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Warning: Wretched amounts of jargon will have to be used in this post.
I usually regret opening my mouth like this, but I can’t take it anymore. This Linda Hirshman article is still being dissected in listservs and on blogs, and I just have to make it known in a public way that I do not appreciate being dragged into this as an example of the supposed failures of the intersectional approach to feminism. For the record, this article by Shireen Mitchell and Adele Stan sums up my opinion on the Hirshman article. I’ll add, and return to this point in a minute, that the idea that you can somehow separate feminist ideas from other philosophies, ideologies, ideas, lens, or whatever other words in that vein you’d like to use makes no sense to me. Hirshman’s feminism is rooted in her other philosophical ideas, and so is everyone else’s view of feminism.
Anyhow, the offending passage (at hand, there are many, but other bloggers got it on that front):
Participant and blogger Brownfemipower accused participant and blogger Amanda Marcotte, who wrote an article on immigration after the conference, of not coming up “with all these ideas on her own,” and a supportive commenter on her blog, high on rebellion, put the accusation into the broad context of it being “all too easy for white women to get away with stealing the ideas of women of colour.”
A movement that uses intersectionality as a lens but banishes white, bourgeois, corporate older women might be a vehicle to glue what remains of feminism together, but it will struggle to achieve social change for women.
Like Shireen and Adele said, there’s no reason to think anyone is getting banished. I certainly didn’t get “banished”. I don’t even know what someone could banish me from. I’m still here, as you can see. This isn’t the 70s, where people have these tight-knit feminist movement groups where you can drum someone out by trashing them. The beauty of the blogosphere is that it’s not an organized thing, but a free-form entity where people can come and go as they please. Similarly, there are so many organizations out there that you can pretty much shop around for something to give your allegiance to. Or more than one! Mix and match.
I feel like I’ve been drafted to be a representative “victim” of intersectionality, which implies---wrongly---that I’m opposed to the viewpoint. I feel like it could give people the wrong impression about my views on this subject. In my eyes, the entire argument Hirshman references was not about intersectionality as a valid idea at all. There was no disagreement there, even by said commenter or anyone else. What is not disputed is that I wrote the original article because I agree with intersectionality, and was trying, perhaps clumsily but earnestly, to apply the ideas to my own work. Maybe Hirshman is holding me out as a fool for that, saying if I’d kept to the feminist circle she proposes, I wouldn’t get smacked like that. If I am a fool, it’s because I didn’t anticipate the internal politics of blogging, but it’s not a comment on whether or not intersectionality is a legitimate lens to view things through. Hirshman, contrary to what you might think, didn’t actually call me or let me know this was going to be in the story, so I can’t know exactly what she’s getting at with this example.
I bring this up not to get into ugly discussions about myself or anyone else. I bring it up because I think the misunderstanding that characterizes so many debates about feminism is that there’s a feminist “movement”. Movements generally organize around specific goals, and so there’s been an abortion rights movement, a welfare rights movement, a movement against violence against women, an equal pay movement, etc., and various people attach themselves to these different movements at different times. Movements organized around specific goals have the benefits of being more effective than some general, ill-defined movement, but also because you can create coalitions between people that might differ on some ideas, but not on this particular one. I’ve fallen for the fallacy that there’s a feminism movement, and it’s done me no good and why I came to this realization: Feminism is an idea, not a movement.
It’s really a very simple idea, the idea that men and women are equals and should be treated as equals. How you interpret that is always going to be dependent on your other beliefs, interests, and ideas. In fact, I’d argue that without a grounding in other frameworks, feminism is kind of meaningless because there’s no way to interpret it. I tend to think of feminism as a secular humanist idea, and my idea of what secular humanism is tends to drive my idea of what feminism is. And secular humanism, being humanist, is broadly egalitarian and democratic. Which means that intersectionality is pretty much inseparable from feminism.
