Tomorrow is my birthday, and I love celebrating! A few days ago, my husband and I were playing a game, and he asked me what would be my ideal gift. As I have said many times, I think the most precious gift you can give another human being is time, and I think the most meaningful way you can spend that time is by exchanging experiences and seeking to understand another’s worldviews. For me, worldview means the frames through which we see the world, rather than where we fall on any one issue.
If you would like to get me a gift this year for my birthday, I invite you to learn about my worldview. Here are some resources I think capture some of the ways I think about the world. I tried to pick resources that are broadly accessible. In other words, you don’t need a bunch of deep knowledge of feminist theory or a philosophy 101 course in order to understand them. If you check out any of these resources, I would very much like to hear your reactions (and let you know that I am so thankful for your time and curiosity).
Reproductive Rights
Yep, this topic has been in the news a lot lately. I think my frame for reproductive rights has one major difference from the dominant frames. I believe that you can hold a set of moral beliefs and a different set of political beliefs. Both sets of beliefs are incredibly important. Here is an episode of the Man Enough podcast, a podcast on masculinity and being a man, that captures that view well. Two of the hosts, Justin Baldoni and Jamey Heath, are deeply religious, and their religion says that abortion is morally wrong. The guest, masculinity scholar Jackson Katz, explains that moral and political beliefs are distinct and can be different.
(Side note: this episode covers some other distinctions I find valuable e.g. calling out versus calling in.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNABI3LZHOs
Feminism
My feminist filter of the world has changed a lot through the years. In my view, what makes me a feminist is that I seek a world where all people to flourish. This means I explicitly reject the extractive paradigm under which we currently operate. I do not believe that the only way for one person to flourish is to extract from (and therefore lack mutual connection with) others.
The book Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett includes a chapter on Power. https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Administration-Collected-Papers-Follett/dp/1614274770
I also blogged about power, but it’s nowhere near as genius as MPF: https://catswetel.com/blog/2021/5/4/an-extended-subtweet-on-power
It may seem odd, but I think Billy Beane’s approach to the Oakland A’s embodies a lot of the way I think about feminism. It’s not about getting the best individual people and extracting all we can from them, it’s about winning together. Both the movie and the book about Beane’s approach are worth it! Here is a link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393324818
Update: Someone asked me to recommend a book that is explicitly about feminism. I think I would choose The Will to Change by bell hooks. The main point is that all of us (not just men) need to be willing to change in order to recognize a more generative and equitable future. https://www.amazon.com/Will-Change-Men-Masculinity-Love/dp/0743456084
The 21st Century, Big Tech, and Polarization
The most common frames I see for regulating Big Tech and mitigating polarization:
Protect free speech: social media, podcasts, etc are free speech regardless of who owns the platform or the content. They need to be protected from censorship by anyone, the government or corporations. Through the free exchange of ideas, we will arrive at a more reasonable future.
Protect decency: we need to ban harmful content online. Platforms need to be held responsible for the harmful content they host. Through preventing harmful content, we will prevent polarization and produce a more fair and equitable future.
I don’t agree with either of these frames. I believe we need to hold sacred the right to privacy. Centering privacy will protect people from highly extractive business models like the surveillance capitalism practiced by Facebook and Twitter. Regulating content (either by protecting speech or protecting decency) does not address the underlying broken model that is based on companies silently and maliciously surveilling their users in an effort to invisibly affect future behavior. If we regulate the underlying business models (which are based on severely and continuously violating privacy), then it will no longer be profitable for companies to promote extreme positions to drive engagement. Humans have not magically gotten more radical and extreme over the past 30 years. Extremism has just become profitable because it is engaging and keeps people online.
Shoshana Zuboff is the Harvard professor who defined the term surveillance capitalism. See a video of her speaking on the topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw
Here’s a transcript of an interview with her:
For a view of both the promise and the potential danger of the digital age, one of my favorite books, All Things Shining by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly:
https://www.amazon.com/All-Things-Shining-Reading-Classics/dp/1416596151 (If you’re a sports fan, you’ll probably like this one.)
Thanks!
Even if you don’t check out the resources I’ve listed, I am still so thankful that you took the time to read this and learn a little bit more about how I see the world. Remember that we are all in this together, whether we like it or not. There is no instruction manual for how to be a human in times like these. We are figuring it out together.
I leave you with my favorite lines from one of my favorite poems, “Caminante, No Hay Camino” by Antonio Machado (translated from Spanish to English): “Walker, there is no path. The path is made by walking.”