Post by KateAggie on Sept 24, 2014 20:32:53 GMT -5
The hostility and disdain for pro-life women by feminist groups is probably the #1 thing that keeps me, a pro-choice woman, from identifying as a feminist. I want no part of that. Do we tell anti-death penalty people, hey, it's ok to be opposed to the DP, but it's law, so just go ahead and be against it, but don't FIGHT to change it. No way. For a pro-life woman, it doesn't have anything to do with pregnancy. In their eyes, it is murder. Asking them to stop fighting to overturn laws that allow murder? Really? Because only women can get pregnant? Sorry. That will never compute for me.
its a choice for self identified feminists to be accepting and welcoming to pro-life feminists. i get the knee jerk reaction to tell anti-choicers to STFU when it comes to feminism but not all these women are working against feminism per se.
i really did wish more women and men werent scared of the label. i dont know what to do to combat that. i see that @dyermaker's status as a pro-lifer will probably never compel her to identify as a feminist. but there are others that aren't pro-life that dont identify as a feminist for ............... whatever reason i dont know.
THAT'S the woman we need to talk to and support.
Being anti choice is inherently anti woman. You cannot get around it.
I can tell you are just getting here. You are in for a treat.
Then stop whining about why more of us don't join your party. That's all I'm saying. Or at minimum, stop asking why feminist is such a dirty word to some people. I think it's abundantly clear why.
I can tell you are just getting here. You are in for a treat.
I was busy today. It's really pretty basic. If you are prolife, you are a-okay with all kinds of uglies against women including the fuckers before SCOTUS last summer. If you "built that" you are not a feminist. Sorry, not sorry. There is right now in various schools of feminism, heated angry debates about this sex work issue. There is presently NO debate about whether women are entitled to agency, privacy, and economic autonomy.
I thought it was basic too. I was feeling all alone in that though.
I even asked my H tonight. "Can you be a feminist and be anti choice?" He laughed. Of course not, was his thought. Women and young girls are dying all over Latin America because they don't have access to safe and legal abortions. How can that be pro woman?
No. Find me a gay rights group today that welcomes people who want to define marriage as solely between a man and a woman. You and I both know that the legal gay rights movement and attitudes surrounding it have changed dramatically since the 80s.
I don't know who MacKinnon is.
You should.know who MacKinnon is. She is important. Wiki her stat. I bet you actually do know her.
No. Find me a gay rights group today that welcomes people who want to define marriage as solely between a man and a woman. You and I both know that the legal gay rights movement and attitudes surrounding it have changed dramatically since the 80s.
I don't know who MacKinnon is.
You should know who MacKinnon is. She is important. Wiki her stat. I bet you actually do know her.
Yes. Okay. But she's not a feminist opposed to abortion. Her relevance to this discussion seems nebulous.
I've been on both sides of the fence on the abortion issue. While the pro-choice movement is clearly a pro-woman movement, I believe there is a schism on the other side of the movement between the truly pro-lifers and the anti-choicers. I don't doubt that many of the men fighting against abortion in various legislatures are anti-choice. However, the vast majority of pro-life women I know truly do believe that life begins at conception and therefore to terminate a pregnancy is the same as ending a life. And simply because only women can get pregnant does not make that viewpoint inherently anti-feminist.
I rejected the term for a very long time until about a year and a half ago, really, when I read--and fell intellectually in love with--Catharine MacKinnon. I then read Lean In and was drawn in to executive feminism. I've performed in a production of The Vagina Monologues. I've written about how sex offender registries are a tool of the patriarchy. I've seen MacKinnon speak and gotten her autograph. And I've recently signed up to volunteer to help trafficking victims. I preach the feminist gospel more than I preach my religion. I'm determined to get my S/O to identify as a feminist, despite coming from a relatively conservative background (and have made major strides in this quest). But I stay out of the abortion debate. Because I honestly get both sides. I'me frustrated that so many feminists feel there's no room to disagree on when life begins. Because I don't think my discomfort with abortion should mean I can't be a feminist.