Seriously, I’m baffled at the idea that you can water down feminism by bringing that idea into the mix with other ideas. As regular readers are no doubt aware, I’m a pretty solid and pissy atheist, and the reason for being that way is my feminist views. Religion would probably be merely irritating to me if I wasn’t a feminist, but since I bring feminism to the table, I’ve had a much more clear view of how religion functions as a way to justify sexism and misogyny, because rationality isn’t going to get the job done. Is my atheism watered down by feminism? I like to think it’s strengthened. And I think intersectionallity strengthens feminism. Because feminism is about ideas. We generate ideas and the ideas sometimes become specific movements that tackle specific goals. One goal might be electing a female President, but another goal might be ensuring equal access to reproductive care, a goal that is much harder to reach without bringing intersectional analysis to the table. To me, a goal is strengthening the separation of church and state and loosening the hold that sexist churches have on female parishioners. Other feminists might not be on board with that goal, but that’s okay, because I can line myself up with other atheists working on that goal, and maybe enlighten them to the sexual politics of religion that they might not have been aware of. See how this works? I sometimes think the attachment to the idea of “movement” is rooted in nostalgia for the 60s. Movements aren’t bad, of course, but movements are about goals. People attach themselves to the idea of movement, when they’d be better served looking towards goals.
Articles like Hirshman’s aren’t helpful. They tend to just sow seeds of discontent, and make people suspicious of one another when they don’t need to be.
And please, comments on the article and the ideas in the post. This isn’t a place to rehash gossip.
that article made me want to spit fire. her whole premise was absurd and completely rooted in her own middle class white privilege. i like your point that feminism is an idea, not a movement. i hadn’t thought of it in those terms before, but that type of thinking makes me feel alot better about the irritation im having toward a fair share of prominent second wavers lately.
Seriously. No one talks about the liberal movement or the humanist movement. Can’t feminism move into that prestigious club?
She is a professor of philo? Whew, sloppy thinking.
I resent the way Hirshman validates the conservative canard that feminism is just a bunch of privileged white women looking out for themselves. It’s not true now, and it has never been true on a philosophical level. Since when have equal pay, domestic violence, childcare, or reproductive rights been the exclusive concerns of rich white women?
It sounds like Hirshman’s blaming black feminists and young intersectional whippersnappers for abandoning Hillary Clinton. Again… Her whole schtick is that feminism needs to get back to “basics.” Hirshman’s proposed “basic” was that women should back Hillary Clinton because Hillary was the female candidate. To Hirshman, it’s obvious that the best way to advance the interests of women is to push already-powerful women into positions of greater power.
This isn’t the first time that Hirshman has blamed whipppersnappers and black women for betraying feminism by supporting Obama. Her maxim is that women ought to vote their gender instead of their race. White women who disproportionately supported Hillary as a group were doing the feminist thing, according the Hirshman’s various WaPo writings.
Black women, who broke for Obama, were doing the wrong thing and undermining feminism. Young college educated women with the taint of intersectionality upon them also broke for Obama, and thereby incurred Hirshman’s wrath.
bwahaha, feminism, move into a prestigious club? no way, it has a (stage whisper) vagina.
<i>A movement that uses intersectionality as a lens but banishes white, bourgeois, corporate older women might be a vehicle to glue what remains of feminism together, but it will struggle to achieve social change for women.<i>
Herein lies the problem: like certain WOC bloggers of the world, these Harriets and Geraldines have NOT been excluded or “banished” from the feminist movement.
They have chosen to throw tantrums over their inability to dominate discourse with their own personal subgroup issues, and stomped off.
It may make them feel better to self-segregate and commiserate amongst themselves, but it isn’t effective activism.
I’ve fallen for the fallacy that there’s a feminism movement, and it’s done me no good and why I came to this realization: Feminism is an idea, not a movement.
So what exactly qualifies as a movement, then?
intersectionality is pretty much inseparable from feminism
That seems contradictory to what you wrote above, though. Feminism to you is an idea, not a movement; it’s part of a movement for equality. But then the question is, equality for whom? On what basis? Most of us here extend it across racial lines and gender and class lines; some extend it across species lines. Some limit rights based on age, or criminal status, or nationality, and the rights so limited vary from view to view.
I fear there is a hint here of buying into the premise of the concern troll, “Why aren’t you doing more for $FOO instead of critiquing the sexist media from your cushy chair?”
But it is also clear that, to be a feminist of conscience, we must always be aware of other forms of injustice.
Fortunately there is more than one feminist. So some of us can work on feminist issues, some can work on racial issues, some on criminal justice, some on children’s issues, immigration, poverty, war, and everything else. And any of us can divide our time among these issues, and let one inform the other, so that when a poverty worker points out to a feminist that poor women are not represented *here*, or a criminal justice worker points out to a racial issues person that convicts are ill-represented *there*, all our movements are enriched.
