While researching details for a monologue connected to peak oil, I stumbled across one of the stupidest things I've read in a long, long time. I'd link to the blog I'm copying this from, but do not want to start some sort of pathetic blog war. So feast your eyes, if you dare, on THIS...
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9. THE FEMALE PERSPECTIVE ON PEAK OIL
Some peak oilers think street lights are a waste, and should be eliminated. I couldn't help but think how this would come into conflict with, for example, on-campus feminists who want to *increase* the number of street lights as a countermeasure against rape and sexual assault.
Peak oil has a strong male bias. They want to get back to basics and eliminate wasteful electrical appliances. Guys: you may not need that appliance, but how does your wife/girlfriend/mother, who actually uses it, feel about getting rid of it?"
It reminds me of the program "Frontier House" which I saw on public TV. In that program, a number of modern families were selected to go back and live on the land in Frontier style for a summer. No make-up, no conveniences, no energy other than that available to the pioneers (wood and kerosene, I believe). You can read about the program here:
Source
Anyway, the eye-opener about that series was how hard the women's work was in those days. They were washing dishes/clothes, fetching water, cooking, sewing, milking, cleaning-up non-stop from dawn to dusk everyday. It was totally exhausting and monotonous and they complained about it. The men, on the other hand, were outside chopping wood all day and building, and generally enjoyed it and had a favorable view of the whole experience.
That's part of the male bias of peak oil. Men think it's fun to rough it and go back to nature, and shoot guns in a Mad Max scenario. It's like playing cowboys and indians. Women, on the other hand, don't like it, because they can see themselves in the backdrop of this male fantasy, getting raped or rubbing their fingers to the bone on a washboard.
So my point is this: It may very well be that an energy surplus is a precondition of emancipating women from household slavery. So when we lose that surplus, how are you men going to explain the need for drudgery to your women? They may *demand* that you fix the problem by finding more energy, not by rationalizing how important it is for them to be a drudge again.
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Addendum: It's nice to know that the idea of using a nuclear fucking bomb to get at the oil in the Albertan sands was seriously considered more than once.
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2 comments:
Wow - that's a really interesting perspective on our impending energy crisis... I hadn't thought about it that way before.
Where does the single woman fit into that scenario? Don't forget not all women are chained ... ooops, I meant bound... shit, I meant committed to a man. ;)
But seriously, what do they do? Do they rough it like a man on their own, or do they join a family unit in the name of division of labour? Hmmm...
I love it.
"Peak oil has a strong male bias," not, say, solutions to the problem of peak oil. And even then, are the solutions sexist or merely practical? Are they sexist because they don't exist in a world of bizarre, 1950s-era stereotypes? Is it a stereotype to paint a picture of men as fellows who want nothing more than to "go back to nature, and shoot guns in a Max Max scenario"? You be the judge!
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