Pat Robertson is a leader of the religious right who owns and runs wonderful institutions such as the American Center for Law and Justice (because no one can argue against law and justice) and International Family Entertainment. He's also known for being a biggot, like the time in 1999 when he described Scotland as "a dark land" teeming with homosexuals. Actually, I think that's kind of funny. And while all men hate feminism we're not stupid enough to say it's a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." No, we just say that to each other when none of our bitches are around.RATING: 3%
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I can't wait to have some children so I can kill them.
Risqué. "Bigot" only needs one g, although maybe a you're talking about a really big bigot.
Can anyone name a single female they know who doesn't consider herself a feminist?
Sorry, ladies. I ain't mad at cha. I had to read Speculum of the Other Woman a few years ago, and it turned me into Norman Mailer.
I won't call myself a feminist. I took two too many women studies courses during my undergrad and they made me SO mad!
Don't get me wrong, I want equality for women, and all that jazz, I just hate that when a woman has a choice to make, if she chooses against the feminist perspective she is brainwashed and not really making her own choice at all.
You can't have it both ways, feminists!
Just for the record, I'm not looking to be pregnant my whole life and financially supported by my husband. I'm not looking to be a CEO, either. I like to think I fall somewhere between those two stereotypes, like Martha Stewart.
I know lots of women, including many in graduate school, who argue that they aren't feminists. Then I also know the managing editor of a major feminist journal, and I could say a word or two about what she perceives to be feminism but in the spirit of love and acceptance I probably shouldn't.
Yeah I also know a bunch of women who are soquick to assure people that they're "not a feminist," as if being a feminist would make guys not want to date them. It just always seemed so sad to me. "No, I'm not interested in equality for women, don't worry! I'll let you walk all over me." My ex also used to say nasty things about feminists and now he has like a six-year-old son and a stagnant, low-paying career BAM karma.
Marfa Stewart is one cold fish.
At the risk of not being funny, I would humbly assert that you don't have to agree with feminism to support equality for women. I think that's probably the second most damaging myth perpetuated by feminism, after the one Robyn just mentioned re: patriarchal brainwashing.
*snare hit*
@John: I think that problem with saying something like "you don't have to agree with feminism" is that feminism has been around for a long damn time and has been through several different movements so it's almost impossible to know what it even means to be a feminist. And sadly there are a lot of meanie feminist types out there ruining it for those of us who just want you know, equal rights and pay and shit. So yeah, I'm a feminist, and proudly so, but I'm not a man hating nutcase who hates sex. (Ok so I do hate men a little, but I try not to.)
@Laurie. Yeah, that seems to be my issue, too. If being a feminist constitutes a belief in equal rights among sexes, then sure, who isn't a feminist? Although the term, in that case, is in and of itself contradictory. For instance, I once told a professor--a female--that I was interested in how masculinity plays itself out in late twentieth century American fiction, and she said (and I'm not even joking), "You know, that's a really hot topic right now in Feminist Studies."
I guess when I think of feminism I think of a particular literary critical movement starting with (debatable) Hélène Cixous and moving from there. The question of equal rights among the sexes (in a non-theorhetical, real-world sense) seems a completely different matter.
Oh, well. Back to grading girls' papers lowrr than guys'.
What I should have said is that it's possible to support women's issues and not be a feminist. Much of current feminist thinking tends to discount people's individual intentions for a more symptomatic, systemic account of the meaning of their actions. Therefore, saying you're against sexism and trying to act as if you're against sexism doesn't mean squat if, say, you're a man. Or even if Virginia Woolf made it clear that she did not want to be labeled a feminist, she was still a feminist. I generally disagree with this practice and find it coercive and opportunistic.
I support equal rights for women, birth control, abortion, and many other women's causes, and I think it's perfectly possible to support most of the women's issues that feminism is quick to take credit for without also endorsing its characteristically excruciating complex of double bind arguments, its erroneous ideas regarding the science of human nature, its tendency to reduce everything to ideology and grasping power politics, and its backstabbing, bitchy factionalism.
Holy fucking TLDR. Isn't this what Glenn was talking about yesterday?
Here's a joke:
What's the difference between a dead baby and a trampoline?
When you jump on a trampoline, you take your boots off.
@Chris.
Brackets? Well?
Actually, I can't say all feminists don't understand human nature. There are feminist primatologists, feminist evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists like Sandra Hrdy, etc., but they're a small minority, and they often face fierce opposition from other, more orthodox feminists.
Insofar as anyone understands human nature, i mean.
God, talk about mangina. John knows way more about feminism than I do.
@John: I don't think any reasonable feminist (and there are unreasonable feminists, of course, like there are unreasonable everythings) would say that "saying you're against sexism and trying to act as if you're against sexism doesn't mean squat if, say, you're a man."
I say this as one of those "discounting people's individual intentions for a more symptomatic, systemic account of the meaning of their actions" types. But for me, that means, more, I'm not as interested in intentions as in effects. If everyone's intending to be super unsexist but equally qualified women keep getting passed over for jobs in favor of men, for instance, I'm more interested in the effect and how to fix it than the intention.
It's problematic to say that "feminism" "does" or "says" any particular thing, because feminism has such a long history and such a lot of factions that it's kind of like saying "Christians" do or say X, Y, or Z. Actual, Christians at least tend to have certain articles of faith (Jeebus) in common and a tendency to meet up with other Christians once a week, so they may be more monolithic than feminists, even in light of Unitarians and Southern Baptists somehow being in the same box.
Well put, Shoppista!
Sorry--my saying "feminism does X" is really just a convenient shorthand for "many feminists, in my experience, much of the time, do X". Although I find many feminists, in my experience, much of the time only play the "heterogeneous discourse" card when they're talking about aspects of feminism they don't like or that they disagree with themselves. Feminism can be quite monolithic when it comes to taking credit for everything good women have done for the human race, especially since the dawn of modernity.
The "genetic fallacy" (in this case, it's sexist because a man said/did it), IME, is something many normally reasonable feminists keep it up their sleeves as a last resort, because one can automatically undermine an argument, in a cheap but effective way, if one suggests that its originator is speaking from a position of structural privilege.
But I really want to talk about the Scottish joke.
Feminist or not, I think we can all agree that the WNBA is sooo bad. Am I wrong? I mean, was that like totally insensitive?
You gotta stop meeting the wrong feminists, John.
Can you say more about this: "Feminism can be quite monolithic when it comes to taking credit for everything good women have done for the human race, especially since the dawn of modernity"?
Do you mean feminists taking credit for advances for women (voting, etc)? Because if so, that was mostly feminists doing that work. Or do you mean something else?
Yes, feminists did a lot of the work. But women did more of it. Anyway, I'm not saying feminists who've worked hard and made sacrifices don't deserve lots of credit--they do! I am saying that I'm still not convinced by many of feminism's standard arguments, especially those of its post-'68 academic strain.
Good people are good people--feminists, non-feminists, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, librarians, etc.
Let's continue this conversation some other time. I normally really like talking about this stuff, but I just found out my uncle died last week.
Man. I'm sorry, John. Please accept my condolences.
Well, fuck Arizona. I almost put them through to the Sweet 16, but I didn't.
I also had FSU in the Sweet 16, but apparently they suck. What's new, right?
How is your bracket going?
My bracket is doing better than I thought. I have the same problem. I put FSU through, and now they screwed you. I guess I learned my lesson: don't trust anything or anyone associated with FSU. They'll always let you down.
I have Duke going to the Final Four, but I think that's about the blow up; Villanova is going to destroy them.
re: FSU: screwed me, not you.
As an R3-sanctioned representative of FSU (or is it the other way around?), I agree that FSU will let you down. The longer you stay in Tallahassee, the more of your soul melts.
And no, not just because of sports fiascos and rapes.
I like Tallahassee. I mean, I wouldn't want to live there again, but it's a nice little college town.
im a feninists
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