We can support women as political figureheads or CEOs
while still being critical of their actions. Just because someone does
some shitty things doesn't mean they have no redeeming qualities. We do
draw the line somewhere though, and that's easy to do when it comes to
rejecting women who support homophobia or restricting reproductive
rights.
For something more complicated, take a look at the "Ban Bossy" campaign, spearheaded by Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In, and Girl Scouts of America.
Based
on the criticisms I've read of "Ban Bossy," many people seem to be
missing the point of the campaign. It's goal is not to ban the word
"bossy" or criticize assertive behavior in young women; it's to
eliminate the micro-aggressions that young women face every day. Those
micro-aggressions have negative, lasting impacts on female self-esteem.
Other criticisms point out that there's a difference between being bossy
or rude and being a leader, and say that the campaign should have
focused more on assertive leadership. That right there is a
micro-aggression: it's repeating the message that young women have to be
nice in order to get things done, avoiding behavior that might get them
branded "bossy" or "bitchy" while the same behavior in a young man
would be applauded.
Women are socialized to be nice.
Being not-nice is an act of defiance. In my opinion, being aggressive on
a daily basis is one of the most powerful ways to assert individual
feminism. Then again, maybe I'm just a stuck-up cunt.
Just kidding. Don't ever speak to me like that. I will eat you and toss your bones into the Los Angeles river.
I
applaud the "Ban Bossy" campaign for its diversity. Unlike the
CoverGirl campaign, we have a variety of female role-models to choose
from, both in profession and in race. I see no problem with little girls
having singers and actresses as role models; the issue arises when
those are the only role models those girls have. I'm not a fan of
Condoleezza Rice for her political actions, but I respect her as an
accomplished woman of color.
Still, both campaigns are
selling you something. CoverGirl is obviously selling you makeup.
Sandberg is selling you her book, and she's selling you a narrow view of
female leadership that exists within the corporate structure. To quote Lierre Keith,
“People sometimes say that we will know feminism has done its job when
half the CEOs are women. That’s not feminism; to quote Catharine
MacKinnon, it’s liberalism applied to women. Feminism will have won not
when a few women get an equal piece of the oppression pie, served up in
our sisters’ sweat, but when all dominating hierarchies - including
economic ones - are dismantled."
Keith has a
standard of feminism that excludes corporate feminism. She's an activist
and a revolutionary, just as environmentalists often are. She doesn't
buy what Sandberg sells.
Feminism is a varied subject,
with different flavors those all kinds of lifestyles. Who we label as
feminist has to do with how we relate to our own culture. What we
prioritize in feminism has to do with what we prioritize in life. In
acting as a feminist, be aware of the effects of your actions, be
critical of the media you consume, and do your best to not be an
asshole.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
I have survived for this long
On gravel and sand
Tasting of my blood
Showing veins.
And
I will make it till the end
Drinking vinegar
Spitting in your grave
Standing tall.
(I sweat poison. You will never touch me again.)
Friday, March 21, 2014
This blog is supposed to be for a class, but that's a fucking joke. The actual posts for class are 500 words more than what my professor asks for and everything else is weird poems and prose I write to express my anger/sadness/existential ennui. The only reasoning I have is that these are me trying out different writing styles and different voices. Also, music videos.
I dream of punching him in the face. My fingers will tighten around my keys and the metal will smash into his cheek bones. Blood will escape in a hot line just above his stubble. I'll scar his face. He'll never forget me.
"I'll never forget you. There will always be a part of me that loves you."
I spit on the ground, vomiting the word back at him. Ladders of bile in my stomach. Go to hell and take your love with you. I want you dead. I want to see you bleed.
He nods. "Hit me." He fakes at nonchalance. He always gives me what I want. He will give me his pain if I ask.
I want to hit him. It is not enough that we have lied. It is not enough we are fat with guilt. It is not enough that we have dirtied our souls. We must also bloody our fists.
