Gender equality in Belgium: The IGVM report

A few days ago the Belgian Institute For the Equality of Woman and Man (IGVM) published its second report on gender statistics. The report is an instrument that lists numerous indicators of inequality between genders. The first gender statistics report was published in 2006. Since that time a lot of progress has been made in my little country. Especially at the indicators of education and academic careers the emancipation is really visible. A lot of problems still remain though. The hardest conclusion to digest - also the one the press covered most intensely - is that for every houseman there still are 32 housewives. Classic gender roles are indeed more firmly embedded in our open societies than you might imagine. The group of men who are participating in the household is growing, albeit at a slow rate. In the end the combination of a working job with tasks around the household still falls mainly on women. Housemen are a marginal group both within the population of men and the population of house cats. This is a trend that persists even in younger generations.

In Belgium we have a great system of time credit formulas: social security arrangements that allow working people to do less hours or even take a few months off to raise the children, care for an ill family member, etc. It is a sad reflection though that mainly women make use of these formulas. I understand that an instinct for caring might be more characteristic of woman, but not to such statistic extremes. There is no denying that a cultural pattern is at work here. And this is a real pity since the IGVM explicitly states in its report that "a more equal distribution of (caring) tasks within the household is a necessary condition for greater equality in other domains" (IGVM, 2012a).

To conclude I wish to point out that the inequality evident from the numbers has two main reasons. One is the ongoing enforcement of gender stereotypes onto children. Examples are all too evident: girls between 12 and 18 engage significantly more in household activities than boys of the same age, sports are still considered a boy's thing while we buy girls a doll for their birthday, etc. The IGVM report confirms the role of such practices which are to me no less than indoctrinating, limiting the free choice of children. I dare to say indoctrinating because how else would you call the natural representation of a constructed social order? The second problem links up to this in a direct fashion: most people see no problem. Most Belgian citizens do not recognize gender roles as a severe limitation to either freedom or emancipation. Gender roles may  not be as rigid as they once where, the danger lies exactly in their subtlety. What remains slumbering under the surface is hard to contest, but it can spread its poison nonetheless.

Sources:

IGVM (2012a). Press release 'Females and males in Belgium: Equal in 2012?' (Dutch). Consulted on February 22, 2012 (http://igvm-iefh.belgium.be/nl/binaries/Persbericht%2021feb2012_tcm336-163732.pdf).

IGVM (2012b). Females and males in Belgium. Gender statistics and indicators (Dutch). Consulted on February 22, 2012 (http://igvm-iefh.belgium.be/nl/binaries/GenderStat_N_Hfdst1-8_tcm336-161101.pdf).

Policy approaches on abusive substances

This post is going to be a real practical one: there isn't a single adult out there who isn't involved. I am going to talk about what policy society ought to pursue when facing abusive substances. The trigger to write this was a family discussion on the legalization of soft drugs. The post will however encompass a wider variety of abusive substances. Including tobacco and - the emotionally even more sensitive - alcohol. Feel free to comment on the reasoning below or share your own views with us!

Before going to dictate the state what laws it should adopt I have to say a word or two on social control of abusive substance usage in general. What a person ingests, inhales or injects is often portrayed as a private matter. Users claim the right to abuse their own body. Yet reality shows that personal abuse is not at all a personal issue. Users create costs for others, directly trough exposure and indirectly by the impact on health care costs and economic productivity. A drunk is not a valuable asset to society, to state it bluntly. But the costs to society don't stop at this one generation. The current image and status of usage influences future usage too. I am sensitive for the idea that 'it is still my body' but there is no good in denying several millennia of social evolution. You do live with other people and that should count for something.

So what strategies are available to our respective governments? A first extreme is to come down hard on usage. But prohibition will only shift the demand to a black market. This causes society to miss possible revenue from taxes and having a harder time reaching out to users. Criminalizing by law also causes prices to mount (due to a less accessible supply) and triggers a rise in criminal activity. At the other end of the prohibition-tolerance spectrum we find complete legalization of whatever you feel like getting high on today. As stated above that would bring social costs. It also lowers the threshold to even more wicked substances. In my eyes such a policy gives the completely wrong signal by freeing the personal needs from all social boundaries.

Tackling the image of alcohol and other
abusive substances might be the way.

It should be clear by now that I am not in for freeing the egotist genie from its social constraints. But just as legalization, prohibition ignores social reality. That is why I want social control to be a force for the better without being all totalitarian/bitch-like. So what does an effective middle road approach look like? One element is taxation. The main idea behind a surplus tax for abusive substances is that it should discourage usage. It also raises money to recover some of the social costs. At once it becomes clear that taxation is an incomplete instrument if no directives for spending the tax money are laid out. The argument that cigarettes are a milk cow for the state is too often misused, but this is a legitimate concern. After all, the burden of such taxes tend to fall on the more vulnerable groups within a society. The idea of good practice directives should be extended to the suppliers of such products. Labeling needs to provide clear information, certain limits are imposed, etc. The European Union is in fact working on a proposal for the sale of tobacco products: the goal is to let them all come in dull-looking packages and put them somewhere out of sight.

