Fem Theory Thursday
Hey all. Long time since I posted one of these.
So, anyway, I started this really long post, on too many topics, and wrote for a really long time, and realized I was getting tired, it wasn't going anywhere, my child needed attending to (he's ill), and I was GETTING READY TO WRAP IT UP for the night. So I looked at what I was writing and realized I was trying to write one post out of like six topics, which is kind of stupid. And it made no sense. So I scrapped it!!!
So instead, I thought I would do sort of a future fem theory thursday set up post as a jumping off point. Feel free to comment on the topics with some yays or nays. Some of them might be really boring, some of them really short, and a lot of them might seem a bit fem theory/ gender studies 101. Sometimes people ask me questions (here and in RL). Sometimes I see things in blogs and comments for other blogs that demonstrate (to me, anyway), that people either misconstrue or misunderstand or use a shorthand that makes it look like they're misconstruing or misunderstanding. Sometimes I see things I think have been VASTLY oversimplified and I love NOTHING more than to complicate a narrative, turn it inside out, and "Yeah, but..." it to death.
As is typical, any and all posts will be more unorganized rant than nicey-nice blog post. I'd like to start doing Fem Theory Thursday here more regularly. I keep avoiding it because I keep thinking I need to come up with something organized and well thought out. Well, fuck that.* From now on, just get myself thinking back in the analytical mode again, I'm just going to post whatever I'm thinking about. I may or may not finish the thought. I may or may not go back to a previous topic and expand. I don't know. I'm just typing.
Feminist Theory and Feminist Practice. I want to do a post distinguishing these. I mean, I'm just a feminist, right? Doesn't that explain it all? Well, no. Academically, I *do* theory: feminist legal theory, feminist lit theory, feminist social theory...blah blah blah.. feminist economic theory. Theory attempts to explain, analyze, correct, complicate, take apart, dissect, examine, and then explain again. Feminist practice, for me, is not only about me and my (hopefully mostly and frequently) feminist acts, but also the movement's personal, political and community activist feminist practices that can make right now better for women who are suffering. Many times, theory can inform practice. Sometimes, theory can/should take (could/should have taken) a backseat to practice, because women are suffering, you know, now. Their lives can be made better now. Sometimes, theory should not take (or have taken) a backseat to practice, because sometimes you get to the end of the good a particular theory can do, or the practice starts to undercut the theory in a way that hurts more women in the future. This is a particularly rich area of debate in feminist legal theory, where the idea of equality was used to make so many strides in feminist legal practice, but in so many ways has failed to get at a lot of the gender oppression that causes women to suffer. Radical, liberal, and gender essentialist feminist theory butt heads, scramble each others' arguments and what's the right answer? Win a case with a theory that you can win with now, and help a lot of women now, or be true to the theory and wait until you really can win it and help (more?) women on a more stable or defensible ground?
Feminist Theor(ies). If you just travel around the feminist blogs, and read the comments, you might think feminism is either "radical" (meaning militant and sex-negative) or "choice"/"sex positive", and those extremes are diametrically opposed (stripper) poles. To which I say: wev. Feminist theory (as in the academic, "I do theory"-sort of theory) comes in a variety of flavors...and radical does not mean "militant" in feminist theory. There are radical feminists, and postmodern feminists, and gender essentialists, and liberal/equality feminists, and more, and they all overlap and intertwine and they don't agree with each other, intra-theory or inter-theory. And depending on your field, there are subtle distinctions too.
My Feminist Theor(ies). I self-identify as a radical feminist with post-modern tendencies. "Radical feminism" is, to be awfully reductionist for a moment, a feminist theory that holds that patriarchal oppression is centered on and around a fear of and a desire for power and control over female sexuality. The postmodern tendencies come in because of my inability to believe in a "one theory fits all" anything, really, because of my "complicate everything" bug, because I believe in the power of language and action to genderfuck and classfuck and change perceptions, because I see all of the overlapping and spiraling venn diagrams of influence and perception, because I like to unravel them and re-ravel them and see what ya get; because I believe that you could say one thing and I could hear a completely different thing, and you could say the same thing the next minute and I could hear something else entirely, and who the hell knows what you meant? Maybe not even you.** I'm sex positive about positive sex, and I also don't necessarily define "positive sex" the way you might think. I'm a First Amendment purist. I am absolutely NOT a gender essentialist but I do speak in a different voice (and I hated that book). Maybe some of you would be interested in knowing the why's behind some of that?
Basic Definitions. Dude, I know I already did a bit of this, but really: "the patriarchy" does not equal "misogyny" does not equal "sexist". "patriarchy" is not created because individual men, or groups of men, act sexist.