"I was good to you. I gave you what you needed."
I am here and I am not here. I am flexed back muscles and extended claws and sharpened teeth. I am wild. I am the glint of sun reflecting off the fence. I am the wind moving the leaves. I am made of unfinished sentences. I am somewhere else.
He hears me. He will never hear me. He will leave me alone. He will never leave me alone.
I am in my house. He is driving away from my backyard. I can feel myself
expanding, bloating, growing larger than this room. I am somewhere
else.
He is burning me. I pick the skin off my legs and dig my nails into my face. My lips are chapped. My thighs are red. I gasp each time a hand pulls at the hair closest to my scalp. I realize the hand is mine.
I can tell I am alive because the skin grows back. The red calms down. There's never a shortage of strands between my fingers.
Human cells die and duplicate constantly. They regenerate with such frequency that after approximately seven years a human is completely replaced with new cells. Think about that. Every seven years there is a new person.
How lovely. One day there will be a me that he has never touched.
Remember a few weeks ago when I ranted about that CoverGirl "Girls Can" video? I came across this project on tumblr back in February and it wasn't until recently that I made the connection between the two works.
This project was posted on tumblr on February 18th, and the CoverGirl Campaign video was posted on YouTube on February 21st, so I'm not suggesting a creative theft here. (Although I don't put it past advertisers. Remember when this art was turned into this ad? Yuck.) "Girls Can" is also the name of an empowerment program for young women in Richmond, Virginia, so I guess it's a popular phrase.
Regardless, the project succeeds where the CoverGirl ad fails. Instead of painting girl power with one bubbly brush, it examines societies perceptions of women in positions of power.
There are some strong criticisms of the above work, namely that the chosen picture of Cleopatra upholds historical whitewashing and that Aung San Suu Kyi is overseeing a massacre of Muslims in Burma. The author admits that not all these women are feminist icons, but points out that the project is more to show how our perceptions of the capabilities of women are fucked up. In my opinion, this makes the work more interesting. Not only is this project more diverse than the CoverGirl ad in terms of women of color and the jobs the women do, but opens up a great dialogue about how we define feminism, who we choose as our feminist icons, and how we reach for feminism in a corrupt and difficult world.
When we were little we thought all feminism was Spice World and Hillary Clinton. Then we grew up, put on our big girl panties, and started learning that hard lesson that not all women in positions of power are feminists.
A very clear example of this is Sarah Palin. During the 2008 presidential campaign Palin was at times paraded by the GOP as a feminist in an attempt to pander to women voters, presumably because she was a women in a position of power, gearing up to a women in a very high position of power. But any women who denies reproductive rights to other women is not a feminist.
TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists), women who don't believe that transwomen should have rights and actively work to deny transwomen those rights are not feminists.
Queen Rania of Jordan, who is loved in the West for being fashionable but disliked by the people of Jordan and compared to Marie Antoinette? Not really a feminist.
Katy Perry, who fetishizes Japanese women and appropriates their culture? Not a feminist.
Racist women? Not feminists. Women who slut shame? Nope. Homophobic women? Nah. Biphobic women? Fuck off. Women with so much internalized misogyny that they victim-blame? Sure as fuck not feminists.
Sorry. You're kicked out of the club. You don't get to play with the big kids. Change your viewpoints or get the fuck out, but don't you dare try and steal this movement with your bullshit.
(Maybe I'm hating on women too much. You know who else isn't a feminist? Creepy dudes who think that if they show up to a Women's Studies course and talk about how they're phylogenists they will get laid. We see you, and we know you're scum.)
In our daily activities, the guidelines for How To Be a Good Feminist sort of go along the lines of How To Not Be an Asshole. Think a woman is wearing too much makeup? Upset because someone won't sleep with you but will have sex with other people and you have an urge to call this person a slut? More upset with women who take nude pictures of themselves than the men who distribute and profit from those pictures? Have a desire to go into a lengthy debate about how abortions should only be performed on women who really need them? Want to use the terms "welfare queen," "fag hag," or "tranny?" Shut up. You're being an asshole. No one cares about your fucking opinion. No one.
