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1/ Hi! OK, here's something fun about @UN_Women, which generated this content.
THREAD!
(I seem to understand now the rage with which people tweet the "LISTEN UP" threads which have annoyed me in the past... but... trust me on this... this is a good one.) https://twitter.com/suzania/status/1343619748190416900
THREAD!
(I seem to understand now the rage with which people tweet the "LISTEN UP" threads which have annoyed me in the past... but... trust me on this... this is a good one.) https://twitter.com/suzania/status/1343619748190416900
2/ Its major business and philanthropic partners are listed here:
https://www.unwomen.org/en/partnerships/businesses-and-foundations/major-partners
Let's talk about one of these. Let's talk about @Unilever.
https://www.unwomen.org/en/partnerships/businesses-and-foundations/major-partners
Let's talk about one of these. Let's talk about @Unilever.
3/ That global megacorporation has positioned itself as a leader in corporate social responsibility *particularly* with regard to women. “Women are our main consumers,” Unilever’s website reads, “and we owe a lot of our success to them....
4/ So we’ve been working hard to help women across our business fully unleash their potential.” These efforts include PR campaigns to challenge “old-fashioned gender stereotypes and norms."
5/ “Every time you scrub up with Dove, wake up with Lipton, or clean up with Persil, you’re supporting ‘fempowerment’ by helping girls and women unlock their amazing potential,” the website assures us.
6/ Starting in 2017, Unilever has worked with UN Women on a campaign called Unstereotype Alliance, which “aims to eradicate harmful gender-based stereotypes by using advertising as a force for good . . .
7/ "we’re striving to smash negative gender stereotypes, promote self-esteem, and make a world in which every woman and girl can create the kind of life she wishes to lead.”
8/ The phrases “worked with” and “in support of” in this context, of course, mean in part that Unilever has given large amounts of money to UN Women and has in return received branding on the reports and publicity that that nonprofit has put out, as well as positive mentions,
9/ as exemplary corporate advocates of the protection and support of women, in the body of the text of such UN reports.
Several UN Women reports carry letters from Unilever’s Global Chief Supply Chain Officer, Marc Engel.
Unilever has paid well for this privilege.
Several UN Women reports carry letters from Unilever’s Global Chief Supply Chain Officer, Marc Engel.
Unilever has paid well for this privilege.
It bumped up its yearly contributions to UN Women from less than $400,000 in 2015 to over a million a year since 2016.
Those were the years during which it was fielding a potential PR disaster:
Those were the years during which it was fielding a potential PR disaster:
11/ A lawsuit brought against the company due to the mass rape and murder of its field-hands on a Kenyan tea plantation.
(For details, see @HengeveldMaria's extraordinary piece in @Plough, which I had the privilege of editing:
https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/the-corporate-parent)
(For details, see @HengeveldMaria's extraordinary piece in @Plough, which I had the privilege of editing:
https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/the-corporate-parent)
12/ (More of her reporting on this is forthcoming in @thenation at the end of January; you would do well to follow her in general.)
It's wrong, I think, to think of this as a one-off quid pro quo. That's not the point.
It's wrong, I think, to think of this as a one-off quid pro quo. That's not the point.
13/ Unilever is a huge corporation and the lawsuit by the Kenyans was one small fire among many which I am sure its PR folx put out on a regular basis. What's interesting here are some of the underlying structures.
From Hengeveld:
From Hengeveld:
14/ There is nothing threatening to the power of global megacorporations in having women as 50% of their C-level executives. Nothing could be more congenial, in fact. There is nothing inherently "sexist" about capitalism.
15/ What there is inherent to capitalism, though, is misogyny-- and misandry.
Let's think about how this works.
Let's think about how this works.
16/ If you are going to funnel as much human labor as possible for as low an income as possible into creating value for your company, you will want the maximum number of applicants for each vacant position.
17/ Let's assume we've already passed through the first couple stages of industrialization, and thus most men are already wage-earners: servants, employees, rather than sole owners of, or partners in, the means of production: Land, tools, a workshop, a trading concern.
18/ Let's assume that you are a CEO looking to lower your workers' bargaining power - in, oh for example the US in the 1960s, or in Africa in 2020. Let's assume that you notice that there are a whole bunch of people who are, annoyingly, out of the labor market.
19/ They do NO good for you. Through their stubborn refusal to compete for jobs, they're driving your workers' wages up. Worse, they are MAKING THINGS - bread, clothes - which you are perfectly willing to sell them.
20/ They have the TEMERITY to even make milk with their bodies, when you have PERFECTLY GOOD baby formula available for VERY REASONABLE PRICES.
Unacceptable.
Unacceptable.
21/ These people are called women.
You see them as what they will be for you: the perfect scabs.
You see them as what they will be for you: the perfect scabs.
22/ (Nb Mike Muller's 1974 report on Nestle's successful attempt to addict women in the developing world, through advertising, to formula rather than breast milk; reminder that when you do not nurse, your milk dries up; I am not saying "addict" lightly: http://archive.babymilkaction.org/pdfs/babykiller.pdf)
23/ (No, of course they haven't stopped: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/nestle-baby-milk-scandal-food-industry-standards)
24/ haha sorry for that digression, anyway that's "third world" women, surely we
here
in
the
developed
world
would
never
fall
for
something
like
that
here
in
the
developed
world
would
never
fall
for
something
like
that
25/ The central issue is this: the success of global capitalism in maximally monetizing the human race depends on each member of it being maximally monetized.
26/ Monetized as workers, with the maximum amount of surplus value extracted from them, and monetized as consumers, with the maximum amount of Normal Human Life filtered through the cash economy.
27/ A major barrier to this successful monetization of human beings is the family, and in particular the complementary relationships between men and women which lead to productive household structures.
28/ Under communist regimes, the family and religious institutions are regarded as competitors to the Party in commanding the absolute allegiance of individuals. Under capitalist regimes, they are regarded as competitors to the Market.
29/ The world pictured in the UN Women report which started me off on this rant is one in which there is no gap between the amount of money a woman makes in her lifetime and the amount of money a man makes in his.
30/ This will happen when women spend as many years of their lives as men do in work as servants: as, that is, employees. It will happen when women do not tend, more than men, to take time off to do things that are not filtered through the cash nexus:
31/ when children are not taken care of by their mums but are instead put in day-nurseries staffed by professional nurses whose own children are in other day-nurseries.
32/ And if they don't want to do this - if the large majority of them think that they really might rather take care of their own children, for at least some part of those children's lives; if they have creatures called "husbands" who also think that this might be a good idea -
33/ - well, they'll just have to be changed. What they want will have to be changed. Whether they like it or not.
Welcome to life in Equiterra.
Lean in, bitch.
Welcome to life in Equiterra.
Lean in, bitch.
