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In looking at some of what is going on today, I am reminded of Rahm Emanuel's well known quote:
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
Feminist Theorist Wants to Use COVID-19 Crisis to 'Abolish the Family'
BY PAULA BOLYARD MAY 07, 2020 4:33 PM EST
The left has had the nuclear family in its sites for at least a century, blaming the God-ordained institution for every imaginable societal ill and, at various times over the years, waxing poetic about a utopian world without families. Most of the time they've merely flitted around the edges of destroying the nuclear family, but now, as the world is laboring under the weight of the coronavirus and mini-tyrants across the country are exulting in their newfound dictatorial powers, they're not even trying to hide it anymore.
Sophie Lewis, a so-called feminist theorist who says she's interested in "queer communism," came right out and said it in an article published at openDemocracy: "In short, the pandemic is no time to forget about family abolition." (Don't bother clicking through to the article at that link. It's a silly call for all of us to live in hippie communes.)
Lewis goes on to quote fellow traveler Madeline Lane-McKinley, who tweeted in March: "Households are capitalism's pressure cookers. This crisis will see a surge in housework - cleaning, cooking, caretaking, but also child abuse, molestation, intimate partner rape, psychological torture, and more." (In communes there's no housework or something.)
Lewis's thesis is basically that since we've been at home thanks to stay-at-home orders, it's become crystal clear that the family needs to go.
"How can a zone defined by the power asymmetries of housework (reproductive labor being so gendered), of renting and mortgage debt, land and deed ownership, of patriarchal parenting and (often) the institution of marriage, benefit health?" she asks. "Such standard homes are where, after all, everyone secretly knows the majority of earthly violence goes down." (These chicks really hate housework, don't they.)
"Far from a time to acquiesce to 'family values' ideology, then, the pandemic is an acutely important time to provision, evacuate and generally empower survivors of - and refugees from - the nuclear household," she opines.
Refugees? Yes, because China has reportedly seen a threefold increase in domestic violence "related to the Covid-19 epidemic." She also quotes the CEO of a national domestic violence hotline in the U.S. who said, "Perpetrators are threatening to throw their victims out on the street so they get sick... We've heard of some withholding financial resources or medical assistance."
Never mind that we are all living in a giant pressure-cooker right now and the nation's stress levels are through the roof thanks to tyrannical governors who won't let people earn a living. Also never mind that children in homes where the parents have chosen to cohabitate rather than get married or where there is no father present fare worse on nearly every indicator, even after controlling for factors like race, household income, and parental education.
The nuclear family is the problem and don't you forget it. Housework too, we can't forget that!
KOTKIN: One Nation, Under Lockdown, Divided By Pandemic
JOEL KOTKINCONTRIBUTOR May 07, 20204:14 PM ET
The last thing this polarized Republic needs is, well, more polarization, but that is what we are contracting from the pandemic. Americans, irrespective of region, broadly want the same things, such as safety, a return to normalcy, and an end to dependence on China for medical supplies, but they differ in the depth of their experiences with the pandemic.
Rather than rallying the nation, COVID-19 has amplified every fissure in this society from class to race, but perhaps most of all regarding geography. This reflects, in large part, the different experiences felt in various localities and the differences in how economies function from region to region.
On one hand there is the New York City urban area, which has suffered roughly 40 percent of fatalities, and bore the brunt of the crisis. Places outside New York with the most deaths have been central cities such as New Orleans and Detroit, where the vast majority of deaths have been endured by African Americans living in crowded, low income districts.
In past circumstances (after 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina), Americans responded with their customary generosity. New Yorkers, in particular, were seen as heroic, and for a short while Rudy Giuliani, hard as it is to believe now, was "America's Mayor." Not this time. Only a person just arrived from Mars would see New York Mayor Bill De Blasio as an inspiring figure, although his nemesis, Andrew Cuomo, has gained some national street cred.
The polarized reaction to the pandemic reflects already established patterns of partisan group-think, particularly in the dominant mainstream media. In early times a pandemic would inspire a surge of unity akin to 9/11 among Americans - even journalists. But the never-ending battle between bombastic narcissist Donald Trump and the equally self-indulgent media seemingly allows for no such genuflection to national interest.
Viral Geography
To the political divide, add a major geographic one. Huge parts of the country have been barely impacted by the virus but almost everywhere has been hit by the lockdowns and social distancing policies. Not surprisingly, extending lockdown orders seems far less compelling in places where the pandemic's impact has, so far, been minimal.
This pattern of infection and fatalities almost completely parallels that of our political divides, with the generally GOP dominated countryside least impacted, the suburbs only somewhat so, and the big blue cities bearing the bulk of pain. By one estimate, states with Republican governors, mostly in the South, Intermountain West, and the Great Plains have suffered one-third the rate of fatalities seen in Democratic controlled states, which tend to be denser in their settlement patterns.
Throughout history, pandemics have tended to flourish more in crowded urban areas, as noted by historian William McNeil. Plagues particularly devastated great Renaissance cities like Venice, which suffered grievously from the waves of pestilence far more than relative backwaters in central Europe and Poland.
When they could, the Renaissance affluent fled to the countryside, as has now become widespread in the New York area. While the rich of Manhattan bleated their concern from the Hamptons or their country homes, massive suffering took place in the hardscrabble, crowded, and transit-dependent regions of the outer boroughs and in the train-dependent bedroom communities surrounding the city.
The pandemic has shown, in stark terms, how different New York is from most of the country. New York City is easily the densest place in America, and accounts for over 40 percent of all transit commuters in the nation. All of this contributes to what demographer Wendell Cox calls "exposure density " as workers go from crowded apartments to packed subways and buses, and head to dense workplaces. Add to this the incompetence of city leaders, the poor sanitation of the subways, and an already creaking hospital system, and you have a formula for disaster.
In the United States as well as Europe and Asia, infections and fatalities generally rise with location close to the urban core. In an analysis of the pandemic's epicenters, economist Jed Kolko estimates that the death rate in large urban counties to be well over twice those of high-density suburbs and four times higher than lower-density ones, with even larger gaps with smaller metros and rural areas, a finding largely confirmed as well by Brookings. Sprawling but heavily urbanized states like Texas, California and Florida have also experienced far lower infection and fatality rates than New York.
As, hopefully and prayerfully, as we get back to NORMAL ( I reject the term "new normal" because things are either 'normal' or 'abnormal'!!) we must continue to be watchful, alert and involved. Not everyone 'out there' wants to see our society regain what has been lost and we ignore them to our detriment. #EYESWIDEOPEN for sure
Blessings
Bobbie Patray
Would you help us this morning? Would you contact your friends and family and encourage them to go to our website, and REGISTER for our newsletters?? The TN General Assembly is back in town for a Special Session. A report will go out to our subscribers as we continue to work on YOUR behalf. Thank you so much
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