Finally, a Feminism 101 blog

Please Update Your Bookmarks and Feed Subscriptions

2007-05-21T14:04:00.001+10:00

Here's the new link again:
Main page | Feeds

The blog move is now complete, even without being able to port the comments over from ##$*&^@!!! Haloscan. Those comments threads will stay here and be linked from the posts at the new blog.

Barring disaster, this should be the last post at this blog. I shall have the LJ feed updated to receive posts from the new site ASAP.

Moving the blog

2007-05-20T23:14:00.001+10:00

I wanted some more flexibility with the layout, particularly I wanted some static pages, so I've ported all the posts over to Wordpress.com - the new link is http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/

Please hop on over and let me know what you think. This blog isn't going anywhere, especially because I can't figure out how to port the Haloscan comments over. But all the posts here are duplicated over at the new site, and hopefully all the material will be easier to navigate for you all.

Feminism Friday: Rape Jokes Aren't Funny

2007-05-19T13:11:00.000+10:00

Late, I know, and not much from me: I'm just pointing you at these three posts below from Melissa McEwan at Shakesville.

Trauma-Trigger Alert: Melissa describes her own rape in harrowing detail in order to point out how rape is not funny, and although the discussion threads start out thoughtful and interesting, they end up invaded by shockjock fans who troll the thread with graphic threats of rape directed against Melissa and other commenters.

Aren't we feminists lucky, we get some cyberbullying to go with the defense of rape jokes as well!

Melissa has decided not to delete them in order to show just what sort of threats these jerks perceive as "jokes" that we "need to get a sense of humour" about.

Rape Is Hilarious
Rape Is Hilarious Part II
Rape Is Not Only Hilarious; It's No Big Deal

Cyberbullying:
Kate Harding has a great post in response to the cyberbullying. Let those folks read it who claim that men bloggers get flamed and threatened just as much and as creepily as women bloggers. Suuurrrre they do.

As usual for Feminism Friday, feel free to leave a link to recent Feminism Friday posts from other blogs in comments - your own or others.

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Belated Weekend Roundup Roundup

2007-05-14T06:46:00.000+10:00

Apologies, I've been trying to sleep away a headcold. Here's some other people's roundups of recommended reading this week.

Feministing's Weekly Feminist Reader

Carnival of Radical Feminists - this is a bit later than planned, because Heart put so much work into setting the stage for what radfem is and isn't and what radfems have achieved as she introduces the festival. Some thoughtprovoking reading about Women as a Colonized People, with specific areas of colonization highlighted. You don't have to agree with every aspect of radfem theory to find the posts here highly valuable.

Lauren (Faux Real Tho): Things Your Mother Guilt Trips You Into Reading

Last week I missed the 22nd Carnival Against Sexual Violence and for a broader view of anti-oppression writing and activism, Blogging Against Disablism.

Feel free to use this post as an Open Mothers' Day reading thread as well - any posts about Mothers' Day that have a feminist or anti-feminist slant you want to highlight, leave a link in comments, please.

Call for links: debunking the malicious stuff

2007-05-11T13:11:00.000+10:00

Mandolin had a suggestion I'd like to highlight and get some input on:

Andrea Dworkin/Germaine Greer/someone else said something complicated, and I have a reductionist summary of that which comes out to "men hate women" / "all sex is rape" / "something else catchy" ... why am I wrong? Only, competently stated.

The competent concise statement is always the tricky part, but I though while I'm working up to that some links to specific debunkings would be useful. Here's my favourite for debunking the "MacKinnon/Dworkin said all sex is rape" myth.

RadGeek (Geekery Today): Misquotation in Media: Catharine MacKinnon never, ever, ever, ever said “All heterosexual intercourse is rape.” Ever. Ever. (posted 19 February 2006)

Elizabeth Anderson, in a post quoted by RadGeek, said this:

Here’s a measure of how much a group is despised: how much malicious absurdity can one ascribe to its members and still be taken as a credible source on what they say and do?

So what's your unfavourite piece of malicious absurdity and what are your favourite debunkings of malicious absurdities about feminism?

FAQ: But men and women are born different! Isn't that obvious?

2007-05-10T17:09:00.000+10:00

That idea is known as "essentialism": the belief that there are uniquely feminine and uniquely masculine essences which exist independently of cultural conditioning. Both actual (minor) and alleged (major) differences between the sexes have been used to justify inequities and constraints which harm women emotionally, financially and physically.

