(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

I took The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer down from the shelves today, which I have always meant to read but never have, and I started reading it (I should be reading Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine, but I am not). I was most relieved by this passage, right at the very beginning:

After the ecstasy of direct action, the militant ladies... settled down..., while the main force of their energy filtered away in post-war retrenchments and the revival of frills, corsets and femininity.... Evangelism withered into eccentricity.

The new emphasis is different. The genteel middle-class ladies clamoured for reform, now ungenteel middle-class women are calling for revolution.

Germaine Greer wrote that in 1971, about second-wave feminism. Today, now, everywhere are the post-feminists, women who want equal rights and equal pay but shy away from the word "feminist", roll their eyes at the mention of oppression, insist that just everything is fine, argue happily that women are paid less because they have the children (and that's O.K., because mothers aren't productive and don't deserve to be paid), are enthused about the sexual revolution but missed the part where it said that you shouldn't have to fake it and that it's still O.K. to say, actually, no, I don't want to do that with my body, are happy to beg their boyfriends to fix their computer, don't speak up when they feel uncomfortable, don't say it's not O.K. to say that, don't think female genital mutilation is their problem, don't think the education of women in the third world is their problem, don't think it's part of feminism, don't think it says anything about women today, don't think there's any difference between the way men and women are treated, don't think the media portrayal of women is a problem.

I want, in ten years' time, I want someone to be writing a book about my feminists, the feminists of today, and say that now we are calling for revolution. I know it can happen. I know it needs to. I hope it will.

Comments

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

I'm not afraid of being a feminist, I'm just not comfortable with the associations that I make and other people make with that word-- ie that women are better than men, somehow, to make up for the oppression that women have endured. I don't think that helps anyone. And er, there's something else that bothers me about the term...and something like separating feminists from normal people...but my thoughts aren't quite coherent about that yet.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I'm just not comfortable with the associations that I make and other people make with that word-- ie that women are better than men, somehow, to make up for the oppression that women have endured.

I don't think that word means what people think it means - and how is avoiding using it helping that misunderstanding? Feminism does not imply men-hating or lesbianism or hairy legs (not that there's anything wrong with the second two), and whenever someone fails to use the word because they're afraid of people thinking that, doesn't that just encourage people to think that? Every time I hear someone say "I'm not a feminist because I think men and women should be equal" I want to smack them - there should be more people who say "I AM a feminist because I think men and women should be equal."

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

Erm. I hear you, and I want you to understand that I'm not passive at all about women's rights and social justice for women; but I have my problems with feminism as I've seen it in my mother and stepmother and their friends, and I've discussed it to death in other situations/forums/etc. and I'm sick of defending myself over how I choose to label or not label my own beliefs.

Sorry, slight bitch-out, but this is definitely a agree-to-disagree moment, yes?

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

That's fine, of course, and I don't want you to feel like you have to defend yourself. I'm sorry if I have offended you.

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

No, it's totally fine! I just don't want you to think I'm a terrible person :(