Orthodox Capitalism is Dead

The crises we face today, the inability to create new jobs and new industries, are the shortcomings of capitalism as we practice it. Umair Haque, the author of the “New Capitalist Manifesto,” challenges us to recognize the cornerstones of industrial-era capitalism to be able to remake it. “Capitalism is a human creation; we made it and we can remake it. We are at a critical juncture to remake it again.”

Profitability is what we mean by capitalism. To rediscover profitability we need to take a critical look at our competitive advantage. For the next-generation capitalism we need creativity, customization, commitment and compliance. We need to unleash creativity by bringing together diverse constituents to generate new ideas and to reach a creative outcome. We need to redefine consumption methods, like iTunes, and give customized purchasing options to consumers to download a digital album in MP3 format or in a single-file format.

Commitment is a process by which we get people to agree willingly to continue to support something. Companies are in need of commitment and compliance – there is a constant fear that people will go home and not come back. People want a say and to be part of decision making. Companies need to engage employees and encourage “make-our-own rules” approach to decision making processes

The 4 C’s become core characteristics of human interaction – the more active the participation, the more creative the decisions and process outcomes, and the more customized to our needs. Systems by which we make decisions need high degrees of collaboration and participation. This is very different from what we are trained to believe.

Our communication practices are still limited by the legacy of an old design. We favor a form of talk that is an argument, a campaign to win, organized around liberal democracy – it is embedded in our constitution. What we inherited is a 16th - 17th century view of human experience.

Partisanship is an outcome of liberal democratic model – it works to polarize into position. We have a model of how talk should be. Our native theory of dialogue is adversarial talk. We advocate a view, we debate, and the better argument wins.

But having the world we want will not come from voting for it.

So we need to look at the communication designs that are available to us. How we talk to each other and what are the native theories?

COMM 4600

Finally! A course by Stan Deetz!
COMM 4600 - Collaborative Decision Making

Course description from syllabus:
Organizations and communities increasingly use participatory and collaborative forms of decision making to solve complex multi-party conflicts. Communication is core to the quality of all participatory decision making. The course will focus on research and practice. More specifically, the course will explore why the need for collaboration is increasing, the various types and models of collaboration, individual skill needs, and the discussion and deliberation processes that facilitate and limit the success of these programs. As a result of the course, class members should have a better understanding of the changing workplace and its connection to the wider society, an increased capacity to participate in collaborative decision making, and the ability to aid organizations and communities in improving their decision making processes.

The upcoming posts will focus on collaboration!

the tyranny of slender

The impulse to put people into neat categories is irresistible. The human aspect is sadly missing from our categorizations of self. Instead we see ourselves constrained by social hierarchies and gender roles, distinguished by our clothes, body shapes, and economic status.

Today, so much of the conversation about women and fashion focuses on body size that we discuss weight as though it were the most important aspect of our life. It seems like media is on a mission to demoralize the average, chubby woman.

The beauty ideal portrayed by media has always been slender.

Being saturated with so many media messages about how we should do gender and what we need to consume in order to do it appropriately creates an anxiety. Susan Bordo calls it “the tyranny of slender,” and how the slender, firm, fit body is taken as a statement about ones character. This assumption that if you are fit you are somehow a disciplined person, you self manage, and you have managerial abilities. You are an ambitious, achieving person.

The cumulative weight of advertising in our everyday life is the insecurity, and the struggle, to constantly live up to this slender body. Not always consciously, but there are pressures that nag at us in our everyday life. One of the fears of losing femininity for me is whether I live up to this beauty ideal, in terms of how I dress and the amount of time I spend doing hair and make up in order to keep up.















We think that if we are lucky to have a job we better live up to the expectations that come with it - the expectations that are hanging over the work situations and that demand to perform in a public sphere and to live up to the notion of “the universal worker.”

Instead of changing the system, I have built my life around it, around the organizational structure, and I navigate, while negotiating my femininity, toning down sexuality and feminized communication style in order to survive in a bureaucracy that is not gender-neutral, but is built around men and masculinity. According to Joan Acker, it is the organizational system that is gendered.

(As Acker illustrates the concept of hegemony, she claims how the bureaucracy creates gendered hegemony that presses everyone, and how we all buy into this norm.)

I have functioned under the assumption that the barriers to women's advancement are created by expectations and habits surrounding communication, and the assumption that masculine communication style is more naturally professional and managerial, realizing that the only way to be in a strong role is playing a part originally written for men.

Acker acknowledges that there are women who are able to step into “a men’s world” and succeed, but it generally requires what she calls “becoming a social man, whose personal and private needs are taken care of outside work,” in order to live up to the idea of “the universal worker.”

London 2010

Advertising Gender

In Tom Ford’s risqué new fragrance campaign a very nude woman is featured wearing nothing but the product. The bottle of cologne is placed between her legs. In the attempt to make sex and the naked body glamorous and chic, the ad uses photoshopped body parts, producing a shiny and plastic image of a woman’s body that looks like an unclothed Barbie doll. This is not anywhere near a natural body. The woman has no head. She is not a real person.