You're a lawyer. You know the issue is not when life begins.
The issue that's debated often isn't where life begins. And that's not the part of the equation that brings out the passion in either side (at least not typically). But it is the source of the differing perspectives when we look at those pro-lifers who really mean what they say. If a person truly believes that a human being--a life--is formed at conception, then to terminate that life is akin to murder. And I don't think it's absurd for a person to be against murder. However, if a person is of the perspective that the human being doesn't really become a life/a person until birth, then naturally any position that person takes against abortion is going to be anti-woman.
And the law is complicated, too. Abortion is legal, but the standards of review for laws restricting abortion vary based on what term of pregnancy (viability) the laws affect. So it's muddled as a viability issue.
Basically, while I get both sides and what they're fighting for, I also get that the distinctly different perspectives with regard to the start of life greatly impacts the debate and has nothing to do with women or murder. Before any compromises can be made, the different starting point re the start of life must be acknowledged.
You should know who MacKinnon is. She is important. Wiki her stat. I bet you actually do know her.
Yes. Okay. But she's not a feminist opposed to abortion. Her relevance to this discussion seems nebulous.
It was an example of how two radically differing viewpoints can still both be feminism. She is anti-porn and anti-prostitution. Other feminists are pro-porn, sex positive, etc.
I imagine she is pro-choice, though it hasn't been a primary focus of her work.
Except, we do. In fact, the old school gay rights activists of the 80s were (are?) against gay marriage for reasons I understood when I learned of them but doubt I could adequately represent here. Because you can be pro gay rights generally without agreeing with every single issue. Similarly, there are pro-porn and anti-porn feminists. Now perhaps you can say MacKinnon isn't sex positive, but it'd be odd to say she's not a feminist.
That is because there are competing definitions of agency within the context of sex work and pornography. Can you articulate an argument where being prolife (in the accepted use of that word) is being pro-agency? Pro equality?
Also, IIRC, the gay rights movement was anti gay marriage for two reasons 1) strategic. They didn't think they could win that fight and we're more concerned about societal acceptance of their existence and getting homosexuality removed.from the.DSM IV for example. 2) They adopted an anti marriage stance almost ironically like we don't need your stupid licenses to know we're in love.
It's pro human rights. They see the unborn as lives deserving of rights. They see women as lives deserving of rights.
And no re the early LGBT movement, at least not the articles I've read (which have been misplaced in one of the last 3 moves I've undergone in the pas 18 months). It wasn't about coupling. It was about sexual liberation. 2 is a little closer, but it didn't really have to do about love. It was a counterculture. I think you may actually be thinking of the homophile movement which predates the activists I was thinking of (and erroneously called "early LGBT activists" as though they were the first). The homophile movement focused on assimilation, which later activists railed against. They both wanted rights for LGBT a persons but disagreed about how to get there. Arguably, the recent push for same-sex marriage is also a type of assimilation, which is why some lgbt activists from those middle years disagree with it. But they can still be pro-ENDA/anti-discrimination. They can still be against sodomy laws. They can still be legit LGBT activists but oppose gay marriage.
Similarly, people can pro-life and pro-woman. People can also be "pro-life" and anti-woman, but t isn't necessarily so.
The other issue I have with blaming disdain for various aspects of feminism or the feminist label on Rush or Pat Robertson is that it presumes that the only reason any woman would take issue is because she is incapable of independent thought and merely parrots what those two fat, ignorant lumps tell them.
It's patently insulting to have been on this board as long as I have with other women who feel some kind of way about the feminist movement and listen to women who have heard us speak continue to say, yup, that must be the reason.
So yeah, I'm all het but the truth is, I'm feeling pretty shat on right now. I realize I shouldn't be taking this personally but hello, assholes, I'm sitting right here. Plenty of us are sitting right here and we've discussed quite often this exact subject and yet the first few replies are in the yeah, because they're stupid and let old men think for them vein.
