the thing about this particular brand of low-key wealth is that it can lead to a false sense of self, on both a micro and a macro level. Consumption is still consumption even if it’s less conspicuous. Class may be harder to see here, but that doesn’t make it any less real. Mark Zuckerberg’s still a billionaire, even if he’s wearing a hoodie and jeans. And if you don’t feel or look rich, you don’t necessarily feel the same sense of obligation that a traditional rich person does or should: Noblesse oblige is, after all, dependent on a classical idea of who is and is not the nobility. As that starts to fall away, obligation — to culture, to the future, to each other — begins to disappear, too.
The Bacon-Wrapped Economy | Feature | Oakland, Berkeley & Bay Area News & Arts Coverage

Source: eastbayexpress.com

Sarah Jaffe: Trickle-Down Feminism

dooeytwo:

While we debate the travails of some of the world’s most privileged women, most women are up against the wall. According to the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, women make up just under half of the national workforce, but about 60 percent of the minimum-wage workforce and 73 percent of tipped workers. In the New York area, a full 95 percent of domestic workers are female. Female-dominated sectors such as retail sales, food service, and home health care are some of the fastest-growing fields in the new economy, and even in those fields, women earn less; women in the restaurant industry earn 83 cents to a man’s dollar.

This is where most women spend their time, not atop the Googleplex. This is where feminists should be spending their time, too.

(Discovered via Abby.)

ladyjournos:

It’s time to not just to pay lip service to “the end of men,” but to place real value on women’s work.

Dissent Magazine || Winter 2013

Source: ladyjournos

If you love eating or cooking food, eat at Applebees (or a comparable restaurant like Chili’s) regularly or sometimes, buy produce from a supercenter, buy produce at all, think fresh produce is too expensive, are interested in the folks who work in food service, or are interested in labor law, READ THIS BOOK. I just finished The American Way of Eating and am obviously eager to spread the word about it. 
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If you love eating or cooking food, eat at Applebees (or a comparable restaurant like Chili’s) regularly or sometimes, buy produce from a supercenter, buy produce at all, think fresh produce is too expensive, are interested in the folks who work in food service, or are interested in labor law, READ THIS BOOK.

I just finished The American Way of Eating and am obviously eager to spread the word about it. 

Source: americanwayofeating.wordpress.com

theatlantic: Why Women Still Can’t Have It All Eighteen months into my job as the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department, a foreign-policy dream job that traces its origins back to George Kennan, I found myself in New York, at the United Nations’ annual assemblage of every foreign minister and head of state in the world. On a Wednesday evening, President and Mrs. Obama hosted a glamorous reception at the American Museum of Natural History. I sipped champagne, greeted foreign dignitaries, and mingled. But I could not stop thinking about my 14-year-old son, who had started eighth grade three weeks earlier and was already resuming what had become his pattern of skipping homework, disrupting classes, failing math, and tuning out any adult who tried to reach him. […] Women of my generation have clung to the feminist credo we were raised with, even as our ranks have been steadily thinned by unresolvable tensions between family and career, because we are determined not to drop the flag for the next generation. But when many members of the younger generation have stopped listening, on the grounds that glibly repeating “you can have it all” is simply airbrushing reality, it is time to talk. I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured. My experiences over the past three years have forced me to confront a number of uncomfortable facts that need to be widely acknowledged—and quickly changed. Read more. [Image: Phillip Toledano] It’s time to stop fooling ourselves, writes Anne-Marie Slaughter: the women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. If we truly believe in equal opportunity for all women, here’s what has to change.
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theatlantic:

Why Women Still Can’t Have It All

Eighteen months into my job as the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department, a foreign-policy dream job that traces its origins back to George Kennan, I found myself in New York, at the United Nations’ annual assemblage of every foreign minister and head of state in the world. On a Wednesday evening, President and Mrs. Obama hosted a glamorous reception at the American Museum of Natural History. I sipped champagne, greeted foreign dignitaries, and mingled. But I could not stop thinking about my 14-year-old son, who had started eighth grade three weeks earlier and was already resuming what had become his pattern of skipping homework, disrupting classes, failing math, and tuning out any adult who tried to reach him. […]

Women of my generation have clung to the feminist credo we were raised with, even as our ranks have been steadily thinned by unresolvable tensions between family and career, because we are determined not to drop the flag for the next generation. But when many members of the younger generation have stopped listening, on the grounds that glibly repeating “you can have it all” is simply airbrushing reality, it is time to talk.

I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured. My experiences over the past three years have forced me to confront a number of uncomfortable facts that need to be widely acknowledged—and quickly changed.

Read more. [Image: Phillip Toledano]

It’s time to stop fooling ourselves, writes Anne-Marie Slaughter: the women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. If we truly believe in equal opportunity for all women, here’s what has to change.

Despite his populist posturing, the president has failed to pin a single top finance exec on criminal charges since the economic collapse.

newsweek:

The question, then: are the banks too big to jail? Or is Washington’s revolving door to blame?

I have to say that watching the 4-part Frontline special dulled somewhat the usual glow I feel towards Obama.  It seems the further away we get from the bank bailout, the more money the banks pour into lobbyists and the less likely it is anyone will be held accountable.  If it hasn’t happened by now, will it ever?

This reminds me — if you haven’t yet seen Frontline’s Money, Power and Wall Street, get to it! I still have the last episode to watch.  I’ll probably do that tomorrow morning (before I head to Cinco de Mayo parties in the evening). blkdnm: The Sprüth Magers booth. A selection of artwork from the first Frieze art fair week in NYC.
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This reminds me — if you haven’t yet seen Frontline’s Money, Power and Wall Street, get to it! I still have the last episode to watch.  I’ll probably do that tomorrow morning (before I head to Cinco de Mayo parties in the evening).

blkdnm:

The Sprüth Magers booth.

A selection of artwork from the first Frieze art fair week in NYC.

(via artlog)

Source: blkdnm

Using US Census reports, I estimate that since 1985, the lower 60 percent of households have lost $4 trillion, most of which has ascended to the top 5 percent, including a growing tier now taking in $1 million or more each year. [We’re More Unequal Than You Think by Andrew Hacker | The New York Review of Books] (Still from 1938’s Holiday.)
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Using US Census reports, I estimate that since 1985, the lower 60 percent of households have lost $4 trillion, most of which has ascended to the top 5 percent, including a growing tier now taking in $1 million or more each year.

[We’re More Unequal Than You Think by Andrew Hacker | The New York Review of Books]

(Still from 1938’s Holiday.)

Source: nybooks.com