What women "should" do
Dear condescending, patronizing mansplainers all over the "progressive" internet who declaim regularly about what women "need to" do in order to "earn" our human rights:
Fuck you.
First of all, women are fighting for our rights. How much fucking attention do you pay to feminist activism? Yeah, I thought so.
Ever hear of "Slutwalk"? I mean, for starters? Or did you just decide that was a frivolous "First World problems" thing and write it off? Chances are you did, because you don't know dick about feminist concepts like "rape culture" and its underlying assumption that women are objects, not people, which is the basic assumption behind all the attacks on our rights.
I am amazed and gratified by what I think deserves to be called a fourth wave of feminism. Millennial women and teenage girls are doing a lot more than just complaining on the internet - which in and of itself may not be activism, but which has been amazingly useful in opening eyes and organizing protests and other events in physical space. Not only are they involved in Occupy but they're pushing back against the "manarchists" who think that attention to anything except economic justice is "divisive." They're fully involved in the reproductive-rights fight, despite most of the attention still going to baby boomer women.
All women of those generations? No, but neither were all women of the baby boomer generation, either.
Second, why aren't the majority of men out in the streets protesting against their disappearing rights? Not to say that those rights aren't women's, as well, but they affect men, too. Economic injustice? Police brutality? Indefinite detention? Environmental catastrophe? Those are all pretty damned urgent issues.
Why are women held to a higher standard of activism than men are? Especially since we're socialized to put everyone else's rights and comfort and well-being before our own? Even some "feminists" want us to do so:As feminists begin to attack racism and classism and homophobia, feminism will change from being only women as women to being about all kinds of oppressions based on seemingly inherent and unalterable characteristics. We need not wait for a unified theory of oppression; that theory can be feminism.
Hey, I'm all for white middle-class feminists waking the fuck up and realizing they're not the only women out there, but I sure as fuck don't see other social-justice movements being told that their very raison d'être is too narrow.
Third, and most importantly, given that women's rights are part of human rights, what the fuck are YOU doing to support them? Why don't YOU stand up for our rights, too, with money, with words, with your physical bodies? Because those of you who whine about how "complacent" women are? I don't even see you standing up to blatant misogynists online, and when you get called on your dude privilege, you whiiiiiiiiiiiiine about it.
I'm not "eating my own." You aren't on "my side." With allies like you, I don't need enemies. In fact, I prefer outright enmity, because it doesn't lull me into a false sense of trust.
Oh, and your counterparts? Teh menz who tell us not to worry our pretty little heads, because things have been getting better and better for women all the time - why, "we" even let the wimminfolk vote! How progressive! -? They can fuck right off, too.
Unlocked.
This entry was originally posted at http://ms-daisy-cutter.dreamwidth.org/1837896.html. Please comment there using either your DW account or OpenID.
Fuck you.
First of all, women are fighting for our rights. How much fucking attention do you pay to feminist activism? Yeah, I thought so.
Ever hear of "Slutwalk"? I mean, for starters? Or did you just decide that was a frivolous "First World problems" thing and write it off? Chances are you did, because you don't know dick about feminist concepts like "rape culture" and its underlying assumption that women are objects, not people, which is the basic assumption behind all the attacks on our rights.
I am amazed and gratified by what I think deserves to be called a fourth wave of feminism. Millennial women and teenage girls are doing a lot more than just complaining on the internet - which in and of itself may not be activism, but which has been amazingly useful in opening eyes and organizing protests and other events in physical space. Not only are they involved in Occupy but they're pushing back against the "manarchists" who think that attention to anything except economic justice is "divisive." They're fully involved in the reproductive-rights fight, despite most of the attention still going to baby boomer women.
All women of those generations? No, but neither were all women of the baby boomer generation, either.
Second, why aren't the majority of men out in the streets protesting against their disappearing rights? Not to say that those rights aren't women's, as well, but they affect men, too. Economic injustice? Police brutality? Indefinite detention? Environmental catastrophe? Those are all pretty damned urgent issues.
Why are women held to a higher standard of activism than men are? Especially since we're socialized to put everyone else's rights and comfort and well-being before our own? Even some "feminists" want us to do so:As feminists begin to attack racism and classism and homophobia, feminism will change from being only women as women to being about all kinds of oppressions based on seemingly inherent and unalterable characteristics. We need not wait for a unified theory of oppression; that theory can be feminism.
Hey, I'm all for white middle-class feminists waking the fuck up and realizing they're not the only women out there, but I sure as fuck don't see other social-justice movements being told that their very raison d'être is too narrow.
Third, and most importantly, given that women's rights are part of human rights, what the fuck are YOU doing to support them? Why don't YOU stand up for our rights, too, with money, with words, with your physical bodies? Because those of you who whine about how "complacent" women are? I don't even see you standing up to blatant misogynists online, and when you get called on your dude privilege, you whiiiiiiiiiiiiine about it.
I'm not "eating my own." You aren't on "my side." With allies like you, I don't need enemies. In fact, I prefer outright enmity, because it doesn't lull me into a false sense of trust.
Oh, and your counterparts? Teh menz who tell us not to worry our pretty little heads, because things have been getting better and better for women all the time - why, "we" even let the wimminfolk vote! How progressive! -? They can fuck right off, too.
Unlocked.
This entry was originally posted at http://ms-daisy-cutter.dreamwidth.org/1837896.html. Please comment there using either your DW account or OpenID.