Saturday, June 2, 2007

Feminism Follow-up (Mostly for Thorne)

Ok, so this is mostly for Thorne - I was going to put it in comments, then decided I was lazy and it would be easier to do it in a post. I just wanted to point out a link to this discussion that references the link Thorne pointed out to me in comments. And now I'm going to attempt to do a somewhat more ambitious post on 'evil'... (no relation to this discussion on feminism, by the way, just something I've been thinking about for a while).

3 comments:

Thorne said...

Hmmmm... Where to start?? I'm just getting back in the flow here after a busy week tattooing and babsitting and playing, so I hope you'll forgive my sort of free association flow of thought here! ;)
Maybe I'll start with a comment on the post of a comment and associated commentary! LOL
When I directed you to the post on Alas, I was tripping on the serendipity of coming across it immediately after commenting on your feminism post. I should say (and maybe should have said sooner) that my link and comment asking you to check it out as "food for thought" [paraphrased] was just that. It wasn't a statement of my endorsement of the Hugo blog reposting.
I've been enjoying the dialogue and comments there as food for my wandering mind. I'm an entirely too openminded person, sometimes. I see validity in most of the arguments. They seem to each have some merit, as do the post and comments that you linked to above. But none of them are the definative answer to these questions, IMO. Why are we so obsessed with that crap? Having an answer; a solution; a neat little capsule?
And am I to infer (as you may have from my comment link?!) from your link to this discussion that it speaks to your feelings overall, or just more food for thought?
I think what trips me out is the way on the internet/blogosphere (RL, too, I suppose), people seem to find it necessary to "take a stand", to "have a position" that fits (for them) neatly into the box they have created as their world view, morals or politics.
If you care to wander over to my place, I think there are a couple of relevent posts that might better give you an idea of where I’m comning from. If you have a few minutes, (I do tend to ramble), start here:
2nd Cuppa (or Not Fully Awake) It’s where I use a few issues to explain why I can’t have a black/white view, or “take a stand” on alot of things.
I actually think you and I are alot alike in this, having read your blog a bit now... What think you??

And my attempts to reexamine feminism and inclusiveness around the FFF/WOC bruhaha:

Humpday get over it post




I feel much the same way about men having a voice as I do WOC, “homemakers” by choice, women in the skintrade, and other “mainstream” feminism outcasts having a voice. Nonetheless, my personal experience has been that when most men begin a sentance with, “I probably shouldn’t say this, but...” or, “okay now don’t kick my ass, but...” they tend to follow it up with some sort of sexist crap. Many people who don’t consider themselves racist start off racist generalizations with that kind of stuff too. I have been known to do it myself. I have alot of male friends, and I love men. Still I occasionally find myself making generalizations or sexist remarks, and because I am a feminist, I feel the need to somehow apologize for this in advance. I’ll say, “you know I love you, but...”, or I know all men aren’t like this but...”. My fear isn’t that there is some lurking violence, rather that if I come at you with a feminist thought, being a woman, an outspoken and strong woman even during my wonderful marriage of 10 years to my “soulmale” (who died in ‘98), and a lesbian, that you (non feminist men and women) will dismiss me as a “man hater” or a “ball busting bitch”. It’s just as difficult to try to tell a mainstream feminist that a woman’s rights over her own body include prostitution and skin trade, without being dismissed as somehow “less - than”, because I don’t embrace the gamut of accepted feminist thinking.
I am always interested in language, commuinication and dialogue. I feel that alot of the subterfuge we use is bullshit. I call myself on it, too! LOL.
I suppose what I’m thinking is that we would all be better served by saying what we mean, rather than using these sort of implied communications. I know get that you expected to get some flack from your post and decided to lighten it up a bit; to at least let folks know that you were aware that your thoughts might seem provocative to some.

My point on this sort of communication is more along the lines of: shouldn’t we try to look at it from the perspective of self awareness? Shouldn’t we all consider what we mean, and how it might be perceived when we use mechanisms like this??
Does this make sense??
Ummm.... okay. I’m off to the original post because I can’t really recall exactly were we were going with that one.

DBB said...

I've gotta go make dinner and get baby from day care and other fun things, so I'll write more later - just wanted to say that I mostly linked as food for thought - as in, I saw the post, and immediately thought of you, since you pointed out the original post to me, so thought I'd share...

... more later.

DBB said...

Ok, Thorne, I read your links - interesting posts! Long and rambling (somewhat), but then, I think that allows more freedom of thought - I like to ramble. Why put a box around your thoughts when they are forming?

As I said in the comments on the main thread, I added the caption more as an afterthought. Obviously, it was a provocative post, though I wanted to soften that so that any 'provocation' doesn't overhwhelm actually talking about the ideas therein. I even considered taking the caption out after you pointed it out, but then decided, no, it is there, and I don't like to re-edit things like that - I said what I said - the record is what it is.

But since you've pointed it out to me, I can say that I would not have included the caption had I thought about it at the time.

I have a bit more I could say but I'll save it for that other post - I probably said most of it already there anyway, but now some new things have crystalized in my mind...