So thanks for that. Now if you don't mind me, I'm gonna go debate Taylor ham.
Said everyone who had a dissenting opinion on CEP, ever.
The hostility and disdain for pro-life women by feminist groups is probably the #1 thing that keeps me, a pro-choice woman, from identifying as a feminist. I want no part of that. Do we tell anti-death penalty people, hey, it's ok to be opposed to the DP, but it's law, so just go ahead and be against it, but don't FIGHT to change it. No way. For a pro-life woman, it doesn't have anything to do with pregnancy. In their eyes, it is murder. Asking them to stop fighting to overturn laws that allow murder? Really? Because only women can get pregnant? Sorry. That will never compute for me.
This. And I am 100% pro choice. I have zero belief that conception = life. I have no emotional attachment to a fetus and I do not like any restrictions on abortion.
That being said, I completely understand why someone who DOES believe it is a little baby would fight to the death to protect it like I would to stop a 3 week old from being murdered. Although I do not think mainstream feminists need to agree with that POV, I do not think it automatically makes someone anti-woman for having it. From the pro-choice POV, it is just about the woman's body so they cannot see beyond that. But from the pro-life POV, it is very often (in their minds) not about the woman at all. They aren't being anti-woman, they are being pro-baby. There are of course many anti-woman members as well.
It is all about POV an intent. I do not think being pro-life automatically makes you anti-woman. For some, it is simply that protecting (what they view as ) an innocent baby from murder trumps other things.
Though I have been conflicted on the issue of abortion for just about ever, I will continue to refer to myself as a Feminist until a better label comes along. As clearly evidenced by this thread, there is no 'one size fits all' brand of Feminism and I think that is okay.
The issue that's debated often isn't where life begins. And that's not the part of the equation that brings out the passion in either side (at least not typically). But it is the source of the differing perspectives when we look at those pro-lifers who really mean what they say. If a person truly believes that a human being--a life--is formed at conception, then to terminate that life is akin to murder. And I don't think it's absurd for a person to be against murder. However, if a person is of the perspective that the human being doesn't really become a life/a person until birth, then naturally any position that person takes against abortion is going to be anti-woman.
And the law is complicated, too. Abortion is legal, but the standards of review for laws restricting abortion vary based on what term of pregnancy (viability) the laws affect. So it's muddled as a viability issue.
Basically, while I get both sides and what they're fighting for, I also get that the distinctly different perspectives with regard to the start of life greatly impacts the debate and has nothing to do with women or murder. Before any compromises can be made, the different starting point re the start of life must be acknowledged.
The argument about whether it's a life is an argment that fails to understand that the central purpose of the prolife movement is a legal purpose - to make abortion illegal. When I hear a prolife say anything about a fetus being a life, I immediately know their understanding of the issue lacks depth or an appreciation for its complexity. I do not think that voice is a particularly compelling voice.
The "it's murder" folks are even less compelling. "Abortion is murder" is a tautology, the lowest kind of argument. Because abortion, by definition, is not murder. Murder is illegal. And you can't argue that abortion is murder because it should be murder.
Unfortunately what you find compelling (and what I find compelling) is not what the vast majority of the voting public finds compelling, so we can think that the average pro-life person lacks depth of understanding on this topic - but that doesn't help convince them to vote for somebody else.
Side note: Abortion is murder has always annoyed me. Even if you are on board with life at conception it's just...inaccurate. The most accurate rallying cry that still has an emotional punch that I can come up with is: Abortion is like refusing to donate your kidney/bone marrow/whatever to your dying child!
I actually consider myself one of those "personally pro-life" folks on some level in that I'm morally uncomfortable with abortion in a number of circumstances. NOt all. But several situations I can think of would make me think very badly of somebody. Just like how I'd stare in slackjawed horror at somebody who refused to donate an organ to save their own child in many circumstances. But I don't want that person prosecuted or legally compelled to donate. It's their kidney - they can do what they want with it whether I like it or not.
