Lt's start with Cuomo, because he's in the news very recently, and if you're in New York,
his case is prominent. And he's recently had to resign from the governorship
of New York because of 11 women's cases against him for creating a hostile sexist environment
and also inappropriately propositioning them and in one case, reaching under someone's
shirt, and grabbing her breast, and doing other things that made it very clear to those women
working in that capitalist workplace that the boss, who had so much power
over their career, over their wages, over their job conditions wanted them to provide sex:
a patriarchal gift from their lowly status as women. Now, Cuomo was also a terrible bully in his
office. He screamed and yelled at the men too, as well as women, but women were chosen for sex abuse
as a way of both demeaning them and also showing that, as the capitalist in charge,
he could ruin or make their careers. Which, he stressed over and over again in the testimony:
"You want to get ahead in this career? You don't want to be fired? Wear sexy outfits to work."
In one case, he criticized the woman who wore a flannel shirt, [saying] "You look
like a lumberjack. Not in my office." You're there to sexually entertain me,
even though it's not in your job description. Because part of the gender and patriarchal
messages were "You're there to serve me, and one way I want to be served in this office
is sexually. And what I can hold over you is my capitalist dominance to make your career,
to give you a promotion, to give you more money, to demote you, also to smear you,
and destroy your career by having people find out dirt on you. Because I have a staff to do that,
and spread it around, and make sure other employers won't touch you
either." And Cuomo had 11 women come out and testify, among many other women
who made statements but are not part of the suit. There was the state trooper,
the female state trooper, who Cuomo found sexually attractive so he had her moved way
beyond the seniority rules. He had her become his personal protective detail, and then made sexually
inviting and demeaning comments to her. And right behind her in that job was,
"Well, if he demotes me, if he badmouths me as an employee,
I could lose my job in the state police force on which I depend and so do my children."
He used capitalist pressure to press his patriarchal privilege. And so, you can see the
mutual shaping here of a system of patriarchy demoting women to a less than human status
and capitalism using employer status on women to get them to sexually comply.
Because it isn't enough to make money off of them. You also want to access all the services you can.