Seventies feminists seem to have enacted a kind of separatism from other movements because they discovered from long unpleasant experience that they were expected to work to support other causes without getting anything in return. Women are, after all, the workers behind the scenes, the ones making coffee and typing things and making phone calls while the leaders lead. That set a bad precedent, but an understandable one.
In short, there must be a Feminist movement, or else accusations that it’s been leaving race and class issues out of its agenda make no sense.
white, bourgeois, corporate older women
don’t they already have groups to network in, like the D.A.R and whatnot?
i cant help that my feminism doesnt match theirs, theyve got healthcare and straight teeth and if mccain is elected and scotus overturns roe they can still get abortions. if he continues no child left behind their kids can still get quality education, if he outsources all the working class jobs their kids can still eat. they can pay their mortgages and arent drowning in student loans. their baby daddies arent in prison or unemployed or dying in iraq.
i cant help but think there are much more pressing issues right now than electing one incredibly wealthy white woman as potus. and i kno feminists get sick of hearing “why are you focusing on x when y is so much more important” but i think thats valid when x is one specific thing and y is a fucking terrifing myriad of problems, a myriad of problems that effects a whole mass of women, not just a privileged few.
i’m proud of clinton, her concession spech made me teary eyed and i do believe she helped to crack the highest glass ceiling in the land and i’m positive yes i will see a female president in my lifetime, i just have different priorities right now. if to hirschman that means im not a good feminist, well she can laser off my womens lib fist tattoo herself.
Well, I guess Hirshman’s position would make sense if people were ONLY women and nothing else. Of course, that’s easy for her--her economic position and her race sheild her nicely from other forms of oppression.
If middle and upper class white women want to advocate for issues that impact them personally, then that’s fine, but it’s stupid to ask other women to ignore other forms of oppression just to rally around the causes that she wants to advance.
This is the useful definition to me: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” It is not limited to a small section of the lefty-righty spectrum. There is no Everywoman candidate that will cause women to rise as one to vote for her. Or if there is, she is not Hillary Rodham Clinton. As I see it, HRC got the votes of the women who identified with her. To get voters beyond this natural consistency, she needed to reach out to them, instead of taking their votes for granted. It suddenly occurs to me that perhaps younger women resented her pulling Chelsea out of work to make appearances for her.
man it’s hot in here and I’m ready for a nap, “this natural CONSTITUENCY”
“Nor did they. In the end, although Clinton won more women’s votes overall than Barack Obama, the gap—9 percent across states with exit polls—wasn’t huge. African American women went for Obama by a five to one margin. Feminist activists split between the rival camps, exchanging manifestos. The Democratic women’s vote splintered, and the candidate with the most male votes won.”
I don’t know what kind of “movement”, let alone political movement, Hirshman is talking about. But right there, I can say if what Hirshman is thinking “feminism” as political goal, she just screwed up big time by alienating a huge chunk of electorate base. She basically cutting out huge group of potential supporters by saying “either or”.
So instead of learning to appeal and include wider supporters, she is doing finger pointing by saying one huge group is being disloyal.
It’s classic “political” purging, I’d say.
I would venture to say that most of us feminists aren’t really “movement” types. We’re far too messy a group: we fight, we disagree, we sometimes don’t treat each other so well, but we are united by the simple (and as Amanda says) humanist idea that universal equality is more important than any movement can be. Movements come and go, and change with the times, but I would say that the idea of radical, fundamental egalitarianism---the hallmark of feminism---is timeless. Feminist humanism is a universal idea, whether you are a person of color, a Crisco-colored honky (like me---I sunburn under incandescent lamps), a man, a woman, LGBT, straight’n’boring, etc.
I guess there’s nothing new in what I’m saying, but I just want to support Amanda’s thesis here.
Participant and blogger Brownfemipower accused participant and blogger Amanda Marcotte…
Not accurate. Corrected as follows:
Participant and blogger Mostlyprimarycoloursanddisinclinedtoearthtonesorpatternedshirtsfemipower accused participant and blogger Amanda Marcotte…
Joanne, I think most of your questions are answered with this passage from Amanda’s post:
Movements generally organize around specific goals, and so there’s been an abortion rights movement, a welfare rights movement, a movement against violence against women, an equal pay movement, etc., and various people attach themselves to these different movements at different times. Movements organized around specific goals have the benefits of being more effective than some general, ill-defined movement, but also because you can create coalitions between people that might differ on some ideas, but not on this particular one.
Feminism is, as