I found this article to be particularly interesting because it possessed many aspects that are similar or related to topics I have discussed in business classes. I recognized the first business characteristic in the following quote:
“…the decline of the aura can be attributed to the desire of the masses to bring things close to themselves and to their tendency to equate all things, to sense, as Benjamin puts it, the universal equality of things. This tendency is itself the effect of the mode of production, for what Benjamin seems to be describing is the effect of commodity fetishism on human perception. The abstraction makes exchange possible and that underlies what Marx calls the ‘mystery of money’ has led the masses to see things as equivalent.” (28)
This quote contains the idea that supports our entire economy and all economic transactions and activities across the world: the human ability to see material items as equivalent to a monetary value. This capability gives the ideas behind supply and demand the traction on which it can support its claims.
Secondly, the issue this article addresses of the inequality associated with gender. From the time that women made their first appearances in the workforce there have been obstacles created to limit their level of success to be much less than that of a man. This article describes many sexist ideologies that represent an aspect of society’s aversion to women in the workplace. Fascism and the idea of “virility” emphasis the positive aspects of a leader: strength, forcefulness, intelligence, and power. Virility identifies these characteristics as strictly “manly”, and emphasizes the identification of what were considered “feminized” characteristics as negative and harmful to the potential success and power of men. The chapter describes that “in fascist discourse, gender and sex are not to be mixed and matched: virility is the property of man, and femininity the property of women…The adjectives ‘masculine’ and ‘virile’ as applied to women were exclusively terms of abuse meant to deride the intellectual, ‘feminist,’ and hence sterile woman not properly devoted to her reproductive mission.” (17) Prejudices such as this are what contributed to developments of obstacles such as the glass ceiling effect, income disparities, and occupational segregation.