Oh, No, Minnesota Public Radio, No
Mar. 18th, 2015 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydySo, I argue politics with Steven Brust a lot. It's entertaining, sometimes enlightening, usually well-fueled by whiskey, and great foreplay. One of the things we argue about a lot is "identity politics." He feels that it is fundamentally divisive, and its primary function is to prevent the working class from uniting. My perception and personal experience has been completely opposite from that. I find identity politics (feminism, etc.), especially coupled with the concept of intersectionality, to be unifying and clarifying. Understanding how women of color experience the dominant culture, for instance, helps highlight both the similarities and differences in my own life, which helps me understand both the privileges I get from being white, and the obstacles I face being female. But every now and then, things happen to make me wonder if he's right, after all.
And then there's MPR. If you read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
james_nicoll, you know that MPR stand for Mimetic Prophylactic Required, which tends to mean "you probably don't want to read this unless you really want to get your mad on." And, honestly, some days Minnesota Public Radio deserves that acronym.
I tend to listen to MPR in the car on the way to and from work. So, 5 - 15 minute stints. The other morning, on the way home, they were talking about working mothers, and the resentment that working parents can receive from other workers. The featured speaker was a woman who used to feel resentment towards the accommodations that other women got for being mothers until she, herself, became a mother. At least, I think that was the set up. I didn't hear all of it. And it was about that resentment, how to understand it, educate against it, manage it, etc. etc. etc. Le sigh. I am not a mother. No interest. I also don't particularly resent parents taking time off to be parents. I figure it's a good thing. But, whatever. Evidently, this is a thing. I'm driving, ok, fine.
And then the person being interviewed said something that I found weirdly shocking. She said (para-quoting), "And it makes me sick when maternity leave is equated with disability, as if being pregnant and giving birth was disabling!" And I was furious. Profoundly furious. In the first place, being pregnant is exactly like being temporarily disabled. Exactly. Much more importantly, though, the word sick was both aptly chosen, and incredibly disgusting. She didn't want to be classed with those...disabled people. Those broken people Those people not as good as she is. She's different. She's not, you know, disabled. She's just a person whose physical needs and personal choices require certain accommodations. She's better than they are. She's not, you know, physically broken. She's important. She's productive. She's...not one of them.
Never have I seen a balder or more disgusting grab for a bigger piece of pie. She wants an accommodation because she's, after all, raising the next generation. And Important Role. She's more entitled, more special, more something or other.
Here's the problem. The issue of how we accommodate disabled people, or how we accommodate pregnant people, or people who are caretaking other people, is fundamentally broken. It's systemically broken. As long as our society is structured around placing the primary value on people based on their ability to enrich their owners, this stuff happens. And it happens to pregnant women and disabled people and people of color exactly the same way and for exactly the same reason. Because the system is fundamentally fucked. It is fucked beyond all hope of repair. The capitalist system will, and must, consider the potential productivity of workers, and people who need more time off because of whatever the fuck it is, are probably less "productive" than other workers. There are a lot of studies about how diversity improves the productivity and profitability of a company, and I don't misdoubt me those studies. But it doesn't improve the productivity of those individual workers. The decisions that HR makes tend to be one applicant at a time. And so, this person has a kid and this person has a need for an expensive accommodation, and this person is unencumbered and so this last person will probably be more productive... The fundamental baseline is this: the value of people, at this point in time, is primarily measured in a theoretical "productivity". Moreover, there's also the simple truth that if someone else is taking on the more complicated employees, you can probably steal their innovations without having to pay the cost of having a diverse workforce yourself Externalizing costs is one of the foundations of the capitalist system. (It's also one of the reasons why government is so vital to the capitalist system. Somebody has to pay for your failures. Also, it's why running a government like a business is fucking insane.)
I don't know that it's the "working class" that needs to unite. I don't find the communist taxonomy of class particularly persuasive. But I do know that the value of a person is vastly more complex than that which can be captured by the current market. I know that so much of what we do which is not remunerated is vital to our community and so much of what we do that is remunerated is actually detrimental to our joy as humans and our survival as a species. And it makes me crazy when we fight over an ever-diminishing piece of remunerative pie, rather than looking at the larger issue, which is that we are all, every one of us, worth more than that.
Also, if it makes you sick to be equated with a disabled person, you make me sick.
