Tuesday 27 November 2007

GIRLS WHO ARE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS TO BE GIRLS

Dear Rita,

Chauvinism is more clear and irritating than ever. Because not only they pretend that they have given same rights and opportunities, but also they believe that we have believed them! And I truly prefer to be obliged to be a slave than being a slave while others think I've chosen it…as much as I prefer to see the desert without hallucinating a long lost oasis.

Along with these thoughts, your article also reminds me of a book that I have started reading recently (and stopped quickly). It is from a famous Greek novelist and successful politician; Mimis Androulakis was always a writer dedicated on the women’s side and is well-known as devoted fan of feminism and equal rights’ movements. However, for some reason I can never finish his books…there is something galling in the way he writes and unwraps his story.

His most resent novel has the title ‘Feminine Poker’ and it tells the story of a young and very pretty woman that made a very successful Hedge Fund and became an ruthless businesswoman. The story generally tries to prove how clever women in finance behave. How well they could make it and how much better they could manipulate the situations in the economic world. The mistake that this book is making (as well as all other Mimi’s books in my opinion) is that it tries to prove all these by just saying them; while what is really confirms are all the below:

Women are good in something because they have learned it from men (the young woman in his story has an erotic relationship with a man 30 years older than her, who was a successful banker and who teaches her all the tricks. I should also mention here that in Mimi’s books there is always an erotic relationship between a young girl and an old man which doesn’t sound very feministic, no?)

The woman in the story recruits for her Hedge Fund only other women; because she believes in them(!). Why does this woman feel the need to advertise this ‘women’s power’ idea and does not recruit whoever is more successful and promising in the interviews? Why the book expresses a racially prejudiced attitude towards men? Does the writer want to highlight something by stupidly exaggerating and overdrawing our attention to his beliefs?

The novel apart from telling this specific story, it also tries to establish its arguments by referring all these women that were, or still being, successful in the finance world…and is doing both in no more than 300 pages, as far as I can remember,..maybe less..Which is so fair because if a writer would like to dedicate a work in successful men in the finance; then he would might need to write a encyclopedia.

And as you also said, why in hell another successful businessman is writing for this issue? It is very offensive to me; like they are trying to cheat and show as a different world with intention and confidence that's all we need (men writing these books) to feel equal! And how on earth did it occur to them that we would like to get fucked with old suckers like them (and not with pretty boys in our age or even younger), because we get fascinated by their wisdom?

So yes Rita, I truly agree with you and thank you for make me spend half an hour in my work (morning coffee) to write this…I should also send this to my father with the hope that he will stop buying me Mimi’s Androulakis books, however his good intentions and scarce truthful belief that women (like his daughter maybe) can make all the things better…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Eleni has illustrated her thoughts, some of them quite frustrated indeed.
The subject of inequalities in the work, and foremost corporate environment tends, to become trivial.
Just bare in mind this sector is male dominated and there is nothing that can be done on that. If you girls belong to the group of women that believe that men's mentality can somehow change you are delusional.
No, here is a clue. What you are facing up with is a system, and like all systems is governed by rules. Once you have assimilated entirely those rules, you can manipulate them. And another clue, men are easily manipulated. When you realize deeply those clues then you will be able to glide successfully through that man-held system and make the most £££ out of it.