I think it ideal to exercise strong pressure on the image of abusive substances. All by all easy to get, but hard to engage into the activity morally. A moral criminalization so to say. This guilt-approach makes people think about their behavior and, in time, change will occur. From this point of view Europe is on the right track concerning tobacco. Not so much for soft drugs though and not at all for alcohol. (Of note: I don't use any of the aforementioned substances, nor any that could at this time be reasonably considered abusive. Without a doubt this reflects in my views, though I am confident that it provides me a unique position to see things too.)

Capitalism and the global environment

As I explained at the beginning of my previous post I am spending all my free time on doing research for my paper. It came to me that if I wrote something on that, I would be able to maintain focus and keep you readers well-supplied for the next couple of days. What follows is a slimmed down summary of what I've been reading the past few months. It accounts of the exploitation of the South, its environment and the evil ways of capitalism. Enjoy!

In the West we still are under the impression that we ought to learn people in the South how to live in a sustainable way. This is evident from our leader's attitudes at international conferences and the various 'plant a three in the South'-like campaigns that are put forth as a solution to ecological crisis. As if environmental degradation in the South is the result of ignorance rather than poverty. As if we are setting a good example...

This is exactly the attitude that needs tackling: the whole idea that the North has the most progressive environmental policies is misleading. Sure, such statement holds when we are talking about quality standards of rivers and the like. But what about international trade? "Now what has trade got to do with it", you ask? Economic policy is not isolated from environmental concerns, just like the world economy is not isolated from the global ecosystem. The North consumes a majority of the natural resources that are extracted from this planet, yet most degradation that accompanies this extraction is experienced in the South. Rich countries use their purchasing power to shift the burden to the South. We cut down African rain forests in stead of American temperate woods. Now isn't it strange that third world countries suffer from deforestation while we don't see that many IKEA-closets in Kinshasa?

We can maintain both our welfare and natural richness by externalizing the environmental costs associated with production processes. We are still exploiting the South when enjoying our Starbucks coffee or blogging from our HP laptop. Not that we should be surprised at such a conclusion. Exploitation is the very mechanism that makes money go round. From its very start, the capitalist mode of production was grounded in keeping certain costs external to the one who was producing for the market. The market value in other words should not reflect the full cost of production upon society. An example: Starbucks doesn't make you pay for the biodiversity that got lost while clearing tropical forest for a coffee plantation.

"But doesn't the market tend to evolve toward some kind of balance, a correct price?" If only economists would use a little more of their time researching why the optimum is so hard to achieve, you wouldn't need to ask that question. (Economists tend to chatter along about an optimum hardly ever achieved...). If prices where to reflect the real social and environmental costs inflicted, there wouldn't be any surplus gain. The notion that under perfect competition no surplus profits are made is central to economic theory. Yet a lot of free market champions don't seem to understand that you can't get anything for free.

This is why a fair and sustainable society can never be achieved under capitalism. In a system based on the exploitation of both labor and nature, wealth can only be generated for a few at the expense of the many. If we would force our firms to internalize the full cost, the system would start to sputter. Our mode of production is one of production for sale; market value prevails over use value. Change needs to occur at the most fundamental level. Capitalism, with its insatiable hunger for more, functions as a treadmill of destruction. It must be stopped before it collapses under the gravity of its own consequences.

"We, The People"

My activity is on a downward slope, so it seems. My paper has me really occupied so all I can present you for now is this exciting piece of text on language and populism. It looks dull though, no links or color images involved. I promise more eye candy in the next one. Cross my heart and hope to write more soon.

See if you recognize the following reasoning: "Intellectuals look down on the common man and are estranged from reality as it is experienced by the people. They use a language infused with technobabble that conceals reality and thus gives a distorted view." Sounds familiar? It is called a populist discourse which aggressively downplays the role of theory and language. A defensive reflex against theory can be found anywhere in the political spectrum: populism is a matter of left and right, of progressive and conservative. Yet it is naive and above all it is dangerous too. By bashing intellectuals and glorifying everyday speech, populists endanger actual emancipation.

"Society is an amalgam of groups constructed along fluid identities."