Rape and Intimate Violence Against Women. I have a lot to say. I won't say any of it here. Despite all of the academic work I did in this field while I was younger, lately all of my triggers get all triggered. I used to have thicker walls, I think. I used to say "Oh, I'm fine," a lot, and studied it, and learned about it, thinking I was in control. Whooo-hoooo control. Not. But maybe I'll post some things I've already written here, too, if they don't seem to be sending me off of the deep end.
The Diet Industry and Plastic Surgery. And I swear to god, when I write these fucking posts they will not turn to a conversation about how those aren't feminist issues because guys diet and get plastic surgery too. They will fucking not. Guys have children too, and yet somehow childcare is a feminist issue. Christ, save me from guilty and defensive liberal white men who are afraid that acknowledging their privilege implicates them. Really.
My Feminist Reading List. How fun! A feminist book club; all of the classics, fiction and non-fiction, read critically. Because the thing is, you can get something out of a book and not then have to agree with all of it or find it unproblematic. Also, some new things! Ms. MacKinnon has some things out I've not yet read. I haven't really been keeping up since I left law school. I might post about articles, too.
Some of those topics would be more than one post, obviously. Let me know what you think, what you're most interested in hearing me rant about (remember, no papers here, unless I crib from things I'm working on or have worked on; all ranting and disorganized rambling postmodern thoughts, albeit sometimes with punctuation). Or, if you have particular things you'd like to discuss on a fem theory Thursday, let me know and I'll add it to my list! I think the problem lately is that I try to write the fem theory thursday post on thursday. From now on I'm going to try to write it on Monday and Tuesday nights, and just POST it on Thursday. On Thursday I'll write some silly thing for Saturday, about antitrust law or economics or my diet or sex life, or something.
*If I had time for organized writing, I'd write law review articles and books and get a cushy job as a law professor somewhere, with an eclectic mix of classes to teach that would include First Amendment, all manner of fem theory courses, lit and law, and (drum-roll)...federal antitrust law (?!?). My first year course of choice would be property, but I could probably do a fun number indoctrinating and corrupting my students with contracts, too.
**Catharine MacKinnon once said that everything in postmodern feminist theory that is feminist is radical, and the rest of it was useless, or some such. I'll find the exact quote somewhere later. I count Ms. MacKinnon as one of my most important influences academically. I had her for Sex Equality in law school. I've read her books. On that count, though, I think she's just, erm, wrong.
So, anyway, I started this really long post, on too many topics, and wrote for a really long time, and realized I was getting tired, it wasn't going anywhere, my child needed attending to (he's ill), and I was GETTING READY TO WRAP IT UP for the night. So I looked at what I was writing and realized I was trying to write one post out of like six topics, which is kind of stupid. And it made no sense. So I scrapped it!!!
So instead, I thought I would do sort of a future fem theory thursday set up post as a jumping off point. Feel free to comment on the topics with some yays or nays. Some of them might be really boring, some of them really short, and a lot of them might seem a bit fem theory/ gender studies 101. Sometimes people ask me questions (here and in RL). Sometimes I see things in blogs and comments for other blogs that demonstrate (to me, anyway), that people either misconstrue or misunderstand or use a shorthand that makes it look like they're misconstruing or misunderstanding. Sometimes I see things I think have been VASTLY oversimplified and I love NOTHING more than to complicate a narrative, turn it inside out, and "Yeah, but..." it to death.
As is typical, any and all posts will be more unorganized rant than nicey-nice blog post. I'd like to start doing Fem Theory Thursday here more regularly. I keep avoiding it because I keep thinking I need to come up with something organized and well thought out. Well, fuck that.* From now on, just get myself thinking back in the analytical mode again, I'm just going to post whatever I'm thinking about. I may or may not finish the thought. I may or may not go back to a previous topic and expand. I don't know. I'm just typing.
Feminist Theory and Feminist Practice. I want to do a post distinguishing these. I mean, I'm just a feminist, right? Doesn't that explain it all? Well, no. Academically, I *do* theory: feminist legal theory, feminist lit theory, feminist social theory...blah blah blah.. feminist economic theory. Theory attempts to explain, analyze, correct, complicate, take apart, dissect, examine, and then explain again. Feminist practice, for me, is not only about me and my (hopefully mostly and frequently) feminist acts, but also the movement's personal, political and community activist feminist practices that can make right now better for women who are suffering. Many times, theory can inform practice. Sometimes, theory can/should take (could/should have taken) a backseat to practice, because women are suffering, you know, now. Their lives can be made better now. Sometimes, theory should not take (or have taken) a backseat to practice, because sometimes you get to the end of the good a particular theory can do, or the practice starts to undercut the theory in a way that hurts more women in the future. This is a particularly rich area of debate in feminist legal theory, where the idea of equality was used to make so many strides in feminist legal practice, but in so many ways has failed to get at a lot of the gender oppression that causes women to suffer. Radical, liberal, and gender essentialist feminist theory butt heads, scramble each others' arguments and what's the right answer? Win a case with a theory that you can win with now, and help a lot of women now, or be true to the theory and wait until you really can win it and help (more?) women on a more stable or defensible ground?
