Feminist ideals and feminist lives
Courtney over at Feministing writes:
"I'm always interested in the ways in which feminists and other activists (myself included) struggle to make the leap between our ideas and our daily lives. [...] It's one thing to realize that you are performing your gender when you shave your pits and that you don't want to do it anymore; it's another to cease to do it despite what your aunt might say when she catches sight of those black sprigs of hair. "
This is something I've been thinking about on a daily basis for the past couple of months. How much of a feminist life do I really lead? What are the things I do that fall into traditional gender roles, and what are my motives for doing them? Do I clean the bathroom because I genuinely want a clean bathroom, or because I'm ashamed to have a dirty one and be judged for it? Do I really love cooking as much as I thought, or have I just been indoctrinated by my family to believe that cooking is an area where women are "allowed" to excel?
So Courtney's blog and the comments on it were really welcome - it's nice to know I'm not the only one doubting, second guessing, and sometimes getting angry at myself. It also serves as a kind of oblique absolution: you don't have to be The Perfect Feminist (as if anyone agrees what that is anyway!) to be a feminist, and proud of it. Anyway, as an intellectual exercise, and also because navel gazing on a Friday is fun, and also in hopes of starting a wee meme or even just an interesting discussion, I've put together my own personal "five ways in which I'm still struggling to square up my ideas and my daily practice":
[I'm going to steal with pride from Courtney again - highest form of flattery and all that - and add the following note: "this is not meant to be a feminist litmus test of some kind, just a list of things that I personally realize are counter to my own feminist ideas and behaviors that I would like to stop. You may be just fine with saying sorry by instinct or think that it's fine not to feel equipped to crunch numbers. The point is to reflect on your own gaps."]
1. Obsessing about my appearance - Everyone is sometimes a bit unhappy about their appearance, and that's OK. But I'm a particularly bad case, because a) I really, really hate the way I look and b) there isn't a patriarchal trope that I'm not a complete victim to. I want to be thin and beautiful and stylish and fashionable and well groomed and elegant and sexy and attract lots of male attention and have perfect skin and and and. All of it, all the time. And I’m not just a passive victim, suffering in silence: I put a huge amount of energy into how I look. Not quite to the point of being orange and having fake boobs, lashes, hair and nails - but it's a matter of degree and a different aesthetic only, not me being in any qualitative way more liberated than, say, Jordan.
2. Judging other women - I'm happy to say that I have an almost perfect track record of not saying anything, but I have to admit to there being a sort of recording of my mother in my head that passes a constant stream of commentary on women I see: their appearance, their intelligence, their parenting, their lifestyle choices, their housework standards. I'm getting very good at not only keeping shtum, but also catching the thoughts early and preventing them from contributing to form an opinion of that person, but it's a challenge.(BTW, when I say "judging", I'm only talking about the stereotypical "womanly" standards that we're all constantly judged and measured against - of course someone can be stupid or cruel, and it's right to judge them for that, but then she's being a stupid or cruel person, regardless of gender)
3. Letting slurs on feminism pass - The only thing I hate more than the actual patriarchy are retrograde collaborators. All this "I'm not a feminist, but" business, or women who benefit from education, political emancipation, relative reproductive freedom, legal protection for their property etc. who call me a "feminazi" and/or ridicule feminists in the most misogynist stereotypical terms drive my blood pressure way up. As do the sort of women who claim it as a right to reject all of the gains of feminism (well, not really - none of the ones I just mentioned, just the ones they don't want to participate in) because "feminism is all about choice". Newsflash: feminism is all about liberating and protecting women. Their choice to remain unliberated or unprotected is their own, but feminism it ain't. Phew. Anyway, my point is: that shit pisses me the hell off. But do I say anything? Hardly ever. Partly I don't want to start a row, partly I'm reluctant to offend and alienate my friends, partly I just don't have the energy, and partly I'm a damn coward.
4. Craving approval - I've come to accept over the years that exhibiting traits that are admired in men, for a woman, is not a strategy to win friends and influence people. Being articulate, impassioned, educated, firm, decisive, independent, reliable, dependable and strong are the kinds of things that little girls are definitely not made of. I can't do anything about that, and I can't be anything other than the way I am, which in many of the most visible ways conforms to stereotypes of maleness rather than femaleness. But boy, do I ever go away and cry in a corner when people hate me for it. I can't make myself be reticent, submissive, apologetic, conciliatory, and I don't even try very much; but I mourn that fact often, and most of my new relationships are formed under a painful cloud of "do they like me?" instead of a more feminist "do they respect me?".
5. Living the easy life - I often feel guilty about not doing enough to help women in the world, not giving more of my time and resources to combat violence against women as well as to battle the less dramatic but just as insidious forces of stereotyping, ridicule, marginalization and disempowerment of women in society. I just work a 9-5 job in a big company where all the big cheeses are white dudes, read the mainstream media that daily rags on women, listen to popular music that humiliates and degrades them, watch Hollywood movies that pain them as narcissistic nincompoops with baby-making goo where their brains should be... I just don't feel like enough of a dissident.
