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textualdevianceBut I'm riffing off of something ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kyooverse said on the Post From Hell...
I consider myself a traditional feminist in many ways-- primarily in that I believe traditional gender roles are harmful to women (and to men, too.)
But one of the things traditional feminism missed is the notion that women are not All Good.
Absolutely women, as a sex, are still second class citizens in most of the world's cultures. Some worse than others, and some subcultures worse than others, too.
But where traditional feminism went wrong is in assuming that men are the ones solely responsible for this, and that men are therefore The Enemy, and the ones to be blamed, to be feared, to be held accountable. In training women to be aware of male power and to find ways to avoid being harmed by it, women were led into this false sense of safety and security with each other.
Case in point, the oft-discussed Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (and other women-only spaces like that.) The women there believe that they will be safe so long as an adult penis does not cross the boundaries of that space. And yet that's definitely not the case. While they may be safe from being raped by a man, or otherwise subject to male-specific violent or oppressive acts, they are still not safe. Women are not inherently non-violent. They are generally not as physically violent as men, but to assume that women are all nurturing, totally loving creatures who would never harm each other is a dangerous myth.
Who is it that enforces the practice of FGM? Women. Who is it that pressures girls into eating disorders? Women. Who is it that tells women they may as well not exist if they don't have male approval? Women. Who is it that ostracizes girls who are not gender-compliant? Women.
It may be true that the reason women do this is because of the outside pressure from the larger, male-dominant culture (particularly consumer culture) but that doesn't absolve women as a whole from culpability for the role they play in continuing the cycle, and it certainly doesn't absolve individual women from responsibility to not engage in activity which is damaging to other women, assuming they're in a safe enough position to do so. If you don't have a gun to your head, and won't lose your job or your house if you cease oppressing other women, you have no excuse. The women who do FGM have an excuse for what they do. Some arrogant teenage fuckwit nagging the school fat girl does not. Some mother clucking about how her daughter should really grow her hair out and wear something prettier does not. Women who merrily feed the corporate beauty and fashion machine, regardless of the deaths those industries are responsible for do not.
Women constitute a majority of the US population. Women now hold a great deal of power positions in business, politics, science and the arts. If women were indeed only pawns of the patriarchy who know not what they do, then feminism should have cured that, and we would all be free now. The strength in numbers and actual power we carry now, while still not ideal, is enough to set us free if women were in fact fighting for our rights as a group.
But obviously, that's not happening. Certainly, some women are too afraid of the consequences of bucking the system to suddenly stop feeding the sexism machine. But others know better, and are either too lazy, or have a twisted idea that they're benefitting from the subjugation of women as a group to bother. The fact that so many women with power insist on using that power to continue the abuse of other women is appalling. And those women absolutely should be held responsible for what they do.
One of the reasons Blank's original post pissed me off is the notion that femme space is somehow some special, magical place where one is fully loved and accepted and intimate with everyone there, because you're all mututally bonding over shoes. That's a pretty myth, but it's just that. The message of femme space is not "all are welcome here" but "you're welcome here if you are Femme or if you are Butch and support Femme." Sisterhood is not open to all with a cunt. It is open only to those women (and men) who will play along and do their part to reinforce harmful gender stratification.
No, we women are not safe with each other. Women-only spaces are not magical, mystical safe houses where no one will ever be harmed. Women in power has not ended sexism, and in fact in some ways is reinforcing it, because the only women who have thusfar been allowed to come to power are the ones who play the game. The concept that one will recieve unconditional love, safety and support merely by associating solely with someone whose genitals or gender identity you share is simply not actual fact.
Women can be just as nasty as men, and in some ways nastier because they're more subtle about the damage they do. And I'm supposed to just grin and say how great it is to be a chick, and how great other chicks are?
Hardly. No one is my "sister" just because she and I both have cunts.
kyooverse said on the Post From Hell...I consider myself a traditional feminist in many ways-- primarily in that I believe traditional gender roles are harmful to women (and to men, too.)
But one of the things traditional feminism missed is the notion that women are not All Good.
Absolutely women, as a sex, are still second class citizens in most of the world's cultures. Some worse than others, and some subcultures worse than others, too.
But where traditional feminism went wrong is in assuming that men are the ones solely responsible for this, and that men are therefore The Enemy, and the ones to be blamed, to be feared, to be held accountable. In training women to be aware of male power and to find ways to avoid being harmed by it, women were led into this false sense of safety and security with each other.
