Jezebel 
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New York, 7:49 PM
Sun Nov 8
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/05/09
Pro-choice: "Life continues after birth." #feminism
11/05/09
Re: Feminism being a "dirty word". My first exposure to the term was in a Spice Girls autobiography book (called Girl Power) or something, when I was 9-10 years old. There was a big block quite from one of the girls (Geri I believe) that said, "Feminism has become a dirty word now, girl power is a new way of saying it" or something like that. I had NO IDEA what feminism meant or was, so I thought "dirty word" = "curse word" and I would hide that page of the book from people whenever I was reading it in public so they didn't think I was reading something naughty. Now that I look back on it, I think that book planted the seeds of feminism in me, even if I thought it was a swear word. #feminism
11/05/09
So many women and men appear (by their actions--or more exactly, lack of action) content with where western culture stands today. So many women seem cowed by "feminism"-shaming into accepting that they're equal, when all signs point to the contrary. So many people seem to think things are good enough or to not appreciate how much better they could be. We're lacking consensus about what the next issues are and so we're kind of stuck in this dialogue of sex liberation and little else.
Men were content to give us our quasi-sexual liberation (They get laid more!) and happy to forgo chivalry (Cheaper! They can keep their seats on the train!). But what about the things that seem increasingly to recede in the future: Equal pay. Real help for working mothers. Equality in domestic tasks.
We're at a point at which losing the right to choice seems not impossible. And where is the mass consciousness among women? We're all taking our husbands names and neglecting to vote instead of being thankful every day for where we are and being aware of how much further we have to go.
Ok, not you. But maybe some of the women you know. The ones who make you feel like a caricature for wondering why you're worth less. #feminism
11/05/09
The language itself makes me feel like most people think feminism is unnecessary and that equality has been achieved.
I know it's a loaded term and I might not be using it properly, but I just can't accept it, use it or like it. #feminism
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It's as ludicrous as it would be to say "post-civil-rights era," which I believe was briefly tried after Obama's inauguration. Having your head in the sand must be comfortable.
11/05/09
A big problem comes when things are too often discussed in theory, without enough women and girls talking about how these everyday issues actually affect us personally. I know just being on this site every day for over a year now and reading the posts and comments has opened my already-feminist eyes to the inequalities we still face.
It's similar to how some people are totally homophobic until they discover that someone they know and love is GLB or T. Suddenly it clicks that these are real people, not just theoretical characters.
11/05/09
I got on my feminist soapbox and was like, "Don't apologize for yourselves. Women are judged based on what they wear in a way that men aren't. Women have to adjust their clothing for slight differences in the atmosphere of restaurants and locations, men have basically 3-4 options and don't have to worry about being judged for their clothes and appearances the way women do, so please don't apologize for this because it isn't you fault, and dad you need to shut up because it's not them as much as the world they live in." My mom, who hates that I'm a feminist, and her cousin were basically looking at me like, "...yeah. Yeah!"
So I've found that the best way to talk about feminism is to talk about what it means to be a woman, especially for women who are hostile to the concept of feminism--my mom, for instance, is vehemently anti-abortion, so feminism means baby-killing to her. This isn't the first time I've done stuff like this with her--talking about how she is more frustrated than my dad because her options are more limited than his, she was always expected to be a 100% mother and 100% worker, when that was impossible, and how she is judged by the way her house looks in a way my dad isn't--hell, she's judged on the way my father looks in a way that he isn't. I know my mother frequently feels like she's going crazy, and is sad, and is frustrated, because of her gender. But she can't express or acknowledge that right now. So trying to accept her for who she is, trying to allow her to recognize that her frustrations aren't her own personal problem but are understandable, is a good way to be a feminist.