ETA: rereading my first two lines this sounds snobbish as FUCK. I was going to clarify to soften it but....nah. Emotional arguments tend to win the day with the American voting public on all sides. I don't think that's a crazy statement.
Post by irishbride2 on Sept 25, 2014 8:02:19 GMT -5
again, we are debating different things. I agree with the legal points brought up by those on this board. I do. All I am saying is that for many (not all) who believe that abortion is murder (whatever word you want to use...I still use murder to refer to honor killings that are legal some places) believe what they do because they want to protect what they see as a baby losing its life. They might not be actively protesting or even voting for laws that restrict abotion. But they view themselves as pro life because they think that killing to be illegal and they view it as killing.
I get that many then see this as an attack on women. And in many cases it is. Once again, I am very very pro choice and fight to protect that. But I also understand that for some who are pro life, it is simply an issue of "murder" trumping anything else. It is not, to them, an issue about. I GET that it obviously is about women, because duh. So you don't need to argue to convince me. I'm simply saying that I do not assume that someone who is pro life is automatically anti woman. I do not think that is fair because the world is not so black and white.
The argument about whether it's a life is an argment that fails to understand that the central purpose of the prolife movement is a legal purpose - to make abortion illegal. When I hear a prolife say anything about a fetus being a life, I immediately know their understanding of the issue lacks depth or an appreciation for its complexity. I do not think that voice is a particularly compelling voice.
The "it's murder" folks are even less compelling. "Abortion is murder" is a tautology, the lowest kind of argument. Because abortion, by definition, is not murder. Murder is illegal. And you can't argue that abortion is murder because it should be murder.
Unfortunately what you find compelling (and what I find compelling) is not what the vast majority of the voting public finds compelling, so we can think that the average pro-life person lacks depth of understanding on this topic - but that doesn't help convince them to vote for somebody else.
Side note: Abortion is murder has always annoyed me. Even if you are on board with life at conception it's just...inaccurate. The most accurate rallying cry that still has an emotional punch that I can come up with is: Abortion is like refusing to donate your kidney/bone marrow/whatever to your dying child!
I actually consider myself one of those "personally pro-life" folks on some level in that I'm morally uncomfortable with abortion in a number of circumstances. NOt all. But several situations I can think of would make me think very badly of somebody. Just like how I'd stare in slackjawed horror at somebody who refused to donate an organ to save their own child in many circumstances. But I don't want that person prosecuted or legally compelled to donate. It's their kidney - they can do what they want with it whether I like it or not.
ETA: rereading my first two lines this sounds snobbish as FUCK. I was going to clarify to soften it but....nah. Emotional arguments tend to win the day with the American voting public on all sides. I don't think that's a crazy statement.
Yesterday, NPR had an interview with a Spanish Nun Teresa Forcades, link: www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/09/24/347660274/the-outspoken-spanish-nun-whos-made-herself-a-political-force who is pro-choice and was quoted as follows: "So let's imagine you have a father and the father has a compatible kidney, and you have a child, an innocent child, who needs the kidney. Is the church ready to force the father to give the kidney, to save the child's life?" she says, recounting her reply to the Vatican. "That the right to life of the child takes precedence over the right to self-determination to his own body, of the father? And that was my question I sent to Rome in 2009." Spoiler alert - Rome never replied.
That for me is the crux of why I'm pro-choice and anti-government compelling women to stay pregnant. If I am forced, by law, to use my body to keep something alive that is in my non-lawyer opinion unconstitutional. You cannot force someone to donate a kidney, or give blood, etc even if it means someone else will die without those things. Why should the government be able to force me to use my body to sustain a fetus, and endure all the risks of pregnancy and childbirth?