One example Suzanne Romaine offers of all the contradictions that are embedded in media is promoting the “natural look,” so we are trying to copy this ideal as if it is based on a real woman, which in fact is not a real woman. It is a cartoon image.

In Tom Ford’s most recent menswear ad, a young gentleman, who is dressed in a white suit and holds a bottle of beer and a cigar appears with a fully naked woman, and we see only her toned and tanned body with no face. This is an example of the way women and the promise of women is explicitly used to sell things to men – advertizing gender.

As Tom Ford claims, “we are selling to men – put the fragrance where they want to look,” admitting that objectifying women is very profitable in the fashion industry.

Tom Ford is an equal opportunity objectifier, however. In a parallel process his ads also depict boldly naked men. The campaign includes images of the ideal male body, putting more pressure on men to make a spectacle of themselves with the cut abs and the cartoonish biceps.

Romaine argues that ads call on us to do gender in a way that is truly in drag. We are not copying an original; we are copying what is in essence a hyper-feminine or masculine cartoon. And eventually everyone ends up feeling pressured. Advertisement plays a strong role in this.

In menswear ads masculinity is represented in a fierce formal look. Men appear in suits with immaculately groomed hair. But it is not only the heterosexual man portrayed here. Tom Ford’s PR campaign uses photo and video ads with same-gendered couples in the midst of passionate acts or posing as sophisticated looking professionals (which seems a lot to handle for some people without any warning).

Although homosexual, the male protagonist is of high class, white, similar to the notion of the universal male who is young, fearless and secure.

The femininity is depicted by reducing women to just their body parts. Romaine points out how body parts and gendered images of body parts are invoked even in ads that have nothing to do with sexuality. In this case the ad for cologne is used to evoke sensuality versus sex.

This relates to creating need around ideal beauty and the use of sexuality to sell things, by making the product look like it is associated with a desirable lifestyle.

This is how need is created around ideal beauty, as Romaine claims it. That if you consume the product, it will lead you to this beauty ideal, it will enhance your lifestyle, your relationships, and your status in the world. And we get sucked into particular brand from the basis of those image associations.

Tom Ford brand isn’t selling clothes. It’s selling a culture, an identity. The clothes make you. Buying something from Tom Ford is like joining an elite club.

30 Days of School

My Gender Credentials

I like to wear ribbons and glorious long dresses










In reality, I strive to be a woman. I look for creative ways to be strong and assertive without losing my femininity. I am concerned with how my behavior is perceived by others.

I am constantly involved in:
- Community building
- Networking
- Maintaining of relationships
- Organizing events
- Throwing parties

Ceasing to live according to social expectations
Ideally, I would like a dynamic genderless identity - an identity that encompasses fundamental human traits. I wish to create my identity and construct my self without the constant awareness of the gender categorizations.

I am actively producing gender-specific behavior by:
- Collaborating
- Supporting
- Assisting
- Cooperating

I do not wish to be defined by the traditional female experience
The gender identity I especially wish to avoid is a classic female identity, with mere features of empathy, kindness, motherly compassion and understanding. I do not want to live up to the social expectation and project an intuitive, nurturing personality.
- I try to no longer feel accountable for my unwomanly conduct
- While communicating I am being direct
- I am willing to be logical than yielding or pleasing during the process of reasoning

I am a product of my culture!











In my culture, there are distinctive and separate roles for the males and the females, reinforced by a set of qualities and attitudes that define femaleness and maleness. I was taught that femininity is not an object; it cannot be lost. It is what a woman is. It is a part of woman’s identity.

As a woman, I constantly deal with the tension between the traditional female role of homemaking and my career and education, in order to maintain the necessary creative balance.

The connection between gender identity and existential situations
My gender identity is revealed in the situations in which I am placed. It is through specific circumstances and events that my femininity is enacted.

However:
- I never ask for directions
- I don’t enjoy shopping for shoes
- I am rarely emotional
- I don’t share secrets with my mother
- I say what I think

Meryl Streep is My Gender Model
Because she demonstrates the “ability to plunge into her characters and lose herself inside of them, transforming herself physically to meet the demands of her roles.”1 Streep can be plain or glamorous and radiant; she can be a woman or a man.
1 Brennan, Sandra. “Meryl Streep: Full Biography.” The New York Times. 5 Sept. 2010

That’s the way it is meant to be!
I encountered the following enforced messages that
sustained and rendered my social reality. The first
three were advice given to the bride at a marriage
ceremony:
“The husband is the head of the wife and the wife must be subservient to the husband.”
“A man is to be the head of the house and a good provider.”
“If one of you has to win an argument, let it be your mate.”
“A woman is judged more by her appearance than by her performance.”
“A woman’s place is in the kitchen.”
“A woman should be feminine for the man to be masculine.”

The essence of being a woman











The following are the activities in which I
participate that support my being a woman:
- Gift-wrapping and color-coordinating
- Smiling and nodding while listening
- Including a “smiley face” in my notes
- Putting an exclamation mark in “Thank You!”
- Designing and decorating
- Taking photos and sharing online albums
- Attending baby and bridal showers
- Remembering the birthdays and anniversaries
- Wearing glorious long dresses