Another version of this is telling women that they are not crazy when they say that they are crazy, like "I know it's crazy to expect my boyfriend to call me when he decides not to come over instead of just not showing up, and I don't want to be the crazy girlfriend who needs him to call me all the time, but it's so sad when I get all ready and he doesn't show." Or something. I try to say things like, "That's not crazy, you just want him to respect you. I hate this bullshit "crazy woman" narrative in which all emotions, especially women's emotions, are called crazy, which just delegitimizes women's feelings and thoughts." That response has also led me to be the secret keeper for lots of women, like "I have to tell you a secret about the time(s) I was raped." Women are so frequently dismissed that refusing to dismiss them is a radical feminist act. #feminism
11/05/09
@Cimorene: This might be the single favorite thing I've ever read here. YOU ARE AWESOME. #feminism
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11/05/09
I want to shout that from the rooftops, slap it on a bumpersticker, splash it across the evening news. #feminism
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11/05/09
I am a very quick packer. I've packer for month long trips in an hour. The reason I don't snark on women who take much longer to pack isn't the patriarchy, its because it is an asshole move. Not calling is again an asshole move.
I think a lot of this stuff plays into gender, but I tend to put the gender issues second to the rudeness. Not because the gender issues don't matter but because independent of gender some things are just dick. #feminism
11/05/09
* In an alternate universe where I have no impulse control or aversion to needles, of course. #feminism
11/05/09
It can get so bad that in many cases a woman actually believes that she is or is going crazy. It's referred to as "Gaslighting," after the 1930s movie of the same name. It's a very effective way of keeping women controlled, "in their place" and disrespected by culture at large. #feminism
11/05/09
The thing is that gender is so often removed from the equation when one just takes on "rudeness" or whatever, and so it larger cultural trends. This is a behavior that is so often attributed to women that to ignore the fact that gender is part of the equation when my father talks about it is to gloss over the fact that lots of behavior--and therefore the value attribution of said behavior--is inflected by gender.
It's like, my father gets pissed that my mother takes a long time to pack. Besides the fact that why does he even care, he definitely uses it as a "Oh, women!" attitude, in which women are irrationally obsessed with what they wear when men don't care what women or men wear. Pointing out that my father is being rude doesn't change my mother's own ambivalent or shameful understanding of her own relationship with her clothes, because then it's just about him being an ass. My mother obsesses about what she wears in large part because she's a woman, and is therefore judged by how she dresses far more than a man, and because she's fat, and is therefore shamed if she dresses in a way that doesn't downplay her weight. And not just shamed by other people, shamed by herself. But my father, just as fat as my mom, doesn't care, because his body isn't a political space on which gender and weight-related issues are getting played out.
So my mother not only feels anxious about what she wears and how she looks, which makes her obsess about her clothes, she also feels bad about feeling anxious about it and even worse about obsessing over her clothes, because that's supposedly an irrational behavior. Except it's not, if you're a woman, because you're right to think that you're going to be judged based on how you look. Much of our culture is structured around women being judged based on their bodies. So it's important to point out to my mom that she shouldn't feel bad, because her obsession/anxiety does not exist in a vacuum, it isn't just her that has this behavior, and my father isn't just being an ass, he's being an ass in a very specific, gendered way. To focus just on his assiness is to ignore the fact that his behavior is caused by and perpetuates gender stereotypes and value judgments. It's kind of like why calling someone an asshole or some other non-gendered, raced word, is less offensive than calling someone a n*gger, cunt, fag, dyke, etc. Because those words have a history, and the weight of a bigoted culture behind them, in a way that calling someone an asshole doesn't. Calling someone a [bigoted slur] is a dickish thing to do, but it's more than that, because it's part of a larger system in which individual dickishness is almost beside the point, because it becomes part of a culture that perpetuates this bigotry. #feminism
11/05/09
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I think I might actually be shrill. But oh well. #feminism
11/05/09
But it's true. #feminism
11/05/09
I can sympathize, though--at every party I've been to lately we've played girls v. boys Flip Cup (Yeah, I'm almost 30...it's responsible adult behavior...) and I always make sure that we are Team Caterwaulin' about the Patriarchy. Bonus points for the gals always winning Flip Cup! #feminism
11/05/09
Actually I hardly ever get called shrill. Man-hating? Yes. Radical? Yes. Crazy? Yes. Socialist. Communist. (Usually by people to whom I have to explain the difference.) Pinko. Feminazi. Bitch. Etc.