Even where (and if) such differences do exist, why should such differences justify sexist oppression? *

Biological determinism is one form of essentialism which has been used to argue for male superiority for all of recorded history: that men are naturally stronger, smarter, more rational and more trustworthy and thus are entitled to rule both politically and domestically. The more science discovers about biology the more this male biological superiority is shown to be utterly without foundation: for any quality measured there is far more variation among the group of all men and among the group of all women than there is on average between individuals of opposite sex.

A common corollary belief is that while men are physically and rationally superior, women are morally superior. At times influential groups of both men and women, both feminists and anti-feminists, have subscribed to this view. It is equally without evidentiary foundation, and has often been used to give women a sense of power in the role of morality enforcer which acts to support the larger social system of male dominance (and which especially excuses the male sexual exploitations of women as due to a baser moral nature which can't be changed, but which "good" women have the duty to "tame").

Masculine and feminine traits have been culturally placed in opposition to each other, and claimed to thus complement each other and result in harmony when men and women are constrained within the accepted sex roles. Masculine roles differ across societies, but are always portrayed as not only different from but also superior to the feminine. Women and men who transgress the boundaries of the accepted sex roles are considered "not real" men/women, and usually denigrated and sometimes abused and punished by outraged defenders of normative sex roles. It is this rigid ghettoising of masculine and feminine, and the assigning of superiority always to the masculine, that feminism challenges.

* Spot-the-strawfeminist: It is often claimed that feminists say there are no differences between men and women, by people who tend to condescendingly point to women's chest area as they "debate". Rubbish - feminists are, on the whole, not blind. What feminists say is that neither the size of the fatty glands on one's pectoral muscles, nor whether one's reproductive organs are innies or outies, are indicators of deeper essential differences, and nor such indicators of sexual dimorphism relevant when discussing rights, equity and sexual egalitarianism.

Clarifying Concepts:

Winter (Mind the Gap!): Biological Determinism - A Rant

Kathleen Trigiani - Out of the Cave: Exploring Grays Anatomy - a series of essays ripping the veil off the romanticised submission of Venusians in John Gray's odes to essentialism and thus male dominance, the Mars/Venus canon.

Evidence vs Myth:
A classic debunking from Mark Liberman(Language Log): the popular claim is that women utter 20000 words per day compared to men's 7000 (recently resurrected by Louann Brizendine). A survey of linguistic studies show no such evidence - men and women are found to utter roughly equivalent numbers of words and more often as not the men talked more than the women.

Recommended Reading Offline:
Myths of Gender: biological theories about women and men
By Anne Fausto-Sterling 1992 ISBN 0465047920

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Weekly Online Reader

2007-05-06T00:28:00.000+10:00

The round-up of Roundups.

Ariella Drake: Anti-Oppression Roundup

Kate Harding: Stuff to Read

Of course, the 37th Carnival of Feminists at KitKats Critique and the 1st Carnival of Radical Feminists will be up any minute now at Womens Space/The Margins.

Feminism Friday: using FF101 FAQs for more than blocking derailments

2007-05-04T14:14:00.000+10:00

I've just done a bit of retouching to the "Why Was I Sent To This Blog?" post, aka FAQ:I Asked Some Feminists A Question And They Sent Me Here: Why? The main reason I reworked it is because I have both great gratification and some disappointment from how I see FF101 being used to deal with disruptive questioners in feminist discussions.

I'm a bit tentative to put this out there, because not only am I not the high priestess or pope of any feminist anything, I'm not even an anointed acolyte; I have no actual control over how others use links to this blog in their discourse with others (and wouldn't want to) but I do have a vision of sorts, and that vision isn't quite happening.

That vision is that links to the FAQs are potential conversation starters, not just conversation-derailer stoppers.

I'm seeing lots of referrals to the blog from threads where someone is asking 101 questions and disrupting a more theoretically advanced discussion, which is terrific, but I don't think that those getting the referrals, or the lurkers who also click on the link, are being best served by a habit that I'm also seeing.

What habit is that? Dropping a link just to this blog's index page, instead of taking a few moments to check out which FAQ here best addresses the disruptive question and drop a link to that relevant FAQ in the thread. I think it's only fair that when asking people to go and do some homework that a little bit of groundwork gets done by the referrer, otherwise it really does just seem totally dismissive and unhelpful.

It may be hard to avoid seeing questioners you suspect are trolls as worthy of dismissal and unworthy of help in finding the answers, and sometimes you may indeed be right: why bother for "obvious trolls"? But remember, only a small fraction of readers are commenters, and only a small fraction of commenters are trolls. The trolls aren't going to be persuaded, but other commenters and certainly the lurking majority might well be, but only if we feminists are actually persuasive and not just dismissive.

