THE late Paul Samuelson once quipped that “women are just men with less money”. As a father of six, he might have added something about women’s role in the reproduction of the species. But his aphorism is about as good a one-sentence summary of classical feminism as you can get.
The first generations of successful women insisted on being judged by the same standards as men. They had nothing but contempt for the notion of special treatment for “the sisters”, and instead insisted on getting ahead by dint of working harder and thinking smarter. Margaret Thatcher made no secret of her contempt for the wimpish men around her. (There is a joke about her going out to dinner with her cabinet. “Steak or fish?” asks the waiter. “Steak, of course,” she replies. “And for the vegetables?” “They’ll have steak as well.”) During America’s most recent presidential election Hillary Clinton taunted Barack Obama with an advertisement that implied that he, unlike she, was not up to the challenge of answering the red phone at 3am.
While unfortunate that Google.CN may be shutting down, my ethnographic work in China revealed five things that aren’t being told in the current story:
Many Chinese internet users don’t find Google to be very useful. Therefore, a Google withdrawal would not have any immediate impact on the daily Chinese internet user because most people search with Baidu, the reigning search engine in China.
Many Chinese internet users prefer Baidu over Google because using Baidu makes them feel more “Chinese.” Baidu does an excellent job at tapping into nationalistic fervor to promote itself as being the most superior search engine for Chinese users.
Chinese internet users don’t know how to get to the Google site. While they may “know” of Google, it’s a whole other matter when it comes to typing or saying Google’s name.
Google is primarily used by highly educated netizens. And even these users prefer Google.COM over Google.CN.
Google is not successful at reaching the mobile internet market.
Feminist critical theorist Nancy Fraser outlines in interview her concept of “parity of participation”, or the representation of women in institutional structures. The concept, she argues, bridged the traditional leftwing theoretical dichotomy between distribution and recognition and in turn raises the question: who determines who is to be represented? Here Fraser emphasizes the centrality of the politics of interpretation in any dialogue about justice, such as that between western feminism and Islam.
Marina Liakova: An important theme in your writing is the concept of justice. You argue that the main problem of justice is recognition and protection of identities from cultural domination. Could you give a brief definition of justice – does it represent only a lack of domination? And taking this further, is the struggle of modern women for recognition successful and what other accents could you pinpoint?
Communities secratary John Denham leaves Downing Street after the weekly cabinet meeting in London. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
From Alan Travis in The Guardian for 14 January 2010.
Leading equality campaigners and trade unionists said tonight there was still “some way to go” in tackling racial inequality after a speech by John Denham, the communities secretary, in which he insisted it was time to move on from the one-dimensional debate that assumes all minority ethnic people are disadvantaged.
In a landmark speech, Denham said substantial progress had been made on race equality since the Macpherson report 10 years ago and it was time for a more sophisticated approach that recognised that disadvantage was also tied up with class and poverty.
He also strenuously denied that a new duty on the public sector to tackle class inequalities would lead to work on combating racism dropping off the agenda.
Denham said it was important to recognise the importance of class and socio-economic status on people’s lives. The growing black and Asian middle class meant that many more people from minority ethnic backgrounds had a degree, a good job and their own home, while poor white working-class families faced serial disadvantages.
THE late Paul Samuelson once quipped that “women are just men with less money”. As a father of six, he might have added something about women’s role in the reproduction of the species. But his aphorism is about as good a one-sentence summary of classical feminism as you can get.
The latest issue of 
From Tricia Wang’s blog 
