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The Boomerang | Summer 2022
courses, and then go back to male-oriented theories directly after.
Allow yourself to feel this outrage. It can be sparked by anything, big or small, fueled by a headline or a personal experience. Bursts Honestly, I am sick of reading beautiful of passion are intense and powerful but feminist articles and revolutionary research realistically short-lived. However I ask you papers. I just want to be able to walk down to let them fuel you. Sexism lives in all of us the street with the same empty-headed cock- in so many minute ways we have learned to iness of a straight white man. I want to take ignore in our day-to-day lives. I ask you to up space in the world the same way I see my not let these seemingly small things go, but The label of “feminist” has become dirty, male friends do. WR ¿JKW WKHP DV \RX ZRXOG ¿JKW IRU DQRWKHU associated with an untamed wildness young woman you love. What seems minute to you girls should learn to do without. Truthfully, And after all this, all the hard work to change contributes to the larger forces which invisiit becomes hard not to bend over and accept the idea of natural male dominance, all the bly run our lives. These narratives when undefeat. It’s hard to study so many historical voices shouting the same message, all the questioned make massive atrocities, such as waves of feminism in my textbooks, only to headlines detailing rape and assault from the rapes in Ukraine, become merely an inlook up today and see things are very much around the world, all the lives ruined and HYLWDEOH ³VLGH H̆HFW´ RI D PDQ¶V ZDU UDWKHU the same. It’s disheartening to see a week lost, the pattern will still continue. 6R ZKDW than a direct attack on humanity itself. of a “feminist perspective” in my politics is the point?
On Tourism and Global Exploitation E\ $GD 7U]DVNRZVND
How are tourism and coloniality connected to patriarchy and capitalism? Managing the Global South
Managing working women The connection to patriarchy might seem with many other exploitative, hierarchical, OHVV FOHDU EXW WR PH LW LV QR OHVV VLJQL¿FDQW and immoral phenomena, to patriarchy and Here comes my personal experience, po- white capitalism. VLWLRQDOLW\ DQG KRSHIXOO\ UHÀH[LYLW\ P\ parents own and manage two hotels on the :K\ WKHQ LV WKH MRE PDUNHW tropical paradise island of Zanzibar. promoting men due to their age or
The connection to the latter is pretty obvious - tourism, particularly in the Global South, is rooted in the exploitation of natural resourcHV VXFK DV ODQG ZDWHU ÀRUD DQG IDXQD WDNH for example zoos, safaris, and so-called na- The reason why they came up with this idea ture parks). LQ WKH ¿UVW SODFH LV WKDW P\ PRWKHU FRXOG QR ORQJHU ¿QG D MRE LQ 3RODQG ZKHQ DOO VKH This exploitation is never referred to as such, wanted was to continue climbing up the cabut rather as the ‘managing’ untouched re- reer ladder and girlbossing. Perhaps she also sources. It is often backed by ugly and cringy wanted to earn money to keep her family sentences like “local people would never take DÀRDW DOWKRXJK WKLV ZDV GH¿QLWHO\ D VHFRQGadvantage of this anyway” or “people who ary consideration. live here do not have the capability/capacity to manage a big, proper business.” Not 3HUKDSV LQ WKHVH SODFHV LW LV QRW once does it cross their mind that perhaps ‘obvious’ to exploit every bit of nature in these places, it is not ‘obvious’ to exploit IRU SUR¿W HYHU\ ELW RI QDWXUH IRU SUR¿W WKDW SHUKDSV this is where the opposition between na- But then why would a woman with higher ture and humans, and the blinding focus on education, living in Warsaw, with 20 years growth and career, are not the main drivers of work experience, suddenly not be able to of a society. ¿QG D MRE"
³H[SHULHQFH´ DQG ¿ULQJ ZRPHQ IRU WKH exact same reasons?" My father, who had his third child at the DJH RI ZDV QRW IDFHG ZLWK VXFK D FDUHHU brick wall. He could easily continue working in the same positions he was in before. Not only that, but bigger and better-paid doors were actually opening for him due to over 20 years of experience he had acquired in his ¿HOG
Why, then, is the job market promoting men GXH WR WKHLU DJH RU ³H[SHULHQFH´ DQG ¿ULQJ women for the exact same reasons? Ageing, for men, is almost always associated with experience and growing authority. For women, on the other hand, it is associated with losing relevance and the girlish energy they Tourism, once again particularly in the :HOO EHFDXVH DW WKH ULSH URWWHQ DJH RI once used to have. “Global South”, also relies on the exploita- she gave birth to her third child. For a womtion of “cheap” labour. This practice is also an working in managerial positions in mar- And this is how in one page, it becomes HDVLO\ MXVWL¿HG E\ VWDWHPHQWV WKDW ³WKLV LV keting, this was no less than a career death fairly clear that the answer to most quesjust how much people get paid here”, “every- sentence — especially in such a “youth” and tions about exploitation and abuse of powone pays this amount”, and perhaps the ug- “relevance” obsessed domain as advertising. er can be traced back to capitalism and its liest one: “for them it’s better to have this embeddedness in patriarchy. A system that income than no income at all”, implying that Don’t get me wrong here, I am in no way try- makes people obsessed with career-buildif it weren’t for tourism “local” people would LQJ WR MXVWLI\ WKLV RXWVRXUFLQJ RI FDUHHU IXO¿O- ing and authority only to kick them out onto starve to death and just have nothing “pro- ment by exploiting the resources and work- the street when they lose what’s considered ductive” to do. ers of Zanzibar. I am simply trying to trace “relevance”. A system in which "relevance" is the roots of “Global South” tourism, along innately tied to gender and race.
