Voltairine de Cleyre held that marriage and social conventions made contract were license to sex slavery, and the slavery of the female sex itself. I am inclined to agree with her on several levels regarding the injustices of which she is speaking. Your own opinions on this portrayal of things past and things to come? Consider this an argument in feminism if you will, but it is an argument against marriage and the church before anything, and should be considered as such before arguing to the contrary.
This reads like an archaic feminist essay. The gratuitous use of exclamation marks and the overly emotional, self-righteous outbursts do not do Cleyre credit. While it may have been suitable in the era in which it was written, where such outbursts were necessary, in this day and age, her forceful style is condescending and borderline insulting. I am, after all, capable of making my own judgements. Her ideals seem to be from an older era. Nowadays they are the norm. Gender roles are vanishing from society, and are not nearly as strong as they were before. In this sense, Cleyre seems to have been successful in her plight. Also to note is that Cleyre targets the church and the concepts of marriage, calling them degrading to women. In this day and age, both these cornerstones of Cleyre's society have weakened. The church is now, for the most part, optional, instead of socially mandatory. Marriage is nowhere near as strict as it once was. It is common to see both members of a relationship working, or even the man staying home. We are even progressing to single-sex marriage. Overall, Cleyre's essay bores me. The style seems overdone in 2011, and the topics she is writing on have already been dealt with. This isn't so much a slight on her as it is praise; she successfully predicted and helped bring about a change in civilisation. Even so, apart from a window into the struggles of suffragettes, I see little merit here. /totallyskimread
While outdated it may be, you did not address her arguments in themselves, or the underlying ethics behind them. These are what I hoped to discuss here, and not the relevance of her criticism as society was in her day as compared to now. The principles discussed are those against sexual repression in the form of submission and monogamy itself, and marriage as the worst form of such. Instead of addressing these, you stated that they were less relevant as problems now than they were back then, completely sidestepping the ethical argument. Ah well...
There is no ethical argument to be had, in my eyes. Time has validated her beliefs. A large proportion of western civilisation has adopted her views, and an even larger section is moving towards them. What ethical standing is left to be argued? While this could have been hotly debated in her time, nowadays it's merely a statement of widely accepted opinion. There's very little to say about her beliefs, unless we are to argue for oppression of women, and that topic has, for the most part, already been decided.
You are not much fun. To broaden the horizens, then, let me express how I feel these notions are relevant in society as concerns today. Voltairine's more subtle motivations, aside from her obvious goals in changing the way marriage is considered, included things such as breaking down socal and ecenomic notions of femininity and masculinity, especially as it is taught to children. This has not changed much regardless of how much patriarchy has weakened over the years. Girls and boys are taught the same kinds of things that she discussed in her essay above. I should also note that while marriage may be less important today, most people still get married and loyal servitude is still valued over passion in loving relationships. Jealousy and possessiveness over those that you might love is still embedded in most members of our society, and when one person complains about having their expectations of loyalty betrayed, the majority of those around them speak out in agreement against the perpetrator. The social problem is still there, even if the economic one is not as dominant. This is the kind of thing that she was against as much as marriage and the church were.
The woman is bitter. She is blaming all the problems of her life on church and the marriage arrangement. If she viewed marriage equivalent to sexual slavery, she should remember that marriage is a voluntary arrangement. In strictly archaic terms: Marriage is tough. I do not know how long ago this essay was written, but due to th fact that she addresses women as unable to work, and the church as being so powerful, id have to say it was from the 60's or older. But even then, women had the option of being "Old maids" who were single self providing women. Such a lot in life was always an option in western society, albeit, an undesirable one due to the fact that she would never bear children. If it was written more recently, id tell her to get out of the dark ages. Butlets focus on archaic society for a minute. The man worked all day in the field. There was no labor laws. the man was abused and brutalized at work, all to provide for himself, his wife, and his children. Same as his father, and his father prior. Now, is it really so cruel of him to ask his wife to take care of the domestic chores of the houe while he works all day? Secondly, as for sex. Both men and women have an inborn need for sex. Its also instinctive for them both to want to raise children. If she was bitter about that, its unfortunate that she was not satisfied with her lot in life. Now, modern times: life still sucks. Men work in jobs mearly to pay off bills, and mae rent. Women do the same. As a man, I know I could very well work till the day I die. I have no sympathy for the lady who wrote the essay. She didn't go anywhere in life she was satisfied of because "she was a woman" and I won't either. So no pitty.
