While attention to gender relations is often seen as a distancing from
analyzes in terms of classes, this essay shows how and to what extent itcan on the contrary enrich sociological explanation, as genderconstructs class, and vice versa. versa. ---- While attention to genderrelations is often seen as a distancing from analyzes in terms ofclasses, this essay shows how and to what extent it can on the contraryenrich sociological explanation, as gender constructs class , and viceversa.At the start of this book, one of the social conflicts against theclosure of a factory during Sarkozy's mandate, the Molex factory,producer of automobile connectors in Villemur-sur-Tarn, inHaute-Garonne, definitively recorded in 2009 leading to the dismissal of283 employees.On October 28, 2008, they went on strike, starting a long conflict, thenprolonged on the legal ground, until 2019. This struggle had arousedstrong interest and, in addition to occasional subjects from differentmedia, a film and a collective book already documents this fight. It wasalso to ensure the coordination of the latter that Alexandra Oeser wentto the scene and followed him along the length.With this new work, she intends to study the gendered aspect of thisstruggle and to question the vision of gendered relationships that itsactors and actresses have. Indeed, if female employees were affected bythis closure and if they were present in the struggle, "the conflict wasthought of as masculine and prevented women from participating in aposition of equality". At the same time, certain visions of workingclass masculinity have been mobilized both on the side of the employeesin struggle, to draw attention to this conflict, and on the side of theleaders, to disqualify the words of these employees.The ambition of this work is to show, through this concrete example, howgender constructs class, how the social relations of gender and classare interdependent, and how they make it possible to maintain powerrelations, including in struggles opposing it. Here, not only doesgendered domination prevent women in struggle from fully investingthemselves but "gendered mechanisms[...]contribute to fueling the classcontempt of the upper classes by sending men back towards a marginaland/or subordinate masculinity".Serious in-depth workTo study this subject, the author relies on different resources: herobservations from the strike picket, to the running of an associationpremises, including the legal fight; her interviews, in particular withthe management executives of 'then, and also the rich literature in thefield of intersectionality analysis.Because, although this study is fascinating, it would be illusory tothink that it is possible to deal with this vast subject solely throughthis example. Thus, this work does not really allow us to escape from acis and heteronormative framework, which is the one to which the peopleinterviewed testify. Comparison and reliance on existing and very wellexplained analytical frameworks is necessary.For us, libertarian activists, this book can therefore serve ourreflection, help us to be more vigilant about the dominations present inthe frameworks of struggles in which we intervene and, why not, as agateway to this rich fields of study that it can only be beneficial toknow better. One of the riches of this book is to show actors andactresses who, constrained by relationships of domination, nonethelessmake decisions that "play on this continuous construction of powerrelationships".Sylvain (UCL Montpellier)Alexandra Oeser, How gender constructs class, Masculinities andfemininities in the era of globalization, CNRS éditions, 2022, 280pages, 24 euros.https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Oeser-Comment-le-genre-construit-la-classe-Masculinites-et-feminites-a-l_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten