This blog has moved. Please click to follow.
And yet, there seem to be women that identify as feminists that no longer seem welcome at many of the feminist blogs I read.
Women like Daphne Patai, Wendy McElroy, Karen DeCrow, Cathy Young. Some of these feminists critique feminism by saying, and this is my paraphrase, that it is not reality based and not accepting of course correcting feedback.
Can you discuss this?
That's a good question, but I think you've moved well beyond introductory and even clarifying-concepts material there and well into extra-credit territory.
My 101 level answer to that is that the women you mention seem to be almost entirely focussed on Arena 1 (Work/Family) as a Western sexual equality success story, often only mentioning Arena 2 (Sexuality and Health) or Arena 3 (Social Justice) in passing or in order to argue against aspects of sexual liberation or against class-race analysis in feminist theory. Thus they have little to offer to feminists who have a less restricted focus, and who think besides that there is still much to do in the Work/Family arena.
I'll keep an eye out for some posts addressing this issue.
Student, the people you're naming aren't feminists. Maintainers, if you're going to cite Nubian, you bloody well better cite me, too, because she's been misquoting me for quite some damned time.
ginmar, why aren't they feminists? interested in your take, since they "identify" as such.
I should have expected that a post about fighting feminists would bring out the combative streaks.
ginmar, I'm perfectly happy to cite a post of yours as a counterbalance. If posting either/both of you is going to bring your ongoing feud here, however, I'll probably end up deleting links to posts from either of you discussing this matter.
student, it seems to many of us that the people you mention are actually anti-feminists in feminist clothing. essentially they say they care about equality in the workplace, and that we've already gotten there; and that all the other stuff is not important because the sex-differences there are meant to be. frequently they dismiss feminist concerns about sexual harrassment, about women being forced out of their careers and back into the home, or about date-rape, saying that these things are not about equality and are oppressive to MEN. it's frustrating for these women to call themselves feminists because it seems like they're just trying to dismantle what many of us think are legitimate equality-related concerns "from the inside".
Audre Lord is always a good place to start with the race/gender/identity as is Patricia Hill Collins. However I suppose these do not help the immediate blog as they aren't really obtainable on the internet. I shall have to peruse the internet more. I'm looking for some more about this, actually...specifically in regards to Asian American women...I don't suppose you know anything?
cheers
No fighting from me (but check with me later!). Just wanted to say that Yolanda Carrington wrote something a few days ago that I think might fit here:
http://www.genderracepower.com/?p=228
I especially liked this triad:
9. All human beings are equal. Men and women are not equal.
10. All human beings are equal. White people and people of color are not equal.
11. All human beings are equal. The rich and the poor are not equal.
Most of the items relate to race, but as with #9 above, there's some overlap with regard to feminism--and I'm of the mind that oppressions interlock and overlap anyway.
tigtog,
the feud section should have alot of other blog wars like the second wave vs. third wave, prude vs. sex-pos, patriarchal, feminine aethetics vs. feminist aesthetics (make up vs. no make up). i'm kinda upset you would highlight race as the primary feud. the other blog wars were much bigger.
stephanie,
you might be interested in spivak, mohanty and le espiritu.
Thanks, Ilyka. That's very powerful, now I just have to work out the best place to add it to.
I'm with you on the intersectionality of oppression - to me it's the only way I can really make sense of how it all fits together.
Donna Darko, I totally agree with you, that's why I asked for suggestions! I'd love to have posts that powerfully represent stances in other feuds as well, but I'm just one person here, and this is a work in progress.
It's not actually that helpful to criticise me for not having posts of the sort you want without offering even one link that fills the gap just a little bit.
BTW, I did notice a post from Witchywoo and a post from Renegade Evolution over the weekend that I thought might fit the bill for the anti-porn/sex-pos split, but I don't want to add posts to the actual FAQs unless they absolutely seem to be the ones to fill the gaps.
Any suggestions for posts that might better fit for an introductory audience?
OK, I added links to wikipedia articles on the biggest feminist conflicts before the links to any posts. You're quite right that the way it was laid out overemphasised the race issue, and I hope this revision rectifies that. Or at least makes the race posts stick out less like sore thumbs until I get some more posts on the other wars up.
(The main reason I haven't added Twisty's femininity and anti-sex-pos explosions is that those posts and threads are far from introductory material).
You're right, you asked us first about suggestions. My bad.
No biggie, Donna. Thanks for coming back.
There were a lot of anti-essentialist second-wavers.
Having "second wave essentialism" link to "second wave" is confusing and unhelpful. It should link to the (not-yet-written?) entry on *essentialism*.
Well spotted, Nathanael. I think I may have cut and pasted the wrong link there.
Nathanael: I've now separated "second wave" from "essentialism" with each linked to separate articles, and done the same for "third-wave" and "post-structuralism". Thanks!
Commenting by HaloScan