And then there's MPR. If you read
james_nicoll, you know that MPR stand for Mimetic Prophylactic Required, which tends to mean "you probably don't want to read this unless you really want to get your mad on." And, honestly, some days Minnesota Public Radio deserves that acronym.I tend to listen to MPR in the car on the way to and from work. So, 5 - 15 minute stints. The other morning, on the way home, they were talking about working mothers, and the resentment that working parents can receive from other workers. The featured speaker was a woman who used to feel resentment towards the accommodations that other women got for being mothers until she, herself, became a mother. At least, I think that was the set up. I didn't hear all of it. And it was about that resentment, how to understand it, educate against it, manage it, etc. etc. etc. Le sigh. I am not a mother. No interest. I also don't particularly resent parents taking time off to be parents. I figure it's a good thing. But, whatever. Evidently, this is a thing. I'm driving, ok, fine.
And then the person being interviewed said something that I found weirdly shocking. She said (para-quoting), "And it makes me sick when maternity leave is equated with disability, as if being pregnant and giving birth was disabling!" And I was furious. Profoundly furious. In the first place, being pregnant is exactly like being temporarily disabled. Exactly. Much more importantly, though, the word sick was both aptly chosen, and incredibly disgusting. She didn't want to be classed with those...disabled people. Those broken people Those people not as good as she is. She's different. She's not, you know, disabled. She's just a person whose physical needs and personal choices require certain accommodations. She's better than they are. She's not, you know, physically broken. She's important. She's productive. She's...not one of them.
Never have I seen a balder or more disgusting grab for a bigger piece of pie. She wants an accommodation because she's, after all, raising the next generation. And Important Role. She's more entitled, more special, more something or other.
Here's the problem. The issue of how we accommodate disabled people, or how we accommodate pregnant people, or people who are caretaking other people, is fundamentally broken. It's systemically broken. As long as our society is structured around placing the primary value on people based on their ability to enrich their owners, this stuff happens. And it happens to pregnant women and disabled people and people of color exactly the same way and for exactly the same reason. Because the system is fundamentally fucked. It is fucked beyond all hope of repair. The capitalist system will, and must, consider the potential productivity of workers, and people who need more time off because of whatever the fuck it is, are probably less "productive" than other workers. There are a lot of studies about how diversity improves the productivity and profitability of a company, and I don't misdoubt me those studies. But it doesn't improve the productivity of those individual workers. The decisions that HR makes tend to be one applicant at a time. And so, this person has a kid and this person has a need for an expensive accommodation, and this person is unencumbered and so this last person will probably be more productive... The fundamental baseline is this: the value of people, at this point in time, is primarily measured in a theoretical "productivity". Moreover, there's also the simple truth that if someone else is taking on the more complicated employees, you can probably steal their innovations without having to pay the cost of having a diverse workforce yourself Externalizing costs is one of the foundations of the capitalist system. (It's also one of the reasons why government is so vital to the capitalist system. Somebody has to pay for your failures. Also, it's why running a government like a business is fucking insane.)
I don't know that it's the "working class" that needs to unite. I don't find the communist taxonomy of class particularly persuasive. But I do know that the value of a person is vastly more complex than that which can be captured by the current market. I know that so much of what we do which is not remunerated is vital to our community and so much of what we do that is remunerated is actually detrimental to our joy as humans and our survival as a species. And it makes me crazy when we fight over an ever-diminishing piece of remunerative pie, rather than looking at the larger issue, which is that we are all, every one of us, worth more than that.
Also, if it makes you sick to be equated with a disabled person, you make me sick.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-18 04:38 pm (UTC)I would prefer to do paid parental leave as its own thing, in part because I think fathers and adoptive parents should qualify for paid time off, whether or not they pushed a baby out of their body.
I've seen some ire about this from the other direction -- generally focused on parking issues. There are pregnant women who will park in disabled spots because they are PREGNANT and therefore feel entitled. There are totally pregnant women who should totally qualify for a temporary hang tag because they can't walk without significant pain or are suffering from some truly grisly complication like hyperemesis; I think it should be easier to get short-term hang tags for temporary disabilities. But. The mere fact of being pregnant does not mean people are entitled to the disabled parking spots (and I've totally seen pregnant women online making that argument).
no subject
Date: 2015-03-18 11:54 pm (UTC)Most of my life, I've been on the bus. Owning a car was an expense I couldn't manage. So to some extent, I tend to view owning a car as a form of privilege. There are a bunch of ways where it isn't, I get that some very poor people do need to maintain a vehicle in order to remain employed. But owning a car, and being able to drive it where one likes, has always struck me as a marker of being better off than I am. And in this city, no matter how far away you have to park, it is usually closer to the store than the bus stop. You drivers! You're already better off than someone riding the bus. Someone who may very well be disabled, for heaven's sake.
Parking. Why is is parking?
no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 05:01 am (UTC)But, FMLA only mandates unpaid leave.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 02:54 pm (UTC)