First of all, the populist critique against class, gender, race, etc. can be turned against the catch-all categories like 'common man' or 'the people'. These are ideological constructs themselves and there is no reason to assume a priori that they more accurately describe reality! Indeed the populist discourse is dangerous because whoever claims 'the common man' claims a majority. This constructed majority is based on a patchwork of stereotypes: the common man is a caucasian male with limited schooling who works hard, pays his taxes, loves his family, watches popular media and thinks that all politicians are crooks. This cliché can be expanded in any direction at will to gain the favor of other identities. Quite a few things are ignored by populists which become obvious when we introduce a wider geographical area or certain historical developments into our analysis: we have high schooling degrees, deprivation is largest with immigrants/non-whites, gender is not a given thing, etc. Society is an amalgam of groups constructed along fluid identities. This fluidity should not be mistaken for a common identity or even common interests. The boundaries of classes are vague and sometimes they overlap, but the cores of classes still remain.

Populists reject any such analysis. For them the world is a simple place in which the struggle is one between elites - either misguided or malevolent - and the people. Populism therefore is in general a struggle about discourse; a struggle that encompasses more than just 'the people' versus 'classes'. That the attacks of populists are not justified can be seen in their selectiveness: they oppose theory, abstractions, terminology, etc. only when it concerns social and political phenomena. Never they oppose terms as inflation, appeal, cardiological or fusion-reactor. Why not? Because the associated fields of theory do not pose a threat to them. Nothing more dangerous to a populist than describing social reality. After all, you might get people emancipated...

Overcomplicating things is never a good thing. Explaining social phenomena in a understandable way is a must for the advantaged. The real evil lies however in the opposite of oversimplification. When you keep them stupid, you can keep them down. So do as Bob Marley sang and emancipate yourselves of mental slavery. Dare to deconstruct your language, but always with a constructive attitude.

A Marxist analysis of Political Islam

After the Arab Spring revolts, elections in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco all point toward a victory for Islamist parties. This tendency worries Western observers, who perceive Political Islam as a major uncertainty at best. These recent events, together with insights I received after talking with Muslim friends here Belgium, compelled me to blog on the matter. Is Political Islam a threat or a treat? To whom is it so and why? These are the questions that concern us. Also bear in mind the difference between Islam as such and Political Islam; the latter being an ideological current that seeks to shape society by participating in the political process.

Is Political Islam opposed to imperialism or capitalism?
Can it, as a set of ideas, formulate an answer to them?

Before anything else, Islam is a religion. And as such based on dogma - an absolute and undeniable truth that is given and exists outside of humanity. It also is a mechanism of socialization, replicating cultural patterns (values and attitudes) over generations. Cultural patterns always are historical entities, they are a product of their time. From a Marxist point of view, archaic patterns limit the scope by which people can realize their potential. Traditional Islam thus is a boundary on further emancipation. From this follows that Political Islam as it exists today is fundamentally anti-Western. Speaking in a cultural sense, that is. 'Western values' linked to modernity (freedom of religion, emancipation of women, etc.) are in conflict with the current traditional interpretations given by Political Islam.

The anti-Western attitude is however not a characteristic of Political Islam by definition. Islam can be united with modernity. So in no way am I making the case for Islamophobia or a clash of civilizations. The contradiction is one in the field of ideas, and ideas change along with the circumstances that allows them to exist. The traditional interpretation of Islam that thrives today reflects underlying material realities: Islam can be used as a means of mobilization and propagation in support of or against ruling elites, whether they'd be domestic (Ben Ali, Mubarak) or foreign (Israel, United States). Given the current circumstances, a traditional anti-Western and anti-modern interpretation is most lucrative; it is also the way of the least resistance.

Is there really a clash of civilizations à la Huntington?
Or is it actually just a clash of state/class interests?

Political Islam is thus a tool to real interests; as an ideology in itself it does not seek to alter material conditions. That Political Islam is conceptually poor can be seen in what it articulates: serving in a community and taking part in rituals is paramount. Charity toward the poor is encouraged, but the recognition of struggle against one's material conditions as legitimate is missing. Political Islam is an empty box and indeed not 'political' at all. Because Islam offers no adequate framework to criticize material conditions or structures, it is not even anti-imperialist or anti-capitalist. Sure, Islam isn't too keen on rents (making money with money) but this is a mere aspect of financial economics. In no way can Islam be used to address capitalism as a mode of production. The same it goes for the international political organization.

Does this mean that a Muslim can not be against imperialism or capitalism? Of course not, it only means he can not be so on grounds of his religious beliefs. Islam can well be mixed with other views from conservatism, liberalism, etc. But the political aspects of his reasoning would lie outside Islam. The only questions that thus remain are: (1) To what extend can Islam be consistently unified with other (modern) ideologies? (2) Supposed that a modern formulation of Islam would not be meaningless, would it be useful? From my Marxist perspective on religion, the answer is quite clear-cut. I do nonetheless look kindly to efforts linking Islam with modernity.

Any thoughts, questions, or other relevancies? Please do share in the comments section! :p