Feminism: C or D?

i don't like jism.

uh oh, angry lesbian.

The people who say that are wrong because they don’t understand the concept of useful generalizations.

Not really. Generalization is useful only if you want to simplify matters in the sense of dumbing them down. To generalize feminism or communism or jism is surely going to distort and diminish the complex individual concepts more than anything else? Although I'm not sure I know what you're saying, because

If you believe that men and women shoud be equal in political, economical and social level, you're already a feminist even if you don't call yourself that.

This is like suggesting that someone is automatically a socialist just because he favors, say, greater economic equality. Not so. He may share the goal, but he sure as hell does not agree with the means.

that seems to contradict what you said before? An artist can say they're not part of a movement, but have enough ties with it to rightly be called part of that movement, but someone having the adequate ties to feminist thought doesn't make them a feminist? What means are inherent to the vague tag of feminism?

Classic:

Suffrage
More equitable pay and employment
The right to initiate divorce
Safe, legal abortion
The right to obtain contraceptives
The term "Ms."

MS PAINT

gff is one the money!

so are others, obv

Yes, MS Paint is a feminist achievement!!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/sexymollusk/fempaint.jpg

some fat, ugly, hairy bitch cut off that poor man's legs. :(

lol jeb u all kinds of dum

why do ppl still bother arguing with roger adultery

Jeb's Roger Adultery?

might as well be, he's denied it i think.

He's called "Jeb".

"Jeb" because "Johnny Reb" was a little too obvious

I don't get it, does the word "Jeb" have some special meaning?

But feminism is by definition just about the goal, not about the means. It's not as narrow as socialism, because socialism isn't just about equality, it's about a certain type of equality. Whereas in feminism you liberal, socialist, anarchist, postcolonial, etc. strands. Sure you can call it ideology, if you see all forms of striving for equality as ideologies, but it's a different sort of a ideology than socialism.

Jeb i wish you'd come off the "hey just pointing things out/just asking questions" game and say what it is you're after. are women just not as bright as men, or what?

is feminism, however you define it, a benefit, or a menace?

Now how is this different to feminism? “Well, it isn’t.” My point exactly.

Sometimes ILX really is like lining up all your imaginary friends and having a tea party!

Aw come on at my high teas we actually talk about cool stuff, like how to better secure volleyball nets. Velocitus Happenstance has some good ideas on it. Frankie Beans, however, is kind of full of shit.

i think it's stoopid when people have a go at "feminism" it's a pretty broad church.

must

fight

urge

to join

clusterfuck feminism thread

jeb u didnt really answer this point--

that seems to contradict what you said before? An artist can say they're not part of a movement, but have enough ties with it to rightly be called part of that movement, but someone having the adequate ties to feminist thought doesn't make them a feminist? What means are inherent to the vague tag of feminism?

and hey feel free to wear your inner troglodyte on your sleeve!!

<I>stevie i dont think either foucault or butler is interested a "utopia" at all! in fact that would be totally counter-intuitive considering their own theoretical commitments. foucault especially is way more concerned with the day-to-day, material concerns of oppression and the mechanisms of power.</I>

Oh no, I realize that. I was being a bit vague in my statement (partially because I am well aware of the fact I know very little about feminism nor my belief in it). I was dragging Foucault and Butler in my statement because that's what I was/am reading at this moment. Honestly, though, I really haven't decided yet... I am forever swinging both ways (Ken C can now interpret this in a totally pervy way!)

But isn't feminism more about a GOAL (or utopia)? I always see it as this, forever chasing that always distant perfect world which is, let's be honest, unreachable. You can prove me wrong, no problem with that, but that's how I see feminism and that's why I am sometimes a little bit... I don't know, sad about it? I look at Laurel and see how angry she is, how defensive she is about her beliefs and on the one hand I really admire that but on the other hand I think: "WTF, how tiring." (Not as a criticism, mind you, but as a... perception?) I often wonder how people like Greer, Butler,... really lead their daily life. How do you "marry" your academic/professional life (which is focused on feminism and battling sexism,...) and then on the other hand live with that knowledge in your day to day life, y'know. It really interests me.

I'm blabbering.

It helps if you killfile a bunch of people, actually. Speaking of which, which of your logins is the store one, and which is at home?

Just kidding. I'm not that angry in real life, is the thing. I really believe that we have to be mindful of shit and speak on it b/c otherwise we are tacitly condoning it. Who knows, I was raised as a sort of crazy Evangelical Christian, they think they have to go through every second of every day trying to be more like Christ -- for me it's a good day if I'm trying to be more like myself.

And I mean that's a distant unreachable goal if there ever was one, at least in this life on Earth. So maybe I just expect that life is full of ideals to aspire to and I'm okay with that, it's the journey not completion, blah blah.

Hah. Angry is probably an exaggeration, just how I sometimes perceive you in these type of threads, which, I repeat isn't a (negative) criticism, more... an admiration. I know this is the worng (contorted?) perception, because, like you just said, you aren't like that in "real" life. Still I find it admirable when people are gung ho (?) about their beliefs. I sort of gave up once I entered my 30s. :-( Which I know is a shitty attitude, because I am condoning a lot of shit I would have stood up against if I was younger.

