First off: pERICles, YOU_rOCK!! Or at least your last post did.

Rhian, I think we are beginning to mis-read each other.

I read this article with the fact at the forefront of my mind that this was not a piece specifically designed to stand alone - and especially not specifically for the OLO readership. It's part of a book the author directs I imagine, to people who are familiar with her and her work and who share her feminist insight viz: that while USA politics - indeed USA policy - is decidedly not feminist-friendly they use the positions of these two women to stifle criticism by saying "Look how enlightened and progressive we are, we ALLOW two women to have these positions."

Therefore when she talks about the cultural/societal concept of women she is doing so not in a partisan way but illustrating how what she sees as a misogynist society constructs the image of woman. Thus, she finds it amazing that the very people who are complicit in this construction do not see the obvious flaw in the argument: neither of the two women mentioned actually fit into these narrow boundries.

As to whether I personally "find it self-evident that support for US foreign policy is inconsistent" with the image that main-stream society has constructed for women - that would be the subject of another discussion altogether. I only began to post on this thread in regard to what it appeared the author of the piece intended by her remarks.

Of course I readily admit my interpretation may be incorrect - but my own views on the whole question remain both immaterial and unuttered, I am arguing my deconstruction of the article: - not of my own views of the subject matter. Pax?

It's obvious that you agree with everything I wrote Pericles, as you could condemn none of it. Like all those on the far left, devoid of reason, devoid of logic, you can't argue, only hurl insults.

I therefore accept your trophy, but I can't help but notice it isn't even real - just like leftist sentiment of having the higher moral ground!

Laughable.

How anyone could be so cruel as to hide behind cultural relativism nonsense in preference to actually helping women is beyond me.

I'll say it again and again, Islamic values are utterly barbaric, especially when it comes to women. What is there to be shameful about when it comes to having disgust at such values? Do you know what morals are? Are you honestly saying those women shouldn't be helped? If so, you need help. No, you need to live in Iran for a while.

You leftists are all squeamish too, which is why you get nothing done. Take the Aboriginal issue for example, and given the report just handed down, this is a good time to espouse what I would have done.

The children used to be taken away, or to use leftist language (set up, along with Aboriginal identity, their flag - which didn't exist before 1970 as Aboriginals aren't a nation, they are tribal....set up so the leaders of the Aboriginal Industry could get their hands on the coffers, which they did through ATSIC!) 'stolen' from incompetant parents, as happens with poor whites.

Along came the fools of the left, who thought we no right to tell them our culture is better than theirs, who talk the language of rights rather than obligations, and boom, two generations of inmates.

I predict in the future there will be a class action by Aboriginals about my age (in their twenties now) that will sue leftist scum who forced thosse policies on them - forced them to STAY with drunk parents instead of taking them away like they did for white kids of drunk parents....

Thanks for rising to the bait and showing your true colours in their full glory, Benjamin.

Like every twenty-something young Liberal before you, you see only a massive "far left, devoid of reason, devoid of logic" campaign to undermine your suburban white-bread ideals.

Once again you have managed to hang your prejudices - the "far left", "cultural relativism nonsense", "Islamic values are utterly barbaric", "the Aboriginal issue... 'stolen' from incompetant (sic) parents", "fools of the left" (again), "leftist scum" (again again), - on the slender hook of a discussion on US gender politics.

Apart from the witlessness and simplistic vacuity of your assumptions concerning my political leanings, you surely do not claim your ramblings qualify as "argument". Do you?

As in "devoid of reason, devoid of logic, you can't argue, only hurl insults"

And if you seriously thought my post was insulting, let alone believe that those insults were "hurled", I can only conclude that you have had an extremely sheltered upbringing.

To Pericles: Part I.

What kind of anti-Anglo bigotry is this: "RSL for your weekly prawn dinner".

And how pathetic is this: "Congratulations Benjamin, on managing to turn a discussion on the gender politics surrounding two major United States political figures, into a gratuitous polemic against Islam".