Please consider using the link to the FAQ roundup rather than just the blog alone for questions that seem genuine, or use the link to the "Why was I sent to this blog?" post for someone pouting about their questions not being answered. (I've noticed a couple of people have blogroll links to the FAQ roundup rather than just the FF101 front page, and I think that's an excellent idea, as that's the proper core of the blog.)

Now, the core of the vision, really: think about whether the disruptive questioner actually had the basics of a good discussion starter in the question, if only it hadn't been such a derailer to the discussion already happening. If it was a good question, something that you do actually find interesting or worth addressing separately, then maybe throw up a post which addresses some aspect of what the questioner wanted to know?

That way, if the questioner has actually followed the link here and done some reading, then the questioner gets a chance to be part of a discussion about that without being viewed as a derailer. (Corollary: if it was a really disingenuous question aimed solely at a derailment, maybe a post that dissects exactly why the question was disingenuous, and that indulges in a bit of recreational troll-mockery, might be an equally valid conversation starter). These are the sort of posts that will draw in lurkers to comment who are intimidated by more intermediate/advanced topics, and isn't enticing lurkers to join discussions a big part of the reason for online feminist discussion in the first place?

Obviously, lots of feminist bloggers have no interest in addressing 101 questions at all, and that's a totally valid position. That's another reason this blog exists. If you're a feminist who just doesn't want to deal with introductory stuff ever, I hope you still find this blog valuable for blocking derailments and troll-stopping. But please consider taking the time to find the link to the pertinent FAQ for the disruptive question nonetheless. We may well never win the heart/mind of a single disruptive questioner, but we may well sway swathes of lurkers with just that little bit of effort. We do want to sway some hearts and minds, right?

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Parenting and reproductive freedoms

2007-05-03T14:24:00.000+10:00

Just came across this today:

dreama (Again I Said): of note:parenting controversies edition

dreama has collected some excellent reading (including a post from my co-blogger Lauredhel at my other blog) regarding the ideological and practical struggle against overmedicalised and overcommercialised views of both birth and parenting. Several excellent examples of looking at traditional practises through an evidence-based analysis as well.

When time allows I may well add some of these (or other writings by the same authors) to the Reproductive Freedoms FAQ.

Great resource

2007-05-03T08:52:00.000+10:00

Second Wave and Beyond - I just discovered this while following some other links.

The "Second Wave" and Beyond scholarly community, launched in 2006, is an innovative form of electronic communication and research that brings together feminist thinkers, scholars and activists, to analyze compelling questions about feminist activism and theories, define new directions for historical research on this period, and provide a new venue for publishing traditional articles but also for writing and recording this history in ways made possible by the medium of online publication.

There's several links to lists of recommended reading at their Teaching and Research Resources page, which I'm just about to add to the Recommended Reading post from last week.

Feminism Friday: Roundup

2007-04-28T17:49:00.000+10:00

Unapologetic Female: Feminisms. Plural.

Thinking Girl: The Weaker Sex

RebelGrrl has had a few Feminism Friday posts she didn't let us know about the last few weeks:
Fairy Tale Endings
Vilifying Yoko Ono

Bluemilk hasn't tagged this as Friday Feminism, but I'm going to add it to the roundup anyway: Yummy Mummy, Are You Happy?
(This led me to two of bluemilk's I missed last month - Work and Family - A Very Unequal Marriage and Sorry, is our struggle stifling your productivity?)

Please add other recent Feminism Friday posts, or posts which could have been Feminism Friday posts, in comments.

A New Feminist Festival

2007-04-27T15:20:00.000+10:00

Way down on the sidebar are links to current blog-festivals that feature feminist issues. There's a new one going on the list:

Carnival of Radical Feminists - May 2, 2007 edition

Host blog
¤ Women's Space/The Margins
Scheduled for
¤ May 2, 2007
Submission deadline
¤ Apr 29, 2007 23:59:02 -1200
Description
¤ Carnivals of Radical Feminists will consistently include the best of the previous month's blog posts on topics of interest to radical feminists.

Open Thread: Top 5 Introductory Texts

2007-04-21T14:14:00.000+10:00

Reader A suggested:

I was also interested in book suggestions, but I think that the LibraryThing might be a little too involved (the interface looked a little confusing to me). I think what would be nice would be either a simple, concise list of the five to ten most influential books or essays, or a multi-part series of lists that sort of define the three waves. I don't know, though, since there are so many different kinds of feminism, can most people agree on what those writings are? If not, perhaps there could be an open thread for people to comment with their top five recommended (introductory!) books or essays.

