* to critique this company & its actions is an ENEMY OF FEMINISM writ large, after reading her sneering dismissals of *anyone & everyone* who dared to disagree with her* (male or female, old or young, race, nationality, sexual persuasion or political ideology etc be damned) as anti-feminist "mansplainers" & the like (forgive me as am operating at a bit of a handicap here as since I blocked her, I no longer have the privilege of dipping into Nancy's oeuvre to culll & cite selected quotations). And most specifically, I jumped into the mix because to read at 5 am this morning a snarling overabundantly passionate defense of Lennon/Ono's "Woman Is The Nigger Of The World" -- a song that *I* recognized at age eleven, which is how old I was when it came out in 1972, contained one of the most trite, offensive, & patently false equivalencies ever -- & to read her increasingly strident, nasty, personal & wholly unhinged, unwavering & unapologetic treatises in defense of this song in which she actually managed to compound & make even more repulsive Lennon & Ono's trivialization of one of the most heinous violent & ugly of racial slurs ever (one complete with a distinct history all its own) & to read her patently false claims of its "ironic" use and "universal application" some forty years later in 2014 so wildly offended me that it startled me out of sleep and to the keyboard.
So yes, I will admit that I was abrupt, harsh even. Having said that, my calling her "an embarrassment to all feminists & women, not to mention critical thinkers, everywhere" was not only one of the nicer things I could think of to say about her but was in fact, & remains, FACT. And I will point out that I *did* begin my "not very nice" STFU sentence with an earnest & well meaning suggestion to her meant entirely for her own benefit, ie., "Suggest you stop while you're ahead."
As for STFU, sorry but in *my* world anyway saying the word FUCK (which I didn't even spell out, so polite was I) is hardly ruder or meaner or uglier than a white person of *any* stripe much less one who purports to be a "feminist' and a "radical" in 2014 defending the use of the word "n*gger." But then again, that's just *my* world. Welcome to it.
