Reform vs. Revolution

Bell Hooks' Feminism is for Everybody really got under my skin.  I'm just old enough to have some connection with the Feminist Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, but also young enough to have not really been involved in it.  Now don't get me wrong, I was subscribing to Ms. Magazine when I was 16 years old, and I spent 25 years fighting with the Catholic Church on behalf of women.  But here's where I ended up, a college-degreed woman working full-time plus for $12,000 a year to support and enhance a patriarchal structure that will never change and will never work that hard for me.  I'm disgusted with myself now. 

Hooks' definition of Reform Feminists fits me - I was just trying to get ahead myself, and saw true feminist progress when middle class white women made gains.  I could have been like the poor women, because I did some of jobs they do - I babysat, groomed dogs, ran a catering service, and cleaned houses (to supplement my salary from the Church).  But I had my trump cards - I had a college degree, I had a husband with a professional career, and I had family members who were similarly situated and would have helped if it were necessary.  Most of all, I was white and middle class.  This gave me advantages that I wasn't aware of.

Revolutionary Feminists scare me.  I guess I'm not sure what kind of system would arise if they had their way.  I know I can get what I need in the current patriarchal system.

Repressive Structures vs. Ideological Structures

Althusser says the state, like other institutions, uses repressive structures to maintain its power.  However, that power is also maintained by the willingness of the subjugated to remain so.  That's where ideological structures come in.  It seems monstrous that those in power can rely on the consent of others.  Ideological structures, I think, indicate a greater degree of power than do repressive structures. 

That makes me think of the panopticon, where the prisoners are definitely held by repressive structures (the prison), but the possibility of being observed at any moment and the impossibility of knowing if it is happening creates an ideological structure.  After some amount of time (no doubt varying from prisoner to prisoner) the inmate gives up any power he might have.  The cells could then be left unlocked, and there could be no guards.  Or maybe not - it seems that there is always someone who is brave or foolhardy enough to test the structures, be they repressive or ideological.

Fascinating, but I'm not sure what this has to do with reading literature . . .

Marxism vs. Feminism

Jameson's On Interpretation insists that all interpretation must be political in order to be authentic.  I'm having a hard time imagining how this could be true.  I guess that readers who want to see the great Marxist narrative will see it.  Just as readers who want to see Freudian underpinnings will see them.  But isn't it possible that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (to quote Freud).  Another objection I have to Jameson's argument is that it makes the class struggle the most important thing humanity has engaged in, ever.  I think issues of personal politics and power are more fundamental - especially gender issues.  After all, gender is the most basic division between humans.