Pragmatic Feminism for Fishies
When I was in undergrad, I took a course called "Feminism & Culture". Basically, it was a survey of feminist issues through literature, taught by a professor I adored, so I was able to handle sitting through a class where a lot of things I love were picked apart and torn to shreds. (Particularly, Shakespeare and Plato--I'm a classicist, really).
Now, in this class we were given as a final project an open-ended assignment, to present a report on any feminist issue in culture that we wanted too. And we went around the room, saying what we were thinking of doing. And this one girl, she said she was doing a report on Conservative feminists.
Everybody. Laughed.
The day she came in, I noticed she was wearing a long skirt, a cardigan and pearls. She'd never struck me as being a conservative, or looking like a young Republican before, but going to the liberal arts college I did, dressing in anything less than what you would wear to a Phish concert was seen as odd. And she proceeded to do her report on the misinterpretation of conservatives in feminism, how conservatives *were* the first feminists--the prohibitionists in particular. She went on to talk about how women can be conservatives and protect family values and still call themselves feminists.
Everybody responded rather harshly. We tried to tear her arguments apart, citing things like how she could say that conservative women could be pro-life and feminists? How could conservative women support a presidential candidate so steeped in religion and misogyny that he threatened our freedoms? How could conservatives who were anti-gay stand up for the rights of queer and transgendered people? How could feminists ever be against the separation of church and state?
It wasn't until today, when I was out walking, letting all these swirling whirling thoughts about misogyny and my feelings on it, that it all kind of clicked for me.
(My epiphany, let me show you it)
Feminism is about the freedom to choose. Feminism is about the idea, the opportunity being there, not having the opportunity or the idea thrust upon you.
If in society a woman wants to be a housewife? She has every right to choose that career. Feminism means she still has a choice, it means that should she choose later to stop being a stay-at-home-mom? That her domestic partner and family and community will support her decision to go to school, or get a job, or both. Feminism means the opportunity for me is there, and whether I choose it or not, is nobody's business. I might be pro-choice, but that doesn't mean I have to choose to have an abortion.
Just as much as you're allowed to get upset at misogynistic terms like "whore" and "slut", I still have every right not to be offended. And it doesn't make me stupid, it just means I think differently. It means I don't take a sexist vernacular as something upsetting.
You know what upsets me? Earning 70 cents to the dollar, the term "pink-collar jobs", the fact that the media airbrushes women into toothpicks and drives us to make ourselves sick, the fact that bras don't close in the front. (As my mother says: women's clothing has been designed by the descendants of the Marquis de Sade) The fact that women can't breastfeed in public, or go topless if they wanted to. The fact that we're the majority and the minority all at once. The fact that in other countries, the choice is made for women. Female circumcision. Women that are stoned to death for the crime of being raped by another man while married.
These are things that bother me. Not someone calling a woman a slut or a skank or a whore.
But you're allowed to disagree and tell me why I'm secretly the second coming of Otto Weininger.
ETA: Okay, unlocking this because I'm being silly, you're allowed to know what I think and that I talk too much...
Now, in this class we were given as a final project an open-ended assignment, to present a report on any feminist issue in culture that we wanted too. And we went around the room, saying what we were thinking of doing. And this one girl, she said she was doing a report on Conservative feminists.
Everybody. Laughed.
The day she came in, I noticed she was wearing a long skirt, a cardigan and pearls. She'd never struck me as being a conservative, or looking like a young Republican before, but going to the liberal arts college I did, dressing in anything less than what you would wear to a Phish concert was seen as odd. And she proceeded to do her report on the misinterpretation of conservatives in feminism, how conservatives *were* the first feminists--the prohibitionists in particular. She went on to talk about how women can be conservatives and protect family values and still call themselves feminists.
Everybody responded rather harshly. We tried to tear her arguments apart, citing things like how she could say that conservative women could be pro-life and feminists? How could conservative women support a presidential candidate so steeped in religion and misogyny that he threatened our freedoms? How could conservatives who were anti-gay stand up for the rights of queer and transgendered people? How could feminists ever be against the separation of church and state?
It wasn't until today, when I was out walking, letting all these swirling whirling thoughts about misogyny and my feelings on it, that it all kind of clicked for me.
(My epiphany, let me show you it)
Feminism is about the freedom to choose. Feminism is about the idea, the opportunity being there, not having the opportunity or the idea thrust upon you.
If in society a woman wants to be a housewife? She has every right to choose that career. Feminism means she still has a choice, it means that should she choose later to stop being a stay-at-home-mom? That her domestic partner and family and community will support her decision to go to school, or get a job, or both. Feminism means the opportunity for me is there, and whether I choose it or not, is nobody's business. I might be pro-choice, but that doesn't mean I have to choose to have an abortion.
Just as much as you're allowed to get upset at misogynistic terms like "whore" and "slut", I still have every right not to be offended. And it doesn't make me stupid, it just means I think differently. It means I don't take a sexist vernacular as something upsetting.
You know what upsets me? Earning 70 cents to the dollar, the term "pink-collar jobs", the fact that the media airbrushes women into toothpicks and drives us to make ourselves sick, the fact that bras don't close in the front. (As my mother says: women's clothing has been designed by the descendants of the Marquis de Sade) The fact that women can't breastfeed in public, or go topless if they wanted to. The fact that we're the majority and the minority all at once. The fact that in other countries, the choice is made for women. Female circumcision. Women that are stoned to death for the crime of being raped by another man while married.
These are things that bother me. Not someone calling a woman a slut or a skank or a whore.
But you're allowed to disagree and tell me why I'm secretly the second coming of Otto Weininger.
ETA: Okay, unlocking this because I'm being silly, you're allowed to know what I think and that I talk too much...