As an image-based culture, these ideas become legitimized predominately through advertising. Our role and our individual place within the social hierarchy becomes reconfirmed to us through the cultural production of images. As noted by Sut Jhally, the question has already been posed as to why these images and messages do not look strange to us. If these messages are critically considered, then we would recognize their strangeness. This can be specifically applied towards gender and race relations. There is not an equality amongst men, women, culture and class in advertising. Rather, it is here that we can best see patriarchy and unearned privilege put into practice. These messages become internalized. As Jane Killbourne notes, we are not above the influence of these messages. Our subconscious does not ignore them. We must be critical.
This violence against specific groups of people, rendering them to be secondary persons has become commonplace through the pervasive images which the media manipulates and disseminates throughout our cultural institutions. It is not necessary. We do not need these messages in order for our culture to survive, and THE MINISTRY OF VOICE contends that we would manage to flourish should they be eradicated. We can reject the messages to inequality and superficial consciousness.
In reality, racism matters to everyone despite their individual race, nationality or ethnicity. It matters because regardless of your individual identity we are all provided specific messages concerning how to calibrate our place and the place of others within the social system. It matters because racism is reflexive in disadvantaging one group and privileging another. We are all placed within this spectrum. We must be critical together. In addition to this, sexism is an inequality which we all must combat. To ignore its reality and silently maintain a heightened place in the social hierarchy is to condone this orientation. While a given inequality may not be directly enforced upon us, to not challenge its occurrence is to allow for it to exist.
As noted by Heidi Hartmann, the workings of patriarchy and capitalism are intertwined. These two functions coexist out of necessity. The patriarchy is a hierarchy where "particular people fill particular places." Capitalism enforces the division of labour inside and outside the home, calling for these particular places to be filled. This sexual division of labour keeps women dependent upon men, which is solidified through the expectations of the 'double-day'. Capitalism and patriarchy work together to disadvantage specific groups of people while elevating the work of the elite few.
Capitalism does not call for equality. It is a system which encourages the disadvantaging of specific people through the division of labour to elevate the potential of a specific class. This is a broken system which will not provide our vision of a society which values a level of interdependence, a positive promotion of individuality and respect for the autonomy of each person. Capitalism finds solace in our consumption and belief in the power of purchase. We can find more when we live with less. We might just find each other.
THE MINISTRY OF VOICE believes that through the elimination of racism, patriarchy, sexism, and capitalism, the objectives set forth in our manifesto can be realized. While this goal and message may seem to be a lofty vision, impossible to complete due to the systemic nature of each of these vices, we maintain that this is an obtainable reality. It may not happen in our life time, though the ground work can be put in place now in order to facilitate this emancipation of all peoples from the grips of repression. We must not lose sight of the fact that all mechanisms within our social systems have been fabricated. They are not natural occurrences, they have been put in place with a purpose. We have a purpose of our own. We can challenge, we can change, we have a VOICE.
THE MINISTRY OF VOICE
For more information on our inspiration, check out these great sources:
Hartmann, Heidi. "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards and More Progressive Union." In Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives, edited by Carol . McCann and Seung-kyung Kim, 169-183. New York: Routledge, 2010.
Jhally, Sut. The Spectacle of Accumulatin: Essays in Culture, Media, & Politics. New York: Peter Lang, 2006.
Kick it Over!. "The Crisis of Capitalism." March 15, 2011. http://kickitover.org/2011/03/15/crisis-capitalism.
mindinflow. (2010). Killing Us Softly: Advertising Image of Women [Video] Retrieved March 10, 201, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSXDCMSlv_I&playnext=1&list=PLDEA28B1F3E251FA5.