But being in positions of power is more difficult than It's one of the ways in which feminism and international politics
studies come to clash: it is near impossible to maintain perfect
feminism in a capitalist society. The standards to which we hold individuals acting on behalf of themselves are different than those to which we hold individuals acting on behalf of countries or corporations. The standards of ethics are different because we expect that politicians are acting not as themselves, but as figureheads for international diplomacy. (Read the play Aunt Dan and Lemon by my boy Wally Shawn if you want to get fucked in the head on that front.)
I don't give a fuck about your Cabo diet.
No one gives a fuck about your Cabo diet.
You don't even give a fuck about your Cabo diet.
You could be so much better than this, but every calorie you count is a brain cell you kill. There are stretch marks on your brain where it used to be fat. Now it's thinning out.
Being thinner won't make anyone love you. No one is going to look at you and be overcome with the majestic beauty of your thigh gap and want to be with you. Hell, no one will even fucking notice because everyone spends all their energy focusing on themselves.
You look the fucking same whether or not you eat the fun size snickers. So do me a fucking favor and shut the fuck up about your fucking Cabo diet.
I was supposed to be doing some Her-level hipster shit in Catalina with my boyfriend this weekend, but he was shipped off to storyboard IBM ads at some midtown hotel in New York until who knows when.
Keely's on a flight to Minnesota, Sydney is in the throes of new love, and Stephanie is at a conference in DC. I'd ask my sorority sisters if they wanted to hang out, but most of them are gone too.
The guy at work who tells me he loves me - you remember him - is having a party tomorrow night. I'm considering showing up and causing some trouble, but we fought Tuesday night because he likes to gaze into my eyes and tell me I'm Special and he just wants me to Be Okay. I tell him that I am Okay when he leaves me alone. We will leave each other alone.
To be honest, I've never really cared about spring break. I've got a Coachella habit to fund and some parking tickets to pay off, and it's not as though I don't party and bullshit enough when school is in session. I just don't think I'm prepared for the extrovert's nightmare.
Here's a breakdown of how the next week will go:
Take care of business
File taxes
Pay fines
Take care of the apartment
Buy paper towels
Buy cat food
Buy human food
Let most of the human food go bad
Order $35 of LA Cafe
Throw out roommate's old food
Eat what might still be good
Go to work
Ignore the boy
Do your homework
Write the fucking play
Buy cigarettes
Don't smoke them
Talk to men
Be mildly interested in them because they're cute
Consider having sex with them
Consider dating them
Realize they're dumb and not that cute
Do not have sex with them
Do not text them back when they ask you out for dinner
Think about your boyfriend
Drink
Call him
Talk about Mad Men
Talk about North Korea
Talk about anything other than how much you love him
Try to plan out your career
Asses what skills you have
Realize you have no skills
Realize your degree has done nothing for you except made you aware of how awful the world is
Figure out who might want to hire you
Become entrenched in an endless spiral of job search websites
Group texts are the worst. I'm getting a new text every five minutes and the light on my phone makes me anxious and I don't want to talk to any of these people right now and none of these texts are from my boyfriend so I don't care about any of them.
Should I take this Xanax? Why aren't I drunk right now. Fuck, I could be drunk right now. There's beer in my fridge. I could drink it. But then I would be tipsy for work tonight, and I'd be tired. And then I definitely couldn't take this Xanax. Don't want to die.
Am I an elitist snob, or am I actually smarter than these people? I confer with Keely, and she confirms that we are elitist snobs. I am comforted in our mutual snobbery. We then discuss romantic versus minimalist literature. Snobs. We should have stayed up North.