To the actual point re: feminism, I think the bigger push into opposition for the term lately is due to a combination of cultural forces - for starters, I think young women today don't have a good grasp on how despite how far we've come historically there are still huge inequities in place. Add to that the continued drumbeat from various religious/secular groups that feminists are lesbians/man-haters/etc AND the horrible track record of including minorities you've got problems. Plus, the tendency from far too many self-proclaimed feminists to engage in in-fighting, e.g. mommy wars, you have a splintered group.
Tangentially related, it never ceases to amaze me how many women will say with complete conviction things like "a woman shouldn't be president" or "women don't belong in x job" etc.
My internet has picked today to be completely unusable. I can't even get booted up on my desk top. So I'm out. I have some thoughts on that timeout thread, too, but it's too much to try to type on my phone and I'd be tapping into my minimal dataplan. Sorry. I'll just say that I think I see the abortion debate in sort of geometric terms wawa should like that. But I see theorems and proofs and so there are certain things that simply cannot be part of the equation, or certain things that are sort of nullities, like whether a fetus is a "life." When I see people make pieces of those arguments, what I see is someone who hasn't worked through the whole proof. And that's about all I can say before my thumb cramps up and my typing goes all to shit.
Right. Which is why I'm pro choice.
But again, you are arguing something different than they are. They are arguing on emotion and opinion. Which is why, IMO, it should not be put into law. But that is not the point of the debate in this thread. The debate is not if they are CORRECT or using good logic. The debate is does it automatically make them anti woman.
My internet has picked today to be completely unusable. I can't even get booted up on my desk top. So I'm out. I have some thoughts on that timeout thread, too, but it's too much to try to type on my phone and I'd be tapping into my minimal dataplan. Sorry. I'll just say that I think I see the abortion debate in sort of geometric terms wawa should like that. But I see theorems and proofs and so there are certain things that simply cannot be part of the equation, or certain things that are sort of nullities, like whether a fetus is a "life." When I see people make pieces of those arguments, what I see is someone who hasn't worked through the whole proof. And that's about all I can say before my thumb cramps up and my typing goes all to shit.
Right. Which is why I'm pro choice.
But again, you are arguing something different than they are. They are arguing on emotion and opinion. Which is why, IMO, it should not be put into law. But that is not the point of the debate in this thread. The debate is not if they are CORRECT or using good logic. The debate is does it automatically make them anti woman.Â
No. Not anti woman. The word is feminist. Does being anti choice in the sense that you want to chip away and overturn Roe mean you get to wear the feminist label? The answer is no.
Post by tacosforlife on Sept 25, 2014 9:16:34 GMT -5
OK, I have some questions about the intersection of feminism and women of color. Please know this comes from a place of intellectual curiosity and wanting to learn, so I apologize if anything is worded poorly.
@kirkette said:
I can't pinpoint the extract time frame, but I'm going to go with when it became (by fact or by perception) a movement for middle class and upper middle class white women, at the extent of all other women.
and
Finally, if we are discussing oppression, don't undercut or flip conversations about race and discrimination into a soap box for how hard life is for (white) women.
So, I get the second one. That was highlighted with the dust-up last week when one poster minimized the racial dimension of the struggles of black women by equating them with the struggles of all women. I absolutely understand that is no bueno. I personally make an effort not to do that, if for no other reason than I hate the Oppression Olympics. That someone has it worse than you does not negate your struggles. That you have one level of privilege or luck working for you does not negate your hard work.
But I have a question about the "at the extent of all other women." Are you saying that feminism has hurt women of color and low income women? That is how I read that statement, but I am not sure if I am misunderstanding. If you believe that feminism has hurt women of color and low income women, could you elaborate? My view is that feminist organizations and activists need to be more inlcusive, but I have never seend indications that their efforts are harming women of color and low-income women. I think that all women - white, black, rich, poor - benefit from feminism although some women may benefit more.
meshaliuknits said: I am a feminist in that I believe women are equal in worth, ability and what have you. I have issues with the feminist movement because it leaves out poor women and women of color. But I have those issues with a lot of things.