Especially when I'm a little drunk. Usually I keep my rants confined to people I know. Get me a few drinks and I'll start telling all the dudes in the bar what I really think of them. This almost never ends well. #feminism
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I.e. when one of my male friends refers to a very graphic and disturbing rape scene in a movie (that I didn't watch because I can't handle stuff like that) as a "sex scene"...
And then two other girls at the table started talking about how horrified and disturbed they were by it, how hard it is for them to watch stuff like that... and all, like, 8 guys at the table are completely silent, like, "you girls are such buzzkills" sort of silence, plus some laughing. And I bite my tongue and drink my beer because I don't want to be "that girl"...
You should come to the bar with me and be my back up.
The one time I challenged someone (with a very, very sarcastic comment) on my Facebook list for posting a horrible photo- (A photo of a protesting woman with a statistic like "1 in 4 murdered women are murdered by their spouse/boyfriend" and then an added caption of "1 in 4 women should have kept their mouths shut" or something like that)- he said something like, "Calm down, Feminazi"... it all seems like a losing battle. #feminism
11/05/09
I do have a humorous aside about the word though. My boyfriend (a big, strapping, Jewish feminist--even my lesbian friends want to marry him) and I were at a bar a few months ago, and we ended up getting into a political discussion with another dude at the bar. Somewhere along the lines of a discussion about Hillary, he used the term Feminazi to describe me. I just laughed at him and said, "Fuck yeah." My boyfriend, whose family survived the Holocaust (most of them), didn't miss a beat, and began calmly asking him if he was aware what a Nazi was. Then he told his family's story in the same calm, matter-of-fact way. The dude was so humiliated he picked up our bar tab and skulked out ten minutes later. I can't even tell you how big my grin was the next day... #feminism
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11/05/09
Unwieldiness be damned, I think I'm gonna start using that! #feminism
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11/05/09
@Cate3710: Nah, Wookies are cute. God thinks feminists are hairy and unlovable. #feminism
11/05/09
Most of the time, I'm very stereotypically heterosexual feminine, but man, there are days when I'm rockin' the hairy legs, camo shorts, a t-shirt that says, "who needs these when you have brains?", Birks and no makeup, blasting the Melissa Ferrick, when I have to laugh at myself.
Huh. Women are multi-faceted creatures. Who knew? #feminism
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Now, whose views are more in line with your own, Mine? Gloria Steinem? Or Erasmus? #feminism
11/05/09
11/05/09
It does not acknowledge that men, as a class, have power over women, or that whites, as a class, have power over POC, or that heterosexuals are privileged over other sexualities, etc.
Now, the word "feminism" doesn't do all of that, either, but it's one term of many that actually recognizes one form of inequality and says: This is wrong and needs to be made right.
"Equalist" is a cop-out, IMO, because it doesn't identify any problems. I feel like the people who prefer that term like the idea of "equality" in the abstract but aren't willing to acknowledge kyriarchy. #feminism
11/05/09
Humanism
1 a : devotion to the humanities : literary culture b : the revival of classical letters, individualistic and critical spirit, and emphasis on secular concerns characteristic of the Renaissance
2 : humanitarianism
3 : a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values; especially : a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason
I think the definition of humanism has evolved just as the definition for feminism has. I don't believe they are the same, that's not my claim. I am not saying that it's NOT false to say "I am not a feminist, I am a humanist" and believe they are the same. I will say that when I describe my feminism, I will speak to humanism because I feel it's an important piece of the pie.
I also don't necessarily think it's a cop-out. If you're talking to an obvious ass, then yes. But if you're talking to someone who is thoughtfully trying to hash out these labels, it doesn't automatically mean they are discounting any one in particular.