Keely writes screenplays. They are diverse and complex and witty. I write plays. They are heavy and violent and sad. Keely writes love poems to girls she meets in France. I wrote a love poem once. My boyfriend will never read it, but I recited lines from it to him once when I was drunk. Keely read it. She said it was funny to see me showing an emotion that wasn't anger.
Where's my cat? Is she peeing on things again?
This play I'm working on isn't passing the Bechtel test. Should I add another women character? How would that play into the world I'm creating? If I add another woman character it will just be one of my friends. What purpose would she add? I don't want to have her distract from the action of the play or have the scene be commentary on other action, but it might be good to show the main character in a scene where her behavior is not defined by the men around her. The play is passing the Mako Mori test though, because it's all about the behavior of a woman. Is my life passing the Bechtel test? That might be a good Facebook status to post. "Make sure your life is passing the Bechtel test." Should I post that? No, it sounds kind of douchey. Don't say that.
There's the cat. She's scratching at the furniture and meowing. She wants to be fed. She's a brat, just like I'm a brat. She wants to be scratched all the time.
What if I use up all my good material in this play and then I can't write any more good plays? And people want me to write more plays because my first play is a success and then I can't write any more plays, but everyone knows I'm fucking weird because I wrote this play? What if my boyfriend breaks up with me because he reads this play and realizes I based a character off him? Not just based a character off him, but pulled bits of conversations about his mental health from our real life and then typed them up.
Will there be food at my office tonight? The guy I work with who tells me he loves me will buy me food if I ask. Almost all the food in my fridge right now is food he has purchased for me. That's not a lot, though. My goal was to be so demanding, so awful, that he would stop trying to make me love him. It isn't working. He does whatever I say. I like it, but mostly I hate it.
I went to the health center to get my annual STI check and pap and the gynecologist tried to push hormonal birth control on me again. She said some statistic about condoms only being 80% effective even when used correctly. That doesn't make any sense. She asked how long I'd been with my current partner, assuming that because I'm sexually active I have a sexually monogamous partner. I didn't like that. I said seven months.
One of the light bulbs in my bedroom is out. I could text the maintenance guy. I don't want to text the maintenance guy.
These fucking group partners keep texting me. We keep fucking up our projects.
I'm going to take this Xanax.
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
The first few posts were mostly me ranting about feminist theories. Now I'm going to rant about feminist theories in international relations.
Surprisingly, I am not a gender studies major. My degree is in international relations, and I have emphases in gender and cultural issues and international political economy; I like studying women and I like studying money. Let's go back to IR 101 and go over some concepts of international relations and how this applies to feminism.
The discipline of international relations was created largely to understand the action of nation-states during war; thus the main international relations theories are realism, liberalism, Marxism, and conservativism. We also have neo-liberalism, neo-conservativism, and all that. In my option, international relations theories without feminism fail to recognize the contributions of women. As an international relations feminist, I am mainly concerned with the largely unseen work that women do.
Ann Tickner is an international relations feminist scholar who drew on Morgantheu's truths of mankind, widely used to describe the international relations realist perspective, and wrote the feminist realist perspective. Such a perspective challenges the realist assumptions that human nature has masculine characteristics, such as autonomy and desire for power. A feminist realist recognizes the many dimensions of dynamic nationalism, collective power, and moral political action.
Cynthia Enloe has written entire books about the work that women do to facilitate international affairs - as diplomat's wives, as sex workers, as laborers, ect. Her view of IR comes from reflectionist ideas, which are ideas that reposition the thinking of politics to understand them from different points of view
In studying international relations it is tempting to pay attention to only western politics, but IR provides a strong framework for understanding the complexities of other nation-states. Examining international women's rights helps us avoid the trap of becoming too focused on our view of the world as Western women. For instance, did you know that women make up more than half the members of parliament in Rwanda? Or that Tunisia just signed a new constitution that promotes women's rights? Or that Venezuela pays pensions to full-time mothers?