I have no doubt that it does, and I won't argue otherwise because I'm not super plugged in to feminist activism. From the activists I have paid attention to, it appears to me that younger feminist activists are more aware of these issues. I actually think of the Lilly Ledbetter case. She was white, yes, but I see her case as being a potential rallying point for blue collar women, as it shows that pay discrimination is not just a problem for highly educated white-collar women.
One of the most inspiring speeches I've heard in recent times was by Stacey Abrams, who is black and is the House minority leader in Georgia. She talked a lot about how issues that affect all women often affect minority women in an even greater way.
I guess I'm trying to understand if people think that feminism harms poor and minority women or if they think it's somehow more exclusive of them than society generally.
It became a problem when it became an exclusionary club to other women. Toe the line people!
So I just posted a long post full of questions about this, but I actually think this is different than what summer's OP is asking about.
I don't think women - especially not the white women that @majorwife mentioned - are going around saying, "I'm not a feminist because I don't hate men" because they perceive feminism to be exclusive of black women.
OK, I have some questions about the intersection of feminism and women of color. Please know this comes from a place of intellectual curiosity and wanting to learn, so I apologize if anything is worded poorly.
@kirkette said:
I can't pinpoint the extract time frame, but I'm going to go with when it became (by fact or by perception) a movement for middle class and upper middle class white women, at the extent of all other women.
and
Finally, if we are discussing oppression, don't undercut or flip conversations about race and discrimination into a soap box for how hard life is for (white) women.
So, I get the second one. That was highlighted with the dust-up last week when one poster minimized the racial dimension of the struggles of black women by equating them with the struggles of all women. I absolutely understand that is no bueno. I personally make an effort not to do that, if for no other reason than I hate the Oppression Olympics. That someone has it worse than you does not negate your struggles. That you have one level of privilege or luck working for you does not negate your hard work.
But I have a question about the "at the extent of all other women." Are you saying that feminism has hurt women of color and low income women? That is how I read that statement, but I am not sure if I am misunderstanding. If you believe that feminism has hurt women of color and low income women, could you elaborate? My view is that feminist organizations and activists need to be more inlcusive, but I have never seend indications that their efforts are harming women of color and low-income women. I think that all women - white, black, rich, poor - benefit from feminism although some women may benefit more.
meshaliuknits said: I am a feminist in that I believe women are equal in worth, ability and what have you. I have issues with the feminist movement because it leaves out poor women and women of color. But I have those issues with a lot of things.
I have no doubt that it does, and I won't argue otherwise because I'm not super plugged in to feminist activism. From the activists I have paid attention to, it appears to me that younger feminist activists are more aware of these issues. I actually think of the Lilly Ledbetter case. She was white, yes, but I see her case as being a potential rallying point for blue collar women, as it shows that pay discrimination is not just a problem for highly educated white-collar women.
One of the most inspiring speeches I've heard in recent times was by Stacey Abrams, who is black and is the House minority leader in Georgia. She talked a lot about how issues that affect all women often affect minority women in an even greater way.
I guess I'm trying to understand if people think that feminism harms poor and minority women or if they think it's somehow more exclusive of them than society generally.
I think it goes back to what I said upthread: "And I am Gen Xer so if the third wave was about WOC etc then feminists have failed in communicating that message OR may have come across like Miss Millie in The Color Purple complimenting Sophia on how clean her children were then offering her a chance to be her maid."
I guess I am interested in more concrete examples? I'm not really sure.
Just thinking out loud here, I do wonder how the Ledbetter case could have been better used as a way to pull women of color and lower income women into the folds of feminism. Because pay inequality hits them even worse. (Of course, this brings up the issue of there not being a centralize Feminist Authority and how exactly you use it as a rallying cry without appearing to be pandering.)
I think mentioning people like Taylor Swift and Shailene Woodley are red herrings. None of those girls made it to the Daria stage of the teen years. So it's not even that they don't understand what a feminist is, they were busy daydreaming about acting and singing careers, likely already being shuttled back and forth to auditions and shows and shit just as they would have ordinarily reached the stage of their education that delved into women's history and their historic places.
