Foggy feminism
Interesting article by Germaine Greer in this "bimonth's" (season's, Orlanthi-style?) Village magazine. It was part of (indeed, the lead article in) their special section "Sex Equality in 2010". As with most of her writing I found it pretty incisive, though I experienced a mixture of amusement and frustration with one aspect. She starts off with a broadside against the very idea of "defining" feminism, and opines that too much times and energy is spent on attacking views and people on the basis of their being "no feminist". She closes, however, criticising Harriet Harman, in her role as Minister for Women and Equality ("like being minister for sameness and difference, or chalk and cheese") for, well, not saying and doing what feminism entails. That's rather the trouble with dodging definitions, crying "Wittgenstein!", and waving one's hands.
I think the piece was called "Feminism Rules", if anyone's able to turn up a copy on the net in due course. I thought about buying a copy of the magazine, but I hesitate to cross-subsidise John Water talking bollocks (and does he ever talk anything else?), so just intellectually shoplifted some of the contents.
I had a similar reaction to a comment elsewhere, to the effect that "feminism means 'gender justice', whether or not we agree on what that is, or how it's supposed to be achieved". That's a big help, then.
This 'thaw' is getting more and more erratic. Annoyingly, while the rain was sufficient to get rid of the ice and snow, it wasn't enough to unfreeze Brian's water supply, leaving him to struggle to top up his central heating tank by hand, but was plenty to flood the N22, so no Roman, either. There went the quorum for HeroQuest. It's been very foggy today, and on my way home from Wednesday-night roleplaying (currently Diaspora, first 'actual' session this week) is was positively pea-soupish. I kept up my record of "never the same route twice" to and from SW&MC's place by dint of actual navigational error, this time. (Though it ended up being six and half-a-dozen, really.) That it's forecast to be "sunny" on Thursday and "borderline balmy" on Friday boggles the brain, but at this point you'd put nothing much past this bleedin' weather.
I think the piece was called "Feminism Rules", if anyone's able to turn up a copy on the net in due course. I thought about buying a copy of the magazine, but I hesitate to cross-subsidise John Water talking bollocks (and does he ever talk anything else?), so just intellectually shoplifted some of the contents.
I had a similar reaction to a comment elsewhere, to the effect that "feminism means 'gender justice', whether or not we agree on what that is, or how it's supposed to be achieved". That's a big help, then.
This 'thaw' is getting more and more erratic. Annoyingly, while the rain was sufficient to get rid of the ice and snow, it wasn't enough to unfreeze Brian's water supply, leaving him to struggle to top up his central heating tank by hand, but was plenty to flood the N22, so no Roman, either. There went the quorum for HeroQuest. It's been very foggy today, and on my way home from Wednesday-night roleplaying (currently Diaspora, first 'actual' session this week) is was positively pea-soupish. I kept up my record of "never the same route twice" to and from SW&MC's place by dint of actual navigational error, this time. (Though it ended up being six and half-a-dozen, really.) That it's forecast to be "sunny" on Thursday and "borderline balmy" on Friday boggles the brain, but at this point you'd put nothing much past this bleedin' weather.