Please explain why you believe these things about her. Specifically, name any specific problems in her personal life that she is shifting the blame for. I knew of no personal problems. She felt that society put great pressure on women to get married or do a wife's work because of both social influences such as the church and economic influences such as the lack of paying jobs for women. She lived from November 17, 1866 to June 20, 1912. A mite older than you were thinking. Please provide statistics supporting the notion that most males worked in fields during her lifetime. Such jobs were not so common as you seem to think, especially not mid-century. This assumes that he has a wife, which contradicts the point of this essay. Perhaps you should have said, "Is it so cruel of him to ask his lover to take care of the domestic chores of the house?" To which I would answer no, but it is certainly cruel if society forces her into conceding the request. Consider if two women were lovers. How would you play things out then? This argument does not address marriage itself in any way. One could say this about any instances of rape and call it one's lot in life. Clarify your stance if you do not wish to give that impression. Of what are you speaking? You speak as if she was asking for pity for herself, and then you speak as if she did not 'go anywhere in life'. Please explain your reasons for assuming both of these things. Given that you did not even know what era she lived in, I highly doubt that you knew anything else about her, such as the kind of life that she led, what troubles she went through or where she went with it. If you read the entire essay, then you should at least be able to tell me this: what political alignment did she stand with? Let us see how accurate your assumptions are when you are given information that points to it.
First of all... I'm a little pissed that my internet crashed after writing a 1 hour response to you. I'll give you the short version. Sorry, it may be blunt. The tone of the message, she is not happy with society. She is blaming church and state for a bad life. Thats during the industrial revolution era. Where jobs were expanding a plenty, but where job mortality rate was climbing, and child labor was common place. Honestly, I would take my chances working in the fields over that. This is way off topic, but I'll humor you. The essay itself was about how women are oppressed under marriage because society views it as socially acceptable. Therefore, your point is invalid. But to answer your question: No it doesnt. If a homosexual couple had one party stay at home, and the other working full time. It would not be unreasonable or "cruel" for the party at home to be expected to manage a majority of the domestic responsibilites. The arguement is about sex and reproduction. There were only two ways back then to bear children, promiscuous sex, and marriage. The arguement of her was that marriage was essentially a liscence for daily rape. I am pointing out that it is an instictive need to want to bear children. If her "lot in life" was marriage, and she was unhappy, then I cannot say anything in response aside from "How unfortunate." Its not an obscure stance. Yes, i'll admit it. I am bitter. But I don't blame society as a whole for my problems. I accept the fact that life sucks for everyone. I may never own a home. I may never be anything more than an office drone. I have been passed up for many opportunites I rightly deserved. But I am not writting an essay blaming society as a whole on my circumstances, but I accept, "certain decisions I made led to this" and "certain situations are just unfair." And then I get over it. And I spoiled it. I wiki'd Moses Hartman and Voltairine de Cleyre after I posted the previous post. A staunch feminist and a anarchist. When I first read it, I could not understand why she morned Moses death, when it seemed as if she herself had a love in him, yet hated her "lover" figure. But it made sense after I gathered the circumstances. My opinion stands. She was bitter. And like a typical emo band, was pouring out her hardcore emotions for generations to come.
I know that feeling. Write it in a text document next time. If you can remember, which I often do not. The tone shows that she is not happy with society, but this implies nothing about her personal life. Your statement implies that problems are by default personal or internal, and that arguing against something is by default a personal vendetta. Fair enough, but I realize that this is irrelevant. Sorry for being late. The roles in place are what is important here, regardless of the job market at the time. Jobs in news offices or nearly any other profitable business at that time would still have existed and they still would have looked down on women, as far as I know. Ah, you have a point. It was not off topic, however. She argued that marriage itself was oppressive, not that it was used to oppress. She saw it as having no other purpose than to enslave someone to you with a contract. Having the role of a wife or the role of a husband is exactly what she was arguing against, and yet your question not only implied that these were natural or reasonable roles, but assumed that they were husband and wife already. A romantic or sexual relationship, as she would probably describe it, is made up only of direct interactions between two individuals. Not between a worker and a maid, not between a husband and a wife, and not between a man and a woman. Two individuals who may have the same roles, or have neither of the roles mentioned. She was against a society that forced women into any role, lest she starve. If. This implies a choice, and in her time, there was none. Two women could not survive as lovers in her time. They would be forced to marry men, prostitute themselves in another way, or they would starve. I see this as an obvious problem. You have not edited your statement, so I will assume that you meant what you said. A woman's choice is between marrying a man (prostituting herself), selling herself to anyone (prostituting herself), and starving, and you find her rebelling against this useless and whiny. In other words, you find complaining about veritable sex slavery something to be sarcastic about, unto saying, "How unfortunate." I am a bit amazed. Once again, you have failed to give examples of personal problems that you might be speaking about. It is almost as if you do not think anyone could complain about the problems of others. Please, do tell of these circumstances, or link me to the specifics. I am a bit interested now... If typical emo bands spoke of problems with the world or societies at large, then I have been missing something. Please point out any similarity other than an expression of emotion in her writing. Subject matter or something similar, specifically. Furthermore, explain why you could not use any emotive music as a comparison to her works in your genre's place.