They don't know what feminism has set out to accomplish, much less what it's still working towards. They are the epitome of white, female privilege x1000. Not only are they uneducated, they have no understanding of how being female has every been a disadvantage or can continue to be. All of their role models are female. They cannot yet see how being female might hold them back someday.
I will be interested to see what will happen as they age in their career, Shailene in particularly if she lasts that long.
But yeah, I'm not taking someone who is mentally and educationally speaking twelve years old and behaving as if they speak for other 22 year olds.
By comparison however, Jennifer Lawrence graduated high school a few years early with a GPA of 3.9, Emma Watson is speaking before the UN and has a degree from Brown. I can't see how much education Emma Stone has benefited from but she without a doubt considers herself a feminist.
I guess I'm trying to understand if people think that feminism harms poor and minority women or if they think it's somehow more exclusive of them than society generally.
I don't know if it harms them but I think the focus on certain issues and the specific outcomes pursued will not benefit poor or minority women in the same way. For example you mentioned lily Ledbetter act, how does that help in a minimum wage work environment?
I guess I'm trying to understand if people think that feminism harms poor and minority women or if they think it's somehow more exclusive of them than society generally.
I don't know if it harms them but I think the focus on certain issues and the specific outcomes pursued will not benefit poor or minority women in the same way. For example you mentioned lily Ledbetter act, how does that help in a minimum wage work environment?
I am not sure what you mean by the minimum wage work "environment." I think women who work minimum wage jobs are better off if they are able to sue for pay discrimination than if they are not. The Ledbetter SCOTUS case changed a long-held interpretation of the law and made it harder to sue for employment discrimination. I certainly don't think that minimum wage workers were better off with the John Roberts interpretation of the law that made it harder for them to enforce their rights. The Ledbetter Act restored the long-held understanding of the law that makes it possible to sue for pay discrimination.
No, it doesn't fix the issue of minimum wage not being a living wage. I guess I am wondering if there was a preferred alternative to the Ledbetter Act that would be more inclusive. The purpose of the Act was to undo fuckery done by the Roberts Court, and it did that.
before emma watson and jlaw and emma stone, we had ashly judd. you cant tell me she was winning anyone over with any of her arguments.
i mentioned those girls, white privilege and all, b/c it reflects what we are seeing in pop culture and how that lends itself to things like this why-we-dont-need-feminism.tumblr.com/
Well Ashley Judd is a nutter lol But she's not the only actress who spoke out for feminism in that era. Susan Sarandon is a bit older but of a similar era. Her voice holds weight.
I really have no words for those girls on that tumblr but I do think that Sou's comments about third wave feminism not really accomplishing their intended goals holds weight for more than just women of color.
Is it really a couple conservative radio hosts' fault that 20 year old women don't know what feminism is? Because at this point, I'm wondering if a decline in quality education combined with media and culture having a vested interest in diminishing the accomplishments and need for equality for women aren't more to blame.
Because when I read those tumblr statements, I see immature girls who don't understand the basic concepts. They are arguing against well, shit, I'm not even sure.
To me, it's similar to white folks not understanding institutional racism and how it's effects are still being fought, still being felt today. Is that because a couple of people talk smack about Al Sharpton or is it a larger picture with far more threads that cannot be so easily blamed here, there or the other?
I think cookiemdough's premise is that as a whole, feminist movement focuses on the types of cases, the types of law, the types of change that helps white upper to middle class women with the idea of well, the poor and women of color will benefit a little so it's the same thing.
From where many of us are sitting, there's not a lot of work done by feminist organizations that specifically takes up the causes of WOC or the low income. Those are left to groups like the NAACP and the Dems. I'm not necessarily certain though that feminist groups don't care or if they merely feel like those causes are already being taken care of so they don't need to champion them.