I hope this makes sense, because I think that I do agree with you and Cimorene overall. #feminism
11/05/09
If someone is not a feminist because they don't like the word feminism, it usually means that they are still fledgling grasshoppers in the road to feminism, or asshole liberal dudes who love the suicide girls. In my experience. If they're the first, I tend to let it go or explain that feminism is actually the belief that all humans deserve equal treatment legally, socially, economically. If it's the second, I mock them for not understanding the words they use in conversation. It's all situational, really. And I'm frequently in situations where I'm expected to be teaching kids, even if I don't actually work at a high school anymore. I still see my old students weekly. And they still think of me as The Feminist. So I'm often in a position to be telling people what I think, which is why I so frequently fall into teacher-speak when talking about feminism. #feminism
11/05/09
11/05/09
Of course, again, it's all situational. It's important for me to recognize that had someone been mean to me about my less-than-radical beliefs a few years ago, I might have given up this whole war against the patriarchy because I may have been scared off. So when I talk to someone who's clearly just starting to figure this shit out, whether they're a 40 year old librarian or a 13 year old middle schooler, to not be mean or scary or dismissive. But it's also important to challenge these empty rhetorical flourishes, to push on the meaning of these words and concepts. Like, what does equality even mean? Hell. What does "woman" even mean? Can women be "equal" in a society that doesn't recognize gay marriage? In a society that denigrates motherhood? In a world in which rape is as common as it is? Not in my opinion. Can you be anti-choice and a feminist? No.
Certainly language evolves, but language doesn't evolve on its own. It's changed by humans, the evolution is allowed by people. So I feel that not allowing feminism to be co-opted by anti-women language-users is important, which is why I feel so strongly about the use of the word feminism. Once feminism goes away, or becomes nasty, or becomes evacuated of meaning, the fight for actual gender liberation becomes harder. In the early 60s, there wasn't a word for mad men-esque sexual harassment. And there was a linguist who did work on women who were obviously harassed in the 50s and 60s but didn't do anything about it, and part of the conclusion of these studies was that they didn't do anything about it because they couldn't name it. They had no language for what was happening, no way to articulate it, so in a way they didn't know "it" was happening, because there was no definite "it," and therefore no way to stop "it" or fight "it." So they just put up with it ("it" being sexual harassment, it being the processes which we now recognize as sexual harassment, viz. grab ass, pay gaps, inappropriate language, etc). The use of the word "feminist" as I see it recognizes that there is an it that feminism needs to fight. #feminism
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I would like to say that as much as I'm bitching about him here, I love him more than anything and honestly believe he is a feminist: he consistently takes what I would call a feminist point of view when it comes to gender/race/sexuality/etc issues, but he simply cannot wrap his head around privileges inherent to his skin color and gender. #feminism
11/05/09
Kyriarchy needs to be overthrown. Only then will equality be achieved. Not just when women are allowed to run for political office or vote or wear pants or whatever. There is a whole system grinding us down, and it will take more than lip service to "equalism" to change anything. If you're not actually doing anything to end oppression then it's pretty meaningless.
Furthermore, one can be a feminist and an anti-racist and a gay-rights activist at the same time. Calling yourself a "feminist" doesn't mean you have to abandon all other fights for equality, or "Women's rights are the only ones I care about." But it's one piece of the puzzle and I think it's important to label oppressions and identify how they operate and own these specific struggles. If that makes sense. #feminism
11/05/09
LEMON OUT! #feminism
11/05/09
I'm still proudly pro-choice in a very anti choice country, it's difficult and at times I struggle with people's opinions. But I know I stand for respect and difference of opinions, other people just want to impose on women's reproductive rights.
11/05/09
I am in absolute agreement with Valenti about the word "feminism." Fuck it, I use the word constantly and I have never been embarrassed by it. Why would I?
Also, if your friends think you're too preachy then they won't be friends with you any longer. My friends/boyfriend/parents will shut me down when I drunkenly hop on the Feminist Theory Train, and that's cool.
On a side note, Anna, your writing these past few weeks has been especially thoughtful and amazing.
11/05/09
11/05/09
Also, re this: "if your friends think you're too preachy then they won't be friends with you any longer." Harris addressed this a bit, but from the other side. She pointed out that if you're close friends with someone, and you're a feminist, that person probably has some openness to feminism even if they wouldn't call themselves a feminist. And this rings true for me -- most of the time people who are truly close to me are open to hearing what I think, and I've had a lot of great conversations with people (mostly men, but not always) who just genuinely hadn't been exposed to a feminist perspective. #feminism
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Those crazy right-wingers would have a hard time arguing against that. #feminism
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10/26/09