POSTER GIRLS OF LATE-STAGE CAPITALISM

The co-opting nature of capitalism and in general Markets is well established. In earlier industrial revolution ages and even before capitalism, the subjugation of women and their rights were already there. Now a days, A new phenomena is around the corner. Today, the hyper productive strong independent woman has become poster child of Late-stage capitalism.

We very well know how markets operate with human psychology. Yesterday's outcasts become today's trends. When women started to assert for their rights around 1970s and 1980s, It was a new thing for the Market and so it did not know how to deal with it. Hence, the market resisted this change. Now, the market has grown big, and it has co-opted the subjugated desires of women of ages and today, the image of Strong independent woman started selling. Governments find in women a hyper-productive employee which has some limitations regarding taking maternity leaves and so on but on working days, she can work twice as hard since she is insecure twice as much as the contemporary man. 

In effect, Late-stage capitalism has found its symptomatic ideal. The strong independent woman's neurotic repressions of insecurities. 

See, all around you and you will find. Women are the work fuel of economy today. They not only manage homes but also professions. But this is of course not an appreciation write up. This scares me. 

What scares me is there is nothing liberating in this deal for woman. What, I can say in this matter being a man, but still, I have some opinion and maybe I should say this. 

Yesterday I saw a post, a Hindutva propaganda post. It says, "You want empowerment? Be a woman, empowered enough to take care of my culture Like Seeta (Here, Hindu culture), and strong enough to fight like Laxmibai!". Now, if you can already sense the problem with this post, good for you. The problem is, the whole cause of asking for empowerment was, to get more freedom, to get basic civil liberties, to be treated as a human before being treated as a gender. The Hindutva version of empowerment has nothing to do with rights, but additional baggage of expectations and duties that an "Ideal Empowered Hindu woman" should do. This felt very obscene to me. 

In crude way, What I understood was, "Kal tak tumhara baccha bhi wahi paal rhi thi, Aur ab tum usse kaam bhi karwayega aur baccha bhi palwaayega, Khud kuch nhi karega!" or to paraphrase, "Before this, she was a mother to you, now, she, along with being a mother, has to be a bread-earner for you and you will just dictate what she can be and what she can be not?" 

Similarly, the capitalist version of Women rights is like, you are being given Freedom, but Freedom to be a corporate slave. What kind of freedom is that? Emancipated to be an Employee? Emancipated from a man but enslaved by a corporate empire? yes, this is exactly what Capitalism is selling it today. The Empowerment offered by capitalism makes you at par with today's man but not better mental health wise. The Paranoia of this society stays with you. The neurosis of the society stays with you. You are a little Neurotic if you are living in today's society.  The ideal of strong independent woman is a capitalist ideal is a farce. 

Gaalib's line in a Non-contextual way, I quote.... 

"Aadmi ko bhi Mayassar nahi Insaan hona...!" 

Even men are not humanized enough in this late-stage capitalist society, and you want to become empowered like us? Nope, we want to create new material conditions, new relations of production. Newer forms of political and social relations. We do not want Toxic femininity. We want healthy ungendered humans to live without neuroses.  

If you are woman, and you will be, less or more, everyone is a little woman, do not fall in traps of capitalist incentives. As Nietzsche would say, "if you look into the Abyss long enough, the abyss looks back into you!". If you give into Capitalism today, Capitalism takes away your identity and makes you an Alien in your own self. 

As Kishwar Naheed, An Urdu Feminist Poet said, 

"Hum Gunahgaar Auratein hain... 

Jo Ahl-e-jubba ki tamkanat se na khauf khaayein, na sar jhukaaye, na jaan bechein...". 

If you take my suggestion, remain a hysterical "Gunahgaar Aurat". No need to fit in a man's shoe. No need to follow men. Create new ways. Become a Skeptic of all ways. Find newer avenues. Do not sell out. A newer, freer world is what any human's dream has been regardless of Gender. A free man does not wish to enslave anyone. A free society does not wish to enslave anyone. Do not buy relative freedom for absolute slavery.