Women do 66% of the world's work and own 1% of the world's property. From a Western perspective, it can seem as though all women have the same goals, which exist in a capitalist society. Initiatives such as Lean In cater to this Western definition of success. But the world is a diverse place, with more cultural variation that could be easily understood by an outsider. Honoring those differences through international relations theory and feminist theory is crucial in making gains to enhance the power of women internationally.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
My favorite part of the Nicki Minaj "Lookin' Ass" backlash is the guys on World Star Hip Hop (where the video premiered) complaining that this is the awful feminism bullshit. Stay thirsty. Nicki wrote this largely in response to Gucci Mane claiming that he had sex with her, and you can check out the meaning being her lyrics over at Rap Genius. Meanwhile, I have been blessed with a new response for the scrubs who hit on me:
When I was thirteen I was allowed a subscription to Seventeen Magazine. I was nerdy and without a boyfriend, and the articles in Seveneteen were my guide on how to conceal acne, dress for my "body shape," be nice to other girls without coming off as conceited or stuck up, and talk to boys without sounding too desperate.
Then in high school, far too old for Seventeen, I requested a subscription to Cosmopolitan. My mother forbade it, claiming that the writing was shit and I should read higher caliber literature, but I would pay a fiver for the issue on stands every month and sneak it into the house. I didn't care about the writing quality; I needed to know which shoes to buy and how to make eyes at Sean in my English class so that maybe he would ask me to junior prom.
I stopped reading magazines once I had enough interactions with adult men that I realized no one gave a shit about what I wore and that the flirting tacts I had once thought clever were beyond banal, but reading Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth had me reminiscing. To start with a clarification, the beauty myth as defined by Wolf is the idea that as women's accomplishments in the public sphere have grown, so have the rigid standards for women's appearance and the punishments for women when they break these rules.
Wolf contends that the power of women's magazines is in their singularity to women: they are the only form of media that is for women. Thus they have the power to discuss domestic issues and international affairs from a women's point of view, while at the same time they act as mentors to women by providing them with rules on how to dress and act appropriately. This was clearly true in my own experiences. Even as women's magazines are friendly godmothers, they are harsh critics of those who step outside of what is deemed acceptable - appropriately feminine but not vain or too confident. Magazines are beholden to their advertisers and thus magazine articles act to make women more aware of their physicality so that they are vulnerable to advertisements. Wolf states:
Somehow, somewhere, someone must have figured out that [women] will by more things if they are kept in the self-hating, ever-failing, hungry, and sexually insecure state of being aspiring "beauties."
That's the point of women's magazines: to keep you unhappy so that you're a good little consumer. Think I'm being cynical? Check out this video
This is sweet and uplifting and cool and Queen Latifah runs her own business(!) and Sofia Vergara is speaking Spanish(!) Janelle Monae's music is about defying labels(!) and it's so great to see videos challenging stereotypes and empowering young women.
Except something here seems less than pure...
That's because this is a FUCKING ADVERTISEMENT.
A fucking advertisement for Covergirl makeup. Covergirl is the next company (after Dove) to commodify feminism as a marketing tool. This video doesn't say "Pink is so cool," it says "Pink is so cool and look how good she looks with our product!"
Because as women in this current cultural climate we can never forget that if we want to be successful, we first have to look perfect. Before we apply to a job or make a creative attempt or even go out in fucking public, we first have to buy $7.99 Covergirl Mascara Lash Blash Enhancer so that no one forgets we have eyelashes and we have to spend $14.99 on off-tone greasy drugstore foundation lest we not contour our cheeks correctly.
I read the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman when I was nine and I found it in my mother's room. It's the parenting guide book for mothers of young girls that was later adapted into the movie Mean Girls. In elementary school very few of the things that Wiseman predicted for my middle and high school years seemed likely, especially the scenarios with boys and alcohol. But the way Wiseman talked about beauty culture seemed very real.