How about you?
"I'm always interested in the ways in which feminists and other activists (myself included) struggle to make the leap between our ideas and our daily lives. [...] It's one thing to realize that you are performing your gender when you shave your pits and that you don't want to do it anymore; it's another to cease to do it despite what your aunt might say when she catches sight of those black sprigs of hair. "
This is something I've been thinking about on a daily basis for the past couple of months. How much of a feminist life do I really lead? What are the things I do that fall into traditional gender roles, and what are my motives for doing them? Do I clean the bathroom because I genuinely want a clean bathroom, or because I'm ashamed to have a dirty one and be judged for it? Do I really love cooking as much as I thought, or have I just been indoctrinated by my family to believe that cooking is an area where women are "allowed" to excel?
So Courtney's blog and the comments on it were really welcome - it's nice to know I'm not the only one doubting, second guessing, and sometimes getting angry at myself. It also serves as a kind of oblique absolution: you don't have to be The Perfect Feminist (as if anyone agrees what that is anyway!) to be a feminist, and proud of it. Anyway, as an intellectual exercise, and also because navel gazing on a Friday is fun, and also in hopes of starting a wee meme or even just an interesting discussion, I've put together my own personal "five ways in which I'm still struggling to square up my ideas and my daily practice":
[I'm going to steal with pride from Courtney again - highest form of flattery and all that - and add the following note: "this is not meant to be a feminist litmus test of some kind, just a list of things that I personally realize are counter to my own feminist ideas and behaviors that I would like to stop. You may be just fine with saying sorry by instinct or think that it's fine not to feel equipped to crunch numbers. The point is to reflect on your own gaps."]
1. Obsessing about my appearance - Everyone is sometimes a bit unhappy about their appearance, and that's OK. But I'm a particularly bad case, because a) I really, really hate the way I look and b) there isn't a patriarchal trope that I'm not a complete victim to. I want to be thin and beautiful and stylish and fashionable and well groomed and elegant and sexy and attract lots of male attention and have perfect skin and and and. All of it, all the time. And I’m not just a passive victim, suffering in silence: I put a huge amount of energy into how I look. Not quite to the point of being orange and having fake boobs, lashes, hair and nails - but it's a matter of degree and a different aesthetic only, not me being in any qualitative way more liberated than, say, Jordan.
2. Judging other women - I'm happy to say that I have an almost perfect track record of not saying anything, but I have to admit to there being a sort of recording of my mother in my head that passes a constant stream of commentary on women I see: their appearance, their intelligence, their parenting, their lifestyle choices, their housework standards. I'm getting very good at not only keeping shtum, but also catching the thoughts early and preventing them from contributing to form an opinion of that person, but it's a challenge.(BTW, when I say "judging", I'm only talking about the stereotypical "womanly" standards that we're all constantly judged and measured against - of course someone can be stupid or cruel, and it's right to judge them for that, but then she's being a stupid or cruel person, regardless of gender)
3. Letting slurs on feminism pass - The only thing I hate more than the actual patriarchy are retrograde collaborators. All this "I'm not a feminist, but" business, or women who benefit from education, political emancipation, relative reproductive freedom, legal protection for their property etc. who call me a "feminazi" and/or ridicule feminists in the most misogynist stereotypical terms drive my blood pressure way up. As do the sort of women who claim it as a right to reject all of the gains of feminism (well, not really - none of the ones I just mentioned, just the ones they don't want to participate in) because "feminism is all about choice". Newsflash: feminism is all about liberating and protecting women. Their choice to remain unliberated or unprotected is their own, but feminism it ain't. Phew. Anyway, my point is: that shit pisses me the hell off. But do I say anything? Hardly ever. Partly I don't want to start a row, partly I'm reluctant to offend and alienate my friends, partly I just don't have the energy, and partly I'm a damn coward.
4. Craving approval - I've come to accept over the years that exhibiting traits that are admired in men, for a woman, is not a strategy to win friends and influence people. Being articulate, impassioned, educated, firm, decisive, independent, reliable, dependable and strong are the kinds of things that little girls are definitely not made of. I can't do anything about that, and I can't be anything other than the way I am, which in many of the most visible ways conforms to stereotypes of maleness rather than femaleness. But boy, do I ever go away and cry in a corner when people hate me for it. I can't make myself be reticent, submissive, apologetic, conciliatory, and I don't even try very much; but I mourn that fact often, and most of my new relationships are formed under a painful cloud of "do they like me?" instead of a more feminist "do they respect me?".
5. Living the easy life - I often feel guilty about not doing enough to help women in the world, not giving more of my time and resources to combat violence against women as well as to battle the less dramatic but just as insidious forces of stereotyping, ridicule, marginalization and disempowerment of women in society. I just work a 9-5 job in a big company where all the big cheeses are white dudes, read the mainstream media that daily rags on women, listen to popular music that humiliates and degrades them, watch Hollywood movies that pain them as narcissistic nincompoops with baby-making goo where their brains should be... I just don't feel like enough of a dissident.
How about you?