Nathalie: main computer.
Stevie Nixed: every other comp. I couldn't remember my main password, only the Stevie Nixed one.

Killfile away. :-)

Nathalie, if we were all waiting to understand a thing perfectly in order to live it, would anything ever get done? If you refused to get pregnant until you were sure you could be a perfect parent, or refused to get married unless you were sure you and your spouse would never be unfaithful or fall out of love, where would you be? Etc.

For me feminism isn't an ideological impossibility that I must look to the academics to tell me about before I can vote for it, it's speaking up in my daily life and trying to make choices that support women and other people whose rights aren't respected, and questioning the gender/social/political/religious status quo.

Which mostly isn't that terrible living in NYC b/c the bulk of my peers here are not going to be all "WOMEN IN POSITIONS OF LEADERSHIP?? POPPYCOCK! PLS TO FOLLOW GOD'S PLAN" like what I felt where I grew up. But there's still no shortage of bullshit.

Yr good people Laurel.

For me feminism isn't an ideological impossibility that I must look to the academics to tell me about before I can vote for it, it's speaking up in my daily life and trying to make choices that support women and other people whose rights aren't respected, and questioning the gender/social/political/religious status quo.

This is very true. Even if I believed in some feminist utopia, I'd have to admit that it isn't very likely to happen during my lifetime, so trying to change little things in my everyday life, plus going to demonstrations and working with feminist organizations is the best I can do. I don't think anyone needs to devote her whole life to feminism to be a proper feminist, just recognizing the power structures around us and speaking up when you feel you should is enough. The fact that gender affects almost everything around us may feel overwhelming, but it also means resistance can be done everywhere. Sexism is much more about (often unnoticed) everyday practice than about some conspiracy of men.

some feminist utopia

sounds interesting....pls describe...

(Reason I ask is cos I relate to environmental issues better because the imagined outcome is less abstract to me...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnJxqRLg9x0&feature=player_embedded

Video 90% otm!

On Twitter wars between feminists -- seems familiar.

Yet even as online feminism has proved itself a real force for change, many of the most avid digital feminists will tell you that it’s become toxic. Indeed, there’s a nascent genre of essays by people who feel emotionally savaged by their involvement in it—not because of sexist trolls, but because of the slashing righteousness of other feminists. On January 3, for example, Katherine Cross, a Puerto Rican trans woman working on a PhD at the CUNY Graduate Center, wrote about how often she hesitates to publish articles or blog posts out of fear of inadvertently stepping on an ideological land mine and bringing down the wrath of the online enforcers. “I fear being cast suddenly as one of the ‘bad guys’ for being insufficiently radical, too nuanced or too forgiving, or for simply writing something whose offensive dimensions would be unknown to me at the time of publication,” she wrote....

(T)here’s a norm that intention doesn’t matter—indeed, if you offend someone and then try to explain that you were misunderstood, this is seen as compounding the original injury. Again, there’s a significant insight here: people often behave in bigoted ways without meaning to, and their benign intention doesn’t make the prejudice less painful for those subjected to it. However, “that became a rule where you say intentions never matter; there is no added value to understanding the intentions of the speaker,” Cross says.

There are also rules, elaborated by white feminists, on how other white feminists should talk to women of color. For example, after Kendall’s #solidarityisforwhitewomen hashtag erupted last fall, Sarah Milstein, co-author of a guide to Twitter, published a piece on the Huffington Post titled “5 Ways White Feminists Can Address Our Own Racism.” At one point, Milstein argued that if a person of color says something that makes you uncomfortable, “assume your discomfort is telling you something about you, not about the other person.” After Rule No. 3, “Look for ways that you are racist, rather than ways to prove you’re not,” she confesses to her own racial crimes, including being “awkwardly too friendly” toward black people at parties.

http://www.thenation.com/article/178140/feminisms-toxic-twitter-wars

The left will always eat itself to some extent. Just gotta own it.

Morbius

Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

http://womenagainstfeminism.tumblr.com/

Discuss.

http://33.media.tumblr.com/faade5ac24ba94974ff7e3fc50942216/tumblr_nce677RTC71syitgfo1_500.jpg

I honestly don't even know where to start with these idiots.

i dont need feminism because:

--I dont understand what structural inequality is
--I am on the winning side of patriarchy (for now)
--sometimes men are nice to me?
--i have little to no historical consciousness

Yes.

https://twitter.com/NoToFeminism

ryan otm

http://40.media.tumblr.com/09198f29a631af61191f2397c4fff802/tumblr_na866cAJx61syitgfo1_500.jpg

This doesn't even make any sense. None of them do. Brb I need to go kill myself now.

That twitter account. Dying.

Anyway, women's rights battles are for those ppl too, whether they acknowledge it or not. Feminism has given them the opportunity to be in a position to say those things, to not experience or not perceive that they experience discrimination. That's okay. Odds are at some point in their lives they'll fall out of that protected status because of something, and their views may change.

maybe there is some site where you can pay people to hold up handwritten signs with nonsense of your choosing and all of these people have been hired by reddit

that's unusually optimistic of you nakh