Adolescence is a beauty pageant. Even if your daughter doesn't want to be a contestant, others will look at her as if she is... Girls are also constantly comparing themselves to each other and rarely do they feel they measure up... Although we have told that they're smart and as competent as boys, they still get conscious and unconscious messages that they need a man to validate their self-worth and that, to get the man in the first place, they have to present themselves in a nonthreatening (read feminine) manner.
We are in a beauty pageant that we can never win, pitted against our friends for the attention of men, held back from our true accomplishments. Back to Naomi Wolf:
No woman or group of women, whether housewives, prostitutes, astronauts, politicians or feminists, can survive unscathed the no-win scrutiny of the beauty myth...
Women can tend to resent each other if they look too "good" and dismiss one another if they look too "bad." So women too rarely benefit from the experience that makes men's clubs and organizations hold together: the solidarity of belonging to a group whose members might not be personal friends outside, but who are united in an interest, agenda, or worldview.
And on some level we know this. We know we buy too many things and that we are a market and that the level of perfection asked of us is absurd and somehow we still play the game. How do we even begin to break out of this?
Burn your magazines.
Compliment other women without putting down yourself. Compliment other women on something other than their appearance. Compliment yourself without putting down other women. Compliment yourself on something other than your appearance. Don't wear makeup. When someone says you look tired tell them to go fuck themselves. Wear makeup. Wear so much makeup you look like an alien. When someone says you look weird tell them to go fuck themselves. Wear every article of clothing you have. Wear no clothing. Wear all your jewelry and pretend you are Cleopatra. Throw all your jewelry out the window because it is heavy and you don't care. Do whatever the fuck you want. Don't give a shit with what other people think. Terrify people with how little you need their approval.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
call
your
grandmother.
mother.
a
bitch.
hoe.
slut.
dumb cunt. in that order.
to
her face.
watch her spirit leave her body.
watch her fall into herself.
take pride in your aim. your precision.
stay.
grab a plate.
eat what remains of her.
that is what you do
to
women
who are not yours everyday.
i am speaking to men and women, nayyirah waheed (via nayyirahwaheed)
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
This is my girlfriend Ellen Page, whom I share with my best friend for life. Ellen just came out at the Human Rights Campaign Time to Thrive Conference.
And this is our boyfriend, lawyer and diplomat Ronan Farrow. He's rumored to have been in a relationship with former presidential speechwriter Jon Lovett. He's a genius, and sometimes he tweets us back.
#everyoneyouknowisqueer #queertakover2014
Sorry I didn't blog this weekend, guys. My brother was in town and I was busy explaining to him how patriarchal beliefs about masculine and feminine roles can strangle relationships, especially when it comes to jealousies regarding partners' behavior. I considered talking about how sexual jealousy is a learned behavior and monogamy is not the same as fidelity because I think he and his girlfriend are having some issues, but I didn't want to confuse his worldview too much. Baby steps.
For this first full blog post we're going to explain the idea of female privilege, which is more appropriately termed benevolent
sexism, as this is something we find often in the social life of the
university setting.
A few examples of stories that may seem as though they are instances of female privilege:
- Women frequently receive free drinks and dinners while men are expected to pay for alcohol and food.
- Men are expected to hold doors for women and display other acts of courtesy.
- Women are allowed into all frat parties. Men must be a member of the frat in order to enter the party.
- Women are socially allowed to wear make up and expose skin. If men were to do these things, they would be called derogatory terms.
These are not examples of female privilege because being a woman is not the base marker for receiving attention or privileges; a woman receives free drinks when she flirts with a man, she is allowed into a party when she is dressed provocatively, she has the door held for her when she smiles and is charming. Are you noticing the connection between how and why she is rewarded? That's right. She is rewarded when her actions make her more sexually available.
