So I keep mentioning this whole spectacle thing, and while the newness of the idea takes some time to gel in my brain, little connections keep being made.

You can think of the spectacle like the Matrix, minus a swishy black trench coat. The spectacle is all the crap that keeps us from seeing what is real. It is the creation of need/want, to use an econ term, to keep us distracted so that we don’t see beyond our own little manufactured desires.

To create need, you have to convince people that they are lacking to begin with. And boy howdy, do they ever. Gidget and I were talking in comments about how you can never be a good enough rape victim. That’s part of creating need (I’ll get there, just hold onto your horses).

For women, we are never good enough. We are too fat, unless we are too thin. We are too flat, unless we are too big. We are too tall or too short. If we are pretty (by mass production beauty standards of white, thin, young, able bodied etc) then we aren’t beautiful. If we are beautiful by those same standards) then we are either a bitch or an idiot or both. If we are smart we are too smart, otherwise we are airheads. if we are brown, we are too brown and if we are white we have to get a tan. We always have a flaw that needs to be fixed. Always. With the gazzilions of ways that we are imperfect and in need of fixing, it’s amazing any of us ever leave the house.

So women, from the time we are born, are socialized to think we need constant fixing. We are never good enough. (Men don’t have it any easier, btw. They just get a few more perks from this system, like having the other half of the population on tender hooks for fear of violence from them).

Now imagine the kyriarchy. Say hi to the big fucking pyramid of oppression, wave at it even. That’s what the spectacle is trying to distract us from, and most of the time it works. When i see the kyriarchy in my head, I see a pyramid made up of people stuffed into animal cages, one on top of the other, and every time someone up high shits, it hits the people below. . (Hey PeTA, everytime you objectify women in your ads-you are shitting on people in animal cages, how’s that for fucking irony!) If you have that magic combination of “flaws” that puts you at the bottom – you are shit out of luck. Everyone shits on you.

The spectacle gives us the illusion that we can get out from under the mountains of shit, if we work hard enough and want it bad enough and “make the right choices”. But really we are just animals in cages running on hamster wheels thinking that if we just go faster we can dodge the shit bombs from above.

Like any kennel, the kyriarchy needs guards, people who make sure that other human animals don’t get it into their heads to try and break out. In exchange for policing the masses, these people get extra privilege. Whites get privilege over non-whites, men get privilege over women, heteros get privilege over gays, TABs get privilege over PWD. Adults get privilege over children. The guards still get shit on, but they get to dump on people below them and they think this makes it “fair”. It’s how the world works, or something.

Now back to the economics. The kyriarchy must eat, and what it eats is labor. Your labor, my labor. It eats work. It’s like an evil baddy in a cartoon that goes around sucking energy out of power plants, but instead it’s sucking energy our of us in the form of work. And it needs us to work more and more, all the time. But like any energy sucking beast, it wants to expend as little energy of it’s own as possible getting that labor from us. If the kyriarchy was just a mean personal trainer standing behind us yelling insults while we run on the hamster wheel, it would have toppled ages ago. Instead, it uses the spectacle. Oh look, if I run for three more hours a day on this hamster wheel I can afford a 3 bedroom/ 2 bath house which will move me up from the dreaded renter section of the kyriarchy. Perhaps then I won’t get hit with so many shit bombs from above. Oh look, if I run on this treadmill for this much longer, i can get that shiny new pair of designer shoes. While we are running to nowhere, the spectacle flashes big, bright, pretty pictures of the things we didn’t even know we needed. This is called “media” and “advertising”.

But the kyriarchy is nothing if not a good businessman. One way it gets cheap labor (and replacement humans) is through motherhood. Actually motherhood is a naturally occurring phenomena. What the kyriarchy needs is free labor plus replacement humans. So we get this idea of the nuclear family, will-work-for-free or for sappy cards on mother’s day mom, dad the guard of the kyriarchy, and little replacement batteries, I mean babies. In exchange for ensuring the survival of the kyriarchy, guard men get their socks washed and dinners made and sex whenever they want it, regardless of whether a woman wants it.