There's a lot of good ideas there, but time demands that here and now FF101 goes with an open thread of top 5 recommended books/essays. A short line or two as to why the recommendation would be good, and would allow later commentors to still recommend the same book but for a different reason/emphasis.

If anyone wants to write up some more detailed book lists as per A's comment, or knows where such a thing might already exist, please leave a link to that in comments too.

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Weekly Online Reader

2007-04-21T13:51:00.000+10:00

I'm going to aim to do this every week, anyway. A roundup of other people's roundups.

Pen-Elayne has a great roundup.

Carnival of the Feminists #36 has been put together by Belledame, and it's a monster:

[ Part One ] [ Part Two ] [ Part Three ]

Please do add other roundups or notable posts from the last few weeks in the comments thread.

Updated to add: May's edition of JANE has put together a comprehensive feature promoting physical and emotional breast health, in response to a reader survey indicating that 75% of their readers were unhappy with their breasts.
Online: “The JANE Guide to Breast Health”

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Feminism Friday: Safety vs. Patriarchal Overprotection

2007-04-20T18:29:00.000+10:00

Reader Justin wrote and asked me for advice on an ethical balance problem, and with his permission I quote his email:

I have a question which has been bothering me for some time, and which may/may not be worth addressing on the site. In any case, its something I don't feel precisely comfortable asking my close friends, but it does bother me. Not that you have any obligation to spend time assuaging my liberal guilt, but worth a try.
. .
I'm a male college student from the Midwest and I've been self-identifying as feminist (or feminist ally) for quite awhile. Through activism and academia, I'm pretty familiar and comfortable with feminist thought. About a year ago, my best friend--who attends another Midwestern college--was raped at knifepoint by two strangers who attacked her as she walked to her dorm one night. As I've attempted to help her work through the fallout of that experience, I've grown very protective (read paranoid) of my female friends. Particularly, I feel like I should refuse to let them walk home by themselves at night, and do my best to convince them to let me
accompany them after parties, etc., which usually isn't a problem.

Still, sometimes I feel a bit patriarchal and condescending, and I recognize that discouraging women from walking at night is a sort of variation on the whole "asking for it" theme, shifting the blame from the victim to the victimizer. My question is, how do I find an ethical balance between protecting my friends from often underestimated dangers, and avoiding stereotype reinforcing paternalism. Obviously, in a sense my personal stake in this issue is minor compared to the actual threat of sexual violence, but I would still like to know how best to handle these situations. . .

Thanks for listening to my ramblings; any thoughts you have would be appreciated, though certainly not demanded. . .

Now, as I mailed back to Justin, I had two immediate responses come to mind.

1. although your protectiveness is noble, as I'm sure you're aware most sexual assaults are date/acquaintance/partner rape, and you can't be there for that. So the utility of your protectiveness is, through no fault of your own, limited.

2. the greater work to be done is challenging sexist attitudes in men around you when women aren't there. It's a long term effort, with no short term fanfares of triumph, but as more and more profeminist men undertake to challenge misogyny it's more likely to make a difference in the end.

Now, while I was waiting for Friday to roll around, Kate Harding posted her terrific essay that I quoted in the FAQ: What Can I Do For Feminism?, which addressed my #2 above.

As to #1, I certainly wouldn't want to minimise the fear, pain and distress of stranger rape, and I don't have the personal experience to back it up, but I'm sure from what I've read of others' experiences that the fear, pain and distress can only be multiplied when the rapist is someone known and trusted, and there's sadly little the Justins of our world can do about untrustworthy deceitful men.

EXCEPT: as said above, don't reinforce their casual misogyny about crazy bitches who are asking for it.

You might not know which of the men around you are untrustworthy deceitful misogynists, but guaranteed that some of them are, and if blokes who would never bully or harm a woman play along with the crazy-bitch jokes just for a laugh, some of those men laughing are getting their misogynistic violence fantasies reinforced by what they perceive as acceptance from other men.

Justin, thanks so much for writing.

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FAQ: What can I do for feminism?

2007-04-19T00:21:00.000+10:00

Object to any speech or action which demeans, constrains and/or harms women, whether you know the women concerned personally or not.

Do not accept that there is a "war between the sexes" and challenge anyone who assumes that there is and that it is natural.