Where do these rules come from? The patriarchy, of course! In case you're slipping into lazy idiot mode, I'll explain that the patriarchy is not a panel of old white men sitting around and deciding what is allowed and what is not. That would be far too easy to destroy. The patriarchy is a set of standards and rules that are upheld by society that favor the masculine and degrade the feminine. Men who adhere to masculine norms are rewarded while those who deviate are punished. Women who can navigate the tricky difficulties of femininity are rewarded, and those who go too far masculine are punished. Here's a fun comic!
What makes benevolent sexism so evil is that it's not
rewarding to all women: it's rewarding to women who behave in a certain
way, and that way upholds the patriarchal standards of what is
appropriate behavior.
Not only is in rewarding to women who behave in a certain way, but it is rewarding specifically to white women who behave in a certain way. Women of color are far too sexualized to frequently benefit from benevolent sexism. Under the rules of the patriarchy, white women are the most prized possession. Look around the campus and see how Asian women are fetishized, or how black women are rejected. Dare me to tell you about the time my roommate wasn't let into a party because she's black, or the time two white guys yelled slurs at my Asian friends as we were walking. Ask me about it because I'd love to tell you.
The last point I'll make about benevolent sexism is that there is still a power dynamic structure at play here. Men offer to pay for dinner, they offer to buy drinks, some of them even offer additional cash for dates, because they think a woman is something that can be purchased, or at least rented. Men think a woman's company is for sale. It are not. Our company has an infinite value, and being payed for it cheapens the quality of living.
Those men, and anyone who complains that feminism isn't real because women don't need to pay for dinners? Those men can go fuck themselves.
Perusing
my kindle before going to sleep, I search for "feminism," hoping to be
inspired for a blog post. I am not disappointed. Amongst my old friends
"Full Frontal Feminism" by Jessica Valenti and "Feminism is for
Everybody" by bell hooks and "How to Be A Woman" by Caitlin Moran are
little slime pockets of trash with titles like "The War on Men" by Suzanne
Venker, "Women First, Men Last: Feminism's War on Men and Its
Devastating Effects" by Steven Adams, and "Feminism: The Ugly Truth" by
Mike Buchanan. That last one is my favorite, mostly because the cover
is of a deranged looking woman baring sharp teeth. I browse a few of
these, looking at excerpts and descriptions. I'm delighted to learn a few fun new facts, such as:
Feminism has made women unhappy.
Feminists are deluded and ugly and stupid.
Feminists are taking away men's rights.
If you even remotely agree with any of those statements, you are a
fucking idiot and I never want to hear you speak to or around me. The
idea of a family unit led by a strong man and a docile woman is a
fucking joke; a myth perpetuated by the privileged and deluded. The idea
that men are having rights taken away by feminism is ludacris, because
being incredibly over privileged and allowed another group to enjoy
things which you've always enjoyed is not losing a right. Here's a cartoon of what you look like when you argue with me:
One of
the jokes a Jewish uncle of mine tells is that whenever he feels bad
about being Jewish he looks at the anti-Semitic media. According to
them, Jews run the banks, the news, the schools, ect. This is a bit how I
feel looking at these anti-Feminism books. One thing they can all agree
on is that feminism has gone too far, and in a strange sense that comforts me. Someone is threatened by feminism. Good. I want people to feel threatened.
In this blog we will discuss many forms of feminism and the ways in
which feminism is present in our every day lives, as well as shedding
light on kinds of feminism you may not be familiar with. We'll discuss
queer theory, harassment, capitalism, marxism, rape culture,
international feminism, racism, womanism, trans issues, and a whole slew
of topics. Many of these posts will relate to current events. But at no
point will we entertain the notion that feminism is somehow not
necessary.
Frequently I am challenged in my views, and my responses to those who
question feminism vary based on my relation to the person and the level
of respect that they show me when speaking. I'll explain the three ones
now so we never have to have this conversation again.
The high road: Feminism is necessary in this patriarchal world because
the state of affairs is such that an active enhancement of women's
rights is the only way to come close to equality, which has many
different faces and needs
The middle road: I believe in the rights of all women to be treated as
people, and practice that in my everyday life
