rulers
by rantywoman
For me, these passages shed some light on the Sheryl Sandberg controversy. The plutocracy consists of such a small percentage of people, however, that I remain unconvinced that increasing the gender ratio of that tiny, elite group will necessarily help the pink multitudes in the middle. In fact, reading Plutocracy made me think us 99 percenters should just start forming communes:
What’s especially striking about this absence of women at the top is that it runs so strongly counter to the trend in the rest of society. Within the 99 percent, women are earning more money, getting more educated, and gaining more power. That’s true around the world and across the social spectrum. If you aren’t a plutocrat, you are increasingly likely to have a female boss, live in a household where the main breadwinner is female, and study in a class where the top pupils are girls. As the 99 percent has become steadily pinker, the 1 percent has remained an all-boys club. One way to understand the gap between the 1 percent and the rest is as a division of the world into a vast female-dominated middle class ruled by a male elite at the top.
[…]
Not too many people talk about the absence of women at the very top. That’s partly because, in a fight that’s been going on since the famous debates between Lenin and Bolshevik feminist Alexandra Kollontai, the left has a history of bullying women who dare to talk about gender at the apex of power. Doing so has been framed as a selfish concern of upper-class women, who are urged to focus their attention on the more deserving problems of their sisters at the bottom. As for the right, it has historically preferred to avoid discussion of gender and class altogether.
— Chrystia Freeland, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, pp. 85-86
“What’s especially striking about this absence of women at the top is that it runs so strongly counter to the trend in the rest of society. Within the 99 percent, women are earning more money, getting more educated, and gaining more power. That’s true around the world and across the social spectrum. If you aren’t a plutocrat, you are increasingly likely to have a female boss, live in a household where the main breadwinner is female, and study in a class where the top pupils are girls.”
I’m surprised you don’t make the connection between ^ this and the fact that it’s so hard to find a husband.
No offense. You’re an interesting writer and I like your site. And I wish you all the best in your new location, etc. But I’m amazed at how many smart women get frustrated in the dating/marriage market, when the message to men over the past 50 years has been “we’re going to completely change the deal, but you still hold up your half of the original deal.”
Hey, I didn’t change the deal, I just have to make a living!