I would ask: how could a discussion about gender issues about two US female political figures NOT turn into either a discussion about the more serious gender issues in the world today, i.e. Islamic gender apartheid, or if not at least about the cruelty and bigotry of the "chadinay sipping class bigots" who would dare to write such a piece of rubbish.

If I was going to write about poverty why would I talk about people who earn 60 thousand a year instead of the homeless? If I was going to write about major wars I wouldn't pick the Falklands war I would write about WWI or WWII.

This isn't a game, gender equality is a serious issue and it remains a major unsolved problem in much of the world today. To focus on the messiness of your castle while the poor and wretched live in squalor below is disgusting bigotry, ignorance and cruelty. This is what you are doing if you focus on equality of women in the west instead of on eqaulity of women (and everything else) in the non-western world.

When are your kind (the cultural relativists, pretend Marxists) really going to embrace the idealogies of equality for all classes,races and genders? You can't even have a discussion about real major problems that affect in a severe way the lives of millions of people unless the perpetrators of the wrong are white.

Didn't you know that just because you may not be violent or directly negative to someone of different colour/culture, it doesn;t mean that you aren't still treating them with disrespect and as a lesser being. Patronising behaviour towards other cultures, treating them like children who don't know any better, etc. - this is indirect, passive or negative racism. Probably worse than positive racism.

To Pericles: Part II.

The simple fact is, Pericles, that as is clear from your obvious disgust and irrational prejudice at the average working Anglo male (RSL spew), as I always suspect about cowardly leftists, that your entire politics and belief system revolves around what you see as the "ocker Anglo", so much so that you are willing to throw the coloured people into some lower draw somewhere where rights and equality have some other meaning, perhaps one that can incorporate female genital mutilation or burqas or forced marriages. Even helping the Iraqi people is less important than throwing dirt at the Anglo male, ususally represented by what leftists call "righ wing" politicians such as Howard or Bush.

You rudely forget, like a little middle class brat, that many of these particular people (RSL patrons) either fought themselves, or have direct ancestors that did, against brutal totalitarian societies and their armies in at least two major wars, so that we could be here today deciding what beliefs to hold and how to vote.

Ask yourself this: is it wrong for a non-white person to criticize the KKK? Would you call them a bigot? Did you think that using force to free the East Timorese was wrong? What if the UN didn't back it?

You see, I have morals and I stick to them, that's why when the Taliban first came to power in the mid-nineties I thought that it was disgusting that the UN didn;t attack them, just like I think it is disgusting that the UN or someone doesn't attack every Gulf state to start with, to overturn the sever gender apartheid. If you are serious about this issue you would agree with me.

Pericles,

My upbringing? I grew up poor, in housing commission in Cabramatta in the 1980's.

I'm 29 now, and can tell you a thing about racism.

Most Australians fled when the Vietnamese arrived, but we were too poor too. I know of many people who died of heroin overdoses in that area, but what I remember most is the violent racism from Asians.

Mabye this does influence my attitudes to migrants. I know how many rort welfare and Christian charities like the Smith Family, particularly those within the middle-eastern community.

Does this mean they are all bad? Of course not. I never said that.

But I liken myself to an anthropologist, as I learnt a lot about other cultures growing up. All my friends weren't white, but migrants, but I learnt that they really aren't true friends with those outside their race.

This is why so many, again, particularly middle-eastern, marry among their own, forbidding their children to marry Australians. It's even still like that among the Greeks and Italians - although it has gotten better.

So I know a lot about racism, I lived in the trenches. I knew of streets where Aussies were bashed on sight, for nothing more than not being of 'their tribe'.

I learnt about value systems of non-western cultures and don't like them. Neither do they I guess since they all flee to come to western countries.

It is this I learnt. My experience of multiculturalism was horrible, not just in a restaurant on a Friday night and that's the end of it like mabye it is for you.

Ignorant? No way. I know probably more about the subtleties of non-western cultures than most Anthropologists. I know about customs, rituals, and all the superficial crap, but mostly it's the values, the way they treat people outside their tribe, or race.

Sly, cruel, cold and immoral.

Do you not think so? Are you really saying the western world is no better in regard to morality than, say, Vietnam?