Because I am a self-obssessed navel gazer: Another Meme!

[lefaym]

Exactly the same as the last one!

But with different questions.

So, er, not exactly the same, actually.

Anyway:

1. Leave me a comment saying you want to do the meme

Comments

[lefaym]

My favourite Turtle was Raphael. Mostly because red is my favourite colour. :)

Yes, I have read The Beauty Myth, and I really enjoyed it, although I'm less certain about a lot of Wolf's later work (which I haven't read, but I've read about it). I also saw Wolf speak at a Writers' Festival event in Sydney a few years ago, and I wasn't very impressed. I felt like her feminism, as she presented it in that speech, was only relevant to white middle class women, and it didn't really acknowledge that women don't operate as a monolithic group (ie, she seemed to not recognise that conservative women exist), and she lectured Australian women on what our political strategies should be in a way that made if VERY clear that she had no idea how our electoral system works. None of which takes away from the awesomeness of The Beauty Myth, but it was a little disappointing.

I think that radical feminist positions tend more along the lines of male sexuality is socially constructed in such a way that it tends to be all about subjugating a woman in some way, so that for heterosexual men, thinking, "Wow, she's sexy," can't be divorced (at least not without a huge effort to overcome social programming) from, "She's worth less than me/she's less than human." And conversely, for women, we are taught to see ourselves as less than human when/if we experience heterosexual desire. Of course, it's impossible to summarise all radical feminist positions, but I think something like this is often at the core of them, and I actually do think that there is a lot of merit to the argument that boys/men are taught (especially through a lot of mainstream porn, but also through religion, and hell, a lot of popular TV) to see sex as a means of subjugating women, although I think this can be unlearned. And what you say in terms of acknowledging that male and female sexualities aren't intrinsically different (although I'd argue that they are socialised VERY differently) is quite important here-- because I do think it's a normal part of human behaviour to create texts about sex, just in the same way that we create them about every other part of our lives. And, as women, we need some sort of medium to do that in where we can push against those socio-cultral ideas about sex that are so harmful to us.

Anyway, I suspect I shall be able to continue this when I read your thoughts on slash, etc. :)

Lastly, the bear would still win. Bears always win. (I like bears.)