Do not accept that "men just can't help being X" wherever X is something that women are complaining about as demeaning or harmful to women (or gender roles that are constraining, demeaning and harmful to men).

If you are a pro-feminist man, this is especially important, because when you don't object:

"You are missing an opportunity to help stop the bad guys.

You’re missing an opportunity to stop the real misogynists, the fucking sickos, the ones who really, truly hate women just for being women. The ones whose ranks you do not belong to and never would. The ones who might hurt women you love in the future, or might have already.

‘Cause the thing is, you and the guys you hang out with may not really mean anything by it when you talk about crazy bitches and dumb sluts and heh-heh-I’d-hit-that and you just can’t reason with them and you can’t live with ‘em can’t shoot ‘em and she’s obviously only dressed like that because she wants to get laid and if they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen and if they can’t play by the rules they don’t belong here and if they can’t take a little teasing they should quit and heh heh they’re only good for fucking and cleaning and they’re not fit to be leaders and they’re too emotional to run a business and they just want to get their hands on our money and if they’d just stop overreacting and telling themselves they’re victims they’d realize they actually have all the power in this society and white men aren’t even allowed to do anything anymore and and and…

I get that you don’t really mean that shit. I get that you’re just talking out your ass.

But please listen, and please trust me on this one: you have probably, at some point in your life, engaged in that kind of talk with a man who really, truly hates women–to the extent of having beaten and/or raped at least one. And you probably didn’t know which one he was.

And that guy? Thought you were on his side.

As long as we live in a culture where the good guys sometimes sound just like the misogynists, the misogynists are never going to get the message that they are not normal and that most people–strong, successful men included–do not hate women.
Kate Harding: On being a no-name blogger using her real name

What else can we do for feminism?

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FAQ: what do you mean by "Not my Nigel"? (feminist abbreviations/jargon)

2007-04-17T07:07:00.000+10:00

Updated 03May07

Like any other field of debate and controversy, a lot of issues and positions in feminism end up being discussed so often that they are abbreviated for convenience into acronyms, initialisms and shorthand phrases that make up a jargon.

"Not my Nigel" is shorthand for the common reaction of many women to feminist observations and explanations of sexist activity and sexist motivations i.e. "Not my Nigel! He'd never do anything like that" or more invidiously "well sure, my Nigel says/does that but he doesn't mean any harm by it".
(The feminist response is that truly one has no idea what sexist activities one's Nigel engages in when performing manliness to impress other men (you think all those gropers and harassers tell their wives/mothers/sisters what they do?) and that not meaning any harm because "boys will be boys" is exactly the root of the problem.)

Below are a few common abbreviations/jargon terms. There's a more formal academic list of terms at Feminist Lexicon, and you may find some of the differences/distinctions between their entries and this list instructive (for more on differences/distinctions see the Feminisms FAQ).

Descriptive:

first-/second-/third-wave - different periods of feminist activism with different priorities. An Anglo-Americocentric description of feminist history, although largely generalisable.
First wave feminism : the advocacy of basic legal (de jure) equality: suffragists, property inheritance and contractual agency rights. Historically a movement for wives of the propertied classes, but a broader movement today in those countries where women are still denied de jure equality.
Second wave feminism : working for the implementation/enforcement of de jure equalities but also concerned with de facto (unofficial) inequalities: finding the political in the personal and fighting for changes in long-standing sexist prejudices and traditions - socioeconomic equality not just legal equality, and for more than just the propertied classes.
Third wave feminism: a challenge to essentialist views of femininity (as biologically reductive) and feminisms (as homogenously directed) combined with an emphasis on the intersectionality of oppressions.
MRA - male rights activist (an extreme masculinist example)
patriarchy - one of the most misunderstood critical-theory concepts ever, often wilfully misunderstood. Patriarchy is an ancient and ongoing social system based on traditions of elitism (a hierarchy of inferiorities), privilege and the subjugation of women via strict gender expectations which constrain individualist expressions. Some societies are more patriarchal than others, but patriarchal social traditions are universal in human societies. [more in the Patriarchy FAQ]
"the personal is political" - a radical 1960's concept that there is a politics of sex/gender based on power relationships in families, and that describing family power imbalances as "personal" was simply dismissive and condescending. First cited in an essay by Carol Hahnisch in 1970 defending consciousness-raising from charges that it was merely "therapy": Hanisch states "One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time."(the term has since been adopted by other protest movements).
PHMT - Patriarchy Hurts Men Too. Men are also constrained from full individualist expression by strict gender expectations. (Corollary: FBMT - Feminism benefits men too - thanks Helen)
privilege - advantages that some groups have over others in the social hierarchy. Some privileges are situational and temporary (parent over child, employer over employee) and serve a pragmatic social purpose but other privileges are societal and traditional and serve to perpetuate elitism. Some elitist privileges are de jure (e.g. South African racial apartheid, rules against the ordination of women as priests) but most are de facto (informal discrimination against "others" in the workplace, education, financial transactions (e.g. exclusionary "mates' rates") and social recognition/reward). [more in the Male Privilege FAQ]
radfem - radical feminist
rape culture - a constellation of behaviours and attitudes embedded into patriarchal society. These attitudes, socialised from birth and often wielded unconsciously, enable and encourage the subordination of women by maintaining a environment that is pervasively hostile and threatening to women. The behaviours include a spectrum of acts which function to keep women in an object role and perpetuate their fear. They include (but are not limited to) certain aspects of "chivalry", victim-blaming, leering, intimidation, sexual harrassment and coercion, domestic violence, assault and rape. (defn from lauredhel) [more: Biting Beaver]
sex-pos - sex-positive feminist
strawfeminist - a false construction, created to scare people away from the juicy crops of equality, equity and the end of female subjugation (See "strawman fallacy" and our "spot the strawfeminist" category)

