Happy International Women's Day!

[angua9]

According to the Progressive Blogosphere, today is Blog Against Sexism Day. Or, as Shakespeare's Sister puts it:
Sad Irony Day-because basically the only people who participate in Blog Against Sexism Day are the people who blog against sexism every day, anyway. Wah wah wah.

I'll try to make that untrue, at least for me.

Why You Should Be a

Comments

[angua9]

Thanks so much for commenting!

[stmargarets]

Will you blog "liberal" next? Thanks for reminding me of a few ideals that aren't talked about in the mainstream anymore.

[angua9]

Liberals are cool too!

[angua9]

Even people who are feminists in every other way will often try to disassociate themselves from the word, and that's a pretty sucky situation for a civil rights movement to be in.

I think it's very telling. Given the choice between either trying to define what feminism should be and steering it in what they considered to be the proper direction or demonizing the entire word/idea/movement, they chose the latter. Quite successfully, too.

[blpurdom]

One of the things that always irked me the most about Rush Limbaugh (and there are many, many things to be irked about where he's concerned) was that he always called feminists "feminazis", as though we're jackbooted oppressors running roughshod over all of the freedom-loving men and women who don't want to live under the totalitarian yoke of Feminazism. :headthud: Never mind that it's men who have--sometimes very violently--been the ones keeping women down because it suited them and made their lives easier. Some men--like Limbaugh--have no clue what it's like to live as a woman, nor do they care. They just want to continue to live in their little bubble of white male privilege and woe to anyone who threatens that with the specter of equality and having to truly earn your position through merit and hard work.

There's still a long way to go.

[angua9]

we're jackbooted oppressors running roughshod over all of the freedom-loving men and women who don't want to live under the totalitarian yoke of Feminazism

Yes, and by the way that seems like quite severe cognitive dissonance to me -- the complete nonexistence and illusoriness of any kind of coercive patriarchal social forces, but the huge terrifying power of feminazis and secular humanist conspiracists forcing women to hold jobs, get abortions, not get married, have promiscuous sex, hate men, and all the other terrible things we're using mind control to make women do.

As for Rush Limbaugh, he's a bad person in pretty much every possible way.

Hear, hear!

[lurkerfan]

As I've noted a number of times before, Angua says what I believe much more clearly than I could myself.

So, every once in a while or every day, feminists look at their own behavior, or societal expectations, or laws or culture or popular entertainment or media coverage, from the perspective of gender equity and think "is this fair?" "is this just?" "is this necessary?" And, you know, it's called "feminism" because females are the sex that was/is considered to be-and treated as-inferiors, but the perspective of gender equity requires fair and good treatment for everyone. This is so very, very true. This week I half-listened to a TV program on the history channel on the history of sex. While I put a meal on the table and did dishes, I couldn't help noticing that despite the wide variation in sexual mores and practices in various cultures throughout human history, one common thread was that most seemed to be dominated by what men believed and wanted, and often religion was invoked to support their view

Re: Hear, hear!

[angua9]

one common thread was that most seemed to be dominated by what men believed and wanted

Yep. While it's perfectly true that men suffer in many ways from traditional sex-role definitions, it's always the "down" sex that suffers the most and the "up" sex that benefits the most overall. How could it be otherwise? And often this means physical injury and death. When things are bad, the weakest and least regarded always suffer the most.

[violaswamp]

WORD to all of this, but especially this:

Someday, I hope, our descendents will ask "why did they call it 'feminism' when it just means fairness for both sexes?" But anyone who asks that question now is being either deliberately disingenuous or appallingly ignorant.

and this:

If there is a patriarchy, it's all of us.

It's kind of funny how people assume, when a feminist says "patriarchy," that she's referring to some conspiracy of bearded white men in a room somewhere and that therefore she's full of it because of course there's no such conspiracy. It's a set of social norms, people, that's all.

[angua9]

It's kind of funny how people assume, when a feminist says "patriarchy," that she's referring to some conspiracy of bearded white men in a room somewhere

I KNOW! It just means how the culture is organized, social customs, values and standards.

Which, no matter how much you might think they don't exist or aren't important, can kill you dead. Like, for instance, if you're a female conceived in China or India and you die by the age of one at eight times the rate of boys because according to social customs you'll require a dowry and won't support or care for your parents in their old age. It's not that you couldn't or wouldn't or can't, it's that the patriarchal social organization says you won't. So you die.

[sixth_light]

Which, no matter how much you might think they don't exist or aren't important, can kill you dead. Like, for instance, if you're a female conceived in China or India and you die by the age of one at eight times the rate of boys because according to social customs you'll require a dowry and won't support or care for your parents in their old age. It's not that you couldn't or wouldn't or can't, it's that the patriarchal social organization says you won't. So you die.

Or, if you do make it to adulthood, your parents will marry you off ASAP and then give money to your husband to make him take you back when he beats you and throws you out on the street, because the shame of having you back in their household (or, worse, earning your own living) is greater than the pain of knowing you are being abused daily.

I try not to make assumptions about other cultures, but I'm taking a class on social constraints and resistance in Indian culture and the bits on modern treatment of women are just making me really fucking angry.