THE CORPORATE FEMINISM OF JULIE ANNE GENTER

The Minister for Women takes to Twitter to claim that she doesn't support the American military-industrial complex. But she fails to make clear whether her corporate feminism means she supports the women running it.

THE MINISTER FOR WOMEN took exception to my suggestion that she supports women being in charge of the American military-industrial complex. I'm being generous in my interpretation here because her only comment was that just because she once spoke about 'a lack of diversity in governance and leadership,' doesn't mean she supports the American military-industrial complex. She failed to make clear whether she approves women running it.

While my post was slightly tongue-in-cheek, the point I was making was a serious one. The fact is that Genter's corporate feminism is all about getting a few privileged women into positions of power and privilege within the present social hierarchies, rather than overcoming those hierarchies themselves.

Her conservative feminist politics can only lead her to supporting the elevation of women into the top jobs of four of America's five biggest defence contractors. It can only lead her to agreeing with White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders when she tweeted "“There is no one more qualified to be the first woman to lead the CIA than 30+ year CIA veteran Gina Haspel. Any Democrat who claims to support women’s empowerment and our national security but opposes her nomination is a total hypocrite.”

This is the predicament that Genter gets herself into because her corporate feminism, which has been mainstream feminism for too many years, merely encourages a few privileged middle class women to climb the corporate ladder and 'crack the glass ceiling'. But, by definition, this feminism can only be of benefit to women of the professional-managerial class. It has next to no relevance for working class women. But, of course, the Green Party these days has very little interest in working class concerns. It has been travelling rightwards for a number of a years to the point that it now has two co-leaders who talk the mumbo-jumbo of 'green capitalism'.

But Genter tries to give her nakedly neoliberal brand of feminism some progressive clothing by claiming that the many benefits accrued by a few women at the top of the capitalist pyramid will eventually trickle down to the majority of women at the bottom. I think Milton Friedman and Roger Douglas were making similar economic arguments many years ago.

Any kind of progressive feminism worth its salt should challenge inequality at its capitalist roots rather than worrying about getting more women into capitalist boardrooms. But Genter instead frames the under-representation of women among the capitalist elite as a feminist issue. It isn't.

Despite her awful corporate feminism Genter's supporters were out in force on Twitter to support her and attack me. I expect most were either Green Party or Labour supporters - exactly the kind of people who would take offence at any suggestion that their politics are, in any way, reactionary.

Such is the political bankruptcy of New Zealand liberalism. These days its little more than a thoroughly bourgeois social movement, a mish-mash of big business types, Labour and Green politicians and their media allies, bits and pieces of the public service, some trade union officials and a mass base comprised mainly of the 'educated' middle class. The sort of people who have been attacking me on Twitter.