Disparaging:

empowerful: used to reveal how sexist marketing appropriates "empowerment" in order to persuade women into yet more sexual displays for male titillation [Twisty's post coining the term]
godbag - religious authoritarian, theocrat (not used to describe tolerant believers who respect the rights of others to make their own choices)
"I'm not a feminist, but" - a common utterance by those who notice and are disturbed by instances of sexism, and totally agree that something should be done to combat such sexism, if only they could argue against such sexism without perhaps being mistaken for one of those humourless, hairylegged, manhating feminists. (i.e. folks who have been intimidated by the strawfeminists(see above)). Often women who disdain feminism while describing the benefits of feminist-earned rights to work, child care, education, vote etc as "basic rights".
“Nice Guys™” - There are two types, which often overlap in one individual:
1.a guy who believes that the simple act of being decent means that the universe owes him a girlfriend.[defn from Mickle]
2. men who are looking to date a woman with the appearance of a supermodel, and yet they continually whine about how "women don't like nice guys - they only want good-looking assholes" [source] [more at the NiceGuy archive at Heartless Bitches International]
pornulated/-acious - extremely sexualised women's fashions, usually uncomfortable and impractical as well as emphasising the vulnerable flesh of female secondary sexual characteristics.
PUA - Pick Up Artist. Sexual predator as serial scorekeeping seducer. [link from theriomorph] The goal of PUA as a sport is to defeat the minds so inconveniently attached to ladybits rather than treat women as people who could enjoy sexual fun together with egalitarian men. A growing movement designed to persuade both men and women that this reduction of gender relations to a hunt for sex is a reasonable and sane model for human interaction.

The list could go on and on, and that's where you, dear readers, come in. Please add more abbreviations/jargon in the comments of terms you've had to explain most often, or requests for explanations of abbreviations/jargonisms that have been puzzling you. (Update: thanks for all the suggestions so far!)

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Feminism Friday

2007-04-14T00:08:00.000+10:00

I haven't managed to come up with a particular Feminism Friday post myself this week. Luckily I came across a couple to recommend:

A specific Feminism Friday post from Erimentha on melding Western feminist theory with Indian feminist action: Here and Now

A serendipitous find - a thoughtful post and thread from an Anabaptist blog on "The Problem with Feminism"

Updated to Add: Feminism and Rape - two posts from Feministe that discuss why rape victims are subject to so much more scrutiny and skepticism than victims of other crimes, and why so many people are comfortable with failing to distinguish between accusations that cannot be proven in court and false accusations from lying women.

The first is a 2003 post from Lauren, written in response to the press about the Kobe Bryant case, relating how she was raped as a teenager and why she didn't tell anyone at the time, much less report it to police.

The second is a post from Jill, in response to the dropping of charges against the three charged men in the Duke rape case. Warning - the thread is already 200+ comments long, and the anti-feminists are out in force.

FAQ: Why are you concentrating on X when Y is so much more important?

2007-04-12T05:59:00.000+10:00

I/we often address Y, but right now we're addressing X. We can and do work on both X and Y, but persuading others and planning productively means concentrating selectively. Besides, working on X and Y seperately but in parallel is more productive for both matters, as they both counter Z (which we both detest, right?) from different directions.