Case in point, the oft-discussed Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (and other women-only spaces like that.) The women there believe that they will be safe so long as an adult penis does not cross the boundaries of that space. And yet that's definitely not the case. While they may be safe from being raped by a man, or otherwise subject to male-specific violent or oppressive acts, they are still not safe. Women are not inherently non-violent. They are generally not as physically violent as men, but to assume that women are all nurturing, totally loving creatures who would never harm each other is a dangerous myth.
Who is it that enforces the practice of FGM? Women. Who is it that pressures girls into eating disorders? Women. Who is it that tells women they may as well not exist if they don't have male approval? Women. Who is it that ostracizes girls who are not gender-compliant? Women.
It may be true that the reason women do this is because of the outside pressure from the larger, male-dominant culture (particularly consumer culture) but that doesn't absolve women as a whole from culpability for the role they play in continuing the cycle, and it certainly doesn't absolve individual women from responsibility to not engage in activity which is damaging to other women, assuming they're in a safe enough position to do so. If you don't have a gun to your head, and won't lose your job or your house if you cease oppressing other women, you have no excuse. The women who do FGM have an excuse for what they do. Some arrogant teenage fuckwit nagging the school fat girl does not. Some mother clucking about how her daughter should really grow her hair out and wear something prettier does not. Women who merrily feed the corporate beauty and fashion machine, regardless of the deaths those industries are responsible for do not.
Women constitute a majority of the US population. Women now hold a great deal of power positions in business, politics, science and the arts. If women were indeed only pawns of the patriarchy who know not what they do, then feminism should have cured that, and we would all be free now. The strength in numbers and actual power we carry now, while still not ideal, is enough to set us free if women were in fact fighting for our rights as a group.
But obviously, that's not happening. Certainly, some women are too afraid of the consequences of bucking the system to suddenly stop feeding the sexism machine. But others know better, and are either too lazy, or have a twisted idea that they're benefitting from the subjugation of women as a group to bother. The fact that so many women with power insist on using that power to continue the abuse of other women is appalling. And those women absolutely should be held responsible for what they do.
One of the reasons Blank's original post pissed me off is the notion that femme space is somehow some special, magical place where one is fully loved and accepted and intimate with everyone there, because you're all mututally bonding over shoes. That's a pretty myth, but it's just that. The message of femme space is not "all are welcome here" but "you're welcome here if you are Femme or if you are Butch and support Femme." Sisterhood is not open to all with a cunt. It is open only to those women (and men) who will play along and do their part to reinforce harmful gender stratification.
No, we women are not safe with each other. Women-only spaces are not magical, mystical safe houses where no one will ever be harmed. Women in power has not ended sexism, and in fact in some ways is reinforcing it, because the only women who have thusfar been allowed to come to power are the ones who play the game. The concept that one will recieve unconditional love, safety and support merely by associating solely with someone whose genitals or gender identity you share is simply not actual fact.
Women can be just as nasty as men, and in some ways nastier because they're more subtle about the damage they do. And I'm supposed to just grin and say how great it is to be a chick, and how great other chicks are?
Hardly. No one is my "sister" just because she and I both have cunts.
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no subject
Me too :>) Can't remember if I bought it when it came out (or received it as a gift), or if I picked it up later on, though...
Yes, I was in my 20s in the Reagan years, and I definitely remember how feminism became a dirty word during that time; certainly young girls growing up then would have easily been led by the media and society at large to believe that "equal rights" was not a goal worth pursuing. There was a lot of the "women are better than men, so why lower ourselves to be equal?" claptrap going on in the media, which young naive girls might easily grow up believing. The Clinton "generation," however, might be more politically aware, not least for seeing how Hillary was reviled in the right-wing media for simply being a strong woman with definite ideas about how to make the country a better place. I think we can place some hope in that generation, as it comes of age over the next 10 years or so....
OTOH, it seems to me that, along with multimedia/zillions of websites and telly stations, etc., political organizations are splintering into smaller and smaller parts these days - you may be a militant lesbian feminist and I might be an older straight feminist - in the old days, we would have found ourselves in the same political organizations, fighting for equal rights for all, but today you'd probably be in groups that wouldn't accept me, and vice versa. Which is a shame because, of course, such splintering weakens the cause as a whole. But I don't see that trend reversing itself any time soon (though possibly the growing anti-war movement, consisting of tons of groups that otherwise have nothing in common, is a sign of better things to come).
no subject
I hope so. I also think, given the trajectory of the US economy, that economics and social class issues are going to jump to the forefront in the next few years. Supply-side economics is about to go boom, and I think a lot of current political dividing lines are going to go wonky because of it.
Thanks for the convo, btw. :)
no subject
*waves* de nada