My Anti-feminist Rant
Feminists annoy me. I'm female. I enjoy my rights, so maybe it makes no sense, but they do annoy me. My best guess is the negativity. Some of the most highly-skilled writers on Livejournal are feminists, so I tend to browse around their journals, and I stumble across some of their political diatribes. Every once in a while, I manage to ignore them and go on, but some of the time it's like looking at a car wreck: you just can't look away. These tend to be written by eloquent women who have a way with words and grammar with the potential to write beautiful things, and heck, maybe it would be beautiful...but the NEGATIVITY! They sound so angry at the world and specifically angry at some random white middle-class male (who, by the way, gets completely screwed over when it comes to matters of college financial aid) and instead of coming across as righteously indignant, they just sound sadly jealous to me. Women do sometimes get the short end of the stick when compared to men, but c'est life! The white male individual does not deserve to be ranted at for the history and financial well-doing of his ilk.
I admit that I may simply be speaking from inexperience. As far as I can tell, I have never been treated unfairly because of my gender unless it was to my advantage. She's female, so she can't be drafted; she's a girl, so I'm not gonna hit her, etc. I'm aware of the fact that there are a very limited number of females working at the top-end of the U.S. government, and of course, that we've never had a woman for president. I think, however, that it's only a matter of time before this comes about. It shouldn't just be about having women in power, it should be about having the right women in power. If that later option takes longer to come about, I'm perfectly willing to wait for it.
I guess I feel that angry!feminism should stay in the past when women had virtually no political power and needed that wrathful surge to claim their rights. I think that today, women have those rights and feminism should be more about enjoying them and exercising them and using them to rise to the top, individual by individual. Shouldn't that be a possitive thing, then?
Now here comes the part where I turn around and act completely hypocritical. One of the things that annoys me most about the LJ feminists is that they are devoting so much time and web-space to politics of all things. Discussion of politics, as a general rule, drives me nuts. I do it from time to time, but it gets me frustrated very quickly, and it never changes anything. It reminds me of a story: Two men, one conservative and one liberal, were promoting the virtues of the candidates they voted for and found themselves in a fight. They eventually came to blows and put each other in the hospital. In the end, their fight was pointless because the lumps they took for their respective candidates were lumps that said candidates would never have taken for them. They were little people. The politicians were part of the "bigger" picture, and couldn't have cared less.
Then again...perhaps typing this has helped me sympathize a little with the people I'm ranting against. Sometimes the world gets annoying and you just need to get it off your chest. I'm probably inviting major critisism and gidget-bashing by actually posting this, but it feels stupid to bother typing it up and not post it.
One piece of credit I have to give to the Lj feminists, they actually spurred to write a political post. That's no small accomplishment.
I admit that I may simply be speaking from inexperience. As far as I can tell, I have never been treated unfairly because of my gender unless it was to my advantage. She's female, so she can't be drafted; she's a girl, so I'm not gonna hit her, etc. I'm aware of the fact that there are a very limited number of females working at the top-end of the U.S. government, and of course, that we've never had a woman for president. I think, however, that it's only a matter of time before this comes about. It shouldn't just be about having women in power, it should be about having the right women in power. If that later option takes longer to come about, I'm perfectly willing to wait for it.
I guess I feel that angry!feminism should stay in the past when women had virtually no political power and needed that wrathful surge to claim their rights. I think that today, women have those rights and feminism should be more about enjoying them and exercising them and using them to rise to the top, individual by individual. Shouldn't that be a possitive thing, then?
Now here comes the part where I turn around and act completely hypocritical. One of the things that annoys me most about the LJ feminists is that they are devoting so much time and web-space to politics of all things. Discussion of politics, as a general rule, drives me nuts. I do it from time to time, but it gets me frustrated very quickly, and it never changes anything. It reminds me of a story: Two men, one conservative and one liberal, were promoting the virtues of the candidates they voted for and found themselves in a fight. They eventually came to blows and put each other in the hospital. In the end, their fight was pointless because the lumps they took for their respective candidates were lumps that said candidates would never have taken for them. They were little people. The politicians were part of the "bigger" picture, and couldn't have cared less.
Then again...perhaps typing this has helped me sympathize a little with the people I'm ranting against. Sometimes the world gets annoying and you just need to get it off your chest. I'm probably inviting major critisism and gidget-bashing by actually posting this, but it feels stupid to bother typing it up and not post it.
One piece of credit I have to give to the Lj feminists, they actually spurred to write a political post. That's no small accomplishment.