Derailing a discussion of X with demands that others address Y because "it's so much more important" is a very common trolling tactic, and long acknowledged as a cheap rhetorical trick: just another red herring.

If you don't mean to troll, if you are genuinely and adamantly of the opinion that discussing X is a waste of time in light of the importance of Y, then simply disrupting the discussion of others is unlikely to make them sympathetic to your arguments.

Even if you are a fellow-feminist with a different area of emphasis, demanding that your special concern is discussed Right! Now! is disruptive nonetheless, and actively works against feminist solidarity. Are you sure that's what you want to do?

How about you, whether feminist or anti-feminist, instead try this? Write about how much Y matters on your own chunk of cyberspace, and then make a short comment in the discussion-about-X saying "By the way, I'm also hugely concerned with the problem of Y, and I've written about it [here] if you would like to discuss it".

Point made, discussion of X still on track, and very possibly a productive discussion of Y taking place in parallel. Everybody wins, except the trolls.

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FAQ: Why "feminism" and not just "humanism"? Or "equalism"? Isn't saying you're a feminist exclusionary?

2007-04-12T05:19:00.000+10:00

This question implies that one must be either one or the other. People and philosophies are far more complicated than that. A feminist may also be both a humanist and an equalist.

There's no law that says only one box can be ticked here, and it's hugely important not to get sucked into thinking that one choice excludes the others. A major reason that most populist debate in the corporate media (and in online forums too) is a pitiful sham is that way too many questions are argued on an either/or basis, instead of acknowledging the probability of a both/and stance. The either/or method of framing a debate is technically referred to as a "false dilemma" [more], and is one example of a logical fallacy.

As to why feminism requires a distinct agenda within the equalist movements? The special and distinct problem of misogyny both oppressing and directly harming women, pure and simple. Unless misogyny is directly addressed and acted against, general equalist activism will not be enough. [FAQs: Does feminism matter? and Isn't feminism just "victim politics"?]

P.S. It's also a good idea when throwing around the term "humanist" to make sure that one's audience is on the same page about exactly what you mean.

Reading:

Introductory:

Andrea Rubenstein (Official Shrub.com Blog): Why “feminism”?

Colleen Wainwright (Communicatrix): ¡Feminista!

Clarifying Concepts:
More on Either/Or and Feminisms

We’re not either/or thinkers here, but both/and thinkers. I am neither a liberal feminist who supports only attacking power by going after its underpinning through the courts and through legislation nor a radical feminist who wants to address how oppression is lived out in the day-to-day. I’m both. Without focusing on how sexism and heterosexism permeates our very existence, attacks our very way of thinking and our daily existence, it’s far, far easier for people to not care because it’s someone else’s problem. But, as I state firmly in this post, it everyone’s problem.
[Amanda Marcotte, in comments to a Blog Against Heteronormativity post at Pandagon]

Lauren (Faux Real Tho): On Feminism and Attractiveness

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Blog Against Sexual Violence Day

2007-04-11T11:41:00.000+10:00

was April 5, and I missed announcing it here. Hopefully lots of you already found links to it elsewhere, and I'm sure that if there's a post just hanging around inside you waiting to be written that it won't matter if it's a week late.

Click on the image below to go to abyss2hope's blog where she rounds up the posts.

(via)

Some art for the holidays

2007-04-07T11:54:00.000+10:00

Artkrush features Feminist Art

The latest issue of Artkrush, which is available online now, explores contemporary feminist art from around the globe. Artkrush #55 features a survey of the Global Feminisms exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and an in-depth interview with Cornelia Butler, curator or WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. We also profile multimedia artist A.L. Steiner and review a new monograph of provocateur Tracey Emin. The issue includes reviews of exhibitions by Monica Bonvicini and Cerith Wyn Evans as well as a mix of news and other international exhibition reviews.

Check it out at http://www.artkrush.com/mailer/issue55

Thanks to Artkrush Editor Paul Laster for sending me the announcement.

Feminism Friday: a roundup

2007-04-06T15:33:00.000+10:00

A few other bloggers are picking up on this Feminism Friday idea (originally Thinking Girl's idea), which I'm glad to see.

Last week Ilyka (Pandagon) had a cracker on Saying No to Passivity, while there was some good discussion here on Young Feminists and how they find feminist fellowship.

This week Amanda (Pandagon) and I both came up with different looks at compulsory femininity: Amanda took on the common points between headscarves, pushup bras and pantyhose while over at Hoyden About Town I look at how It Starts So Young.