Feminist Theor(ies). If you just travel around the feminist blogs, and read the comments, you might think feminism is either "radical" (meaning militant and sex-negative) or "choice"/"sex positive", and those extremes are diametrically opposed (stripper) poles. To which I say: wev. Feminist theory (as in the academic, "I do theory"-sort of theory) comes in a variety of flavors...and radical does not mean "militant" in feminist theory. There are radical feminists, and postmodern feminists, and gender essentialists, and liberal/equality feminists, and more, and they all overlap and intertwine and they don't agree with each other, intra-theory or inter-theory. And depending on your field, there are subtle distinctions too.
My Feminist Theor(ies). I self-identify as a radical feminist with post-modern tendencies. "Radical feminism" is, to be awfully reductionist for a moment, a feminist theory that holds that patriarchal oppression is centered on and around a fear of and a desire for power and control over female sexuality. The postmodern tendencies come in because of my inability to believe in a "one theory fits all" anything, really, because of my "complicate everything" bug, because I believe in the power of language and action to genderfuck and classfuck and change perceptions, because I see all of the overlapping and spiraling venn diagrams of influence and perception, because I like to unravel them and re-ravel them and see what ya get; because I believe that you could say one thing and I could hear a completely different thing, and you could say the same thing the next minute and I could hear something else entirely, and who the hell knows what you meant? Maybe not even you.** I'm sex positive about positive sex, and I also don't necessarily define "positive sex" the way you might think. I'm a First Amendment purist. I am absolutely NOT a gender essentialist but I do speak in a different voice (and I hated that book). Maybe some of you would be interested in knowing the why's behind some of that?
Basic Definitions. Dude, I know I already did a bit of this, but really: "the patriarchy" does not equal "misogyny" does not equal "sexist". "patriarchy" is not created because individual men, or groups of men, act sexist.
Rape and Intimate Violence Against Women. I have a lot to say. I won't say any of it here. Despite all of the academic work I did in this field while I was younger, lately all of my triggers get all triggered. I used to have thicker walls, I think. I used to say "Oh, I'm fine," a lot, and studied it, and learned about it, thinking I was in control. Whooo-hoooo control. Not. But maybe I'll post some things I've already written here, too, if they don't seem to be sending me off of the deep end.
The Diet Industry and Plastic Surgery. And I swear to god, when I write these fucking posts they will not turn to a conversation about how those aren't feminist issues because guys diet and get plastic surgery too. They will fucking not. Guys have children too, and yet somehow childcare is a feminist issue. Christ, save me from guilty and defensive liberal white men who are afraid that acknowledging their privilege implicates them. Really.
My Feminist Reading List. How fun! A feminist book club; all of the classics, fiction and non-fiction, read critically. Because the thing is, you can get something out of a book and not then have to agree with all of it or find it unproblematic. Also, some new things! Ms. MacKinnon has some things out I've not yet read. I haven't really been keeping up since I left law school. I might post about articles, too.
Some of those topics would be more than one post, obviously. Let me know what you think, what you're most interested in hearing me rant about (remember, no papers here, unless I crib from things I'm working on or have worked on; all ranting and disorganized rambling postmodern thoughts, albeit sometimes with punctuation). Or, if you have particular things you'd like to discuss on a fem theory Thursday, let me know and I'll add it to my list! I think the problem lately is that I try to write the fem theory thursday post on thursday. From now on I'm going to try to write it on Monday and Tuesday nights, and just POST it on Thursday. On Thursday I'll write some silly thing for Saturday, about antitrust law or economics or my diet or sex life, or something.
*If I had time for organized writing, I'd write law review articles and books and get a cushy job as a law professor somewhere, with an eclectic mix of classes to teach that would include First Amendment, all manner of fem theory courses, lit and law, and (drum-roll)...federal antitrust law (?!?). My first year course of choice would be property, but I could probably do a fun number indoctrinating and corrupting my students with contracts, too.
**Catharine MacKinnon once said that everything in postmodern feminist theory that is feminist is radical, and the rest of it was useless, or some such. I'll find the exact quote somewhere later. I count Ms. MacKinnon as one of my most important influences academically. I had her for Sex Equality in law school. I've read her books. On that count, though, I think she's just, erm, wrong.