If you decide to join in with a Feminism Friday piece, or if you already have done so in the last few weeks and I missed it, please leave a link in comments.

To mailing list, or not to mailing list?

2007-04-05T17:55:00.000+10:00

On a previous post, it was suggested that some people might find discussions on blogs more difficult to join in than discussions in a Vbulletin or a mailing list format. It made me realise that some folks these days might easily come to blogs as discussion forums without ever having been introduced to good old fashioned mailing lists ever (I've never been into V-bulletins, but I know mailing lists).

One of the advantages of mailing lists is that they are text-only, so that if you are in a region without broadband access you can download the discussions quickly to your email folder. Or for those who'd rather not have the emails on their own computers, if you use a yahoo or gmail address for the mailing list subscription then you can read the mails on the web without having to clutter up your inbox at all. The lists are subscriber only, and moderated, so with little effort they can be kept troll-free.

I'm very happy to set up a FF101 mailing list associated with my personal domain, to which any regular blogger or commentor with a feminist outlook is welcome to subscribe. It could be a useful backup for bloggers in discussing certain thoughts and concerns about interacting and communicating effectively in the more public forums of blogs.

So, I'd like to gauge the level of interest. Anybody?

FAQ: I've got nothing against equal rights for women, but we've got that, so isn't feminism nowadays just going too far ?

2007-04-03T11:02:00.000+10:00

aka "Why do we still need feminism?" (see "Does feminism matter?")

This question is based on several misconceptions.
1. Even if women in your part of the world do have legal equality, what about women elsewhere? Feminists who fight for the rights of other women to have what they already have are justified in doing so.
2. Simple, basic legal equality regarding the right to own property, sign contracts or vote does not always translate into social equality in work, the community or the home. Feminists who point out residual cultural traditions and reactionary business practises that disproportionately disadvantage women are not making it up (see FAQs on Patriarchy, Gender Gap and Objectification).

This FAQ is mostly clarifying-concepts rather than introductory. If you haven't read any of the basic level FAQ posts (See FAQ roundup here) then I suggest you start with some of those before reading these posts.

I've been seeing a lot of "Why we still need feminism" posts around lately. Here's a few I've found powerful. Please add links to other posts on the same theme that I've overlooked in comments.

Natasha Walter (orig. in The Guardian): We Still Need Feminism

The suggestion is constantly put out that women must be "free" to choose their own way of life, even if it is clear that many women whose choices are shaped by discriminatory workplaces and poor childcare provision do not feel very free at all. Indeed, even if few people choose to identify themselves as feminists, it is hard to find a young woman who would not sign up to the feminist goals that are meant to be so outdated, such as being treated equally at work and being able to share family responsibilities with their husbands. But even if the desire for equality remains, it is still unmet.

Rad Geek (Rad Geek People's Daily): Atrocious Dating Violence Against Young Women: We Still Need Feminism

If anyone asks you why we still need an organized, agitating feminist movement, tell them to think of five women they know. Ask them whether they want one of those five women to be tortured by someone she should be able [to] trust. If the answer is no, we still need feminism.

Mr Shakes (Shakesville): Feminism benefits us all

Men need to get it through their heads that they, too, are under the heel of power structures that have no interest in promoting their welfare. They must understand that the rights and privileges that they have hitherto been enjoying fall far short of the privileges they could enjoy were they to try and achieve them. The internecine warfare that occurs between women and men, people of color and white people, straights and gays, as they all squabble like schoolchildren in an attempt to gain or deny rights, is exactly what those in power want.

Aunt B.(Tiny Cat Pants): Remedial Feminism

Does Ivy hate men and want to mock and belittle them at every turn? No.

Ivy wants to be able to walk into McDonald’s and get for her daughter a toy without it turning into a lesson in how either 1. Boys get all the cool toys and girls have to learn how to put up with shit. Or 2. Because you’re a girl, you usually only deserve the girl toy, which sucks, but because someone has pointed out that you are “exceptional,” you might be able to get the boy toy.

See how nothing about this has to do directly with boys? This isn’t an anecdote about boys. No one is suggesting that any boy should have to suffer or put up with a shit toy. There’s nothing in this story directly about boys.

(nb a lot of the attitude of the questioner for this FAQ overlaps with "I'm not a feminist, but...", which is a common utterance by those who notice and are disturbed by instances of sexism, and totally agree that something should be done to combat such sexism, if only they could argue against such sexism without perhaps being mistaken for one of those humourless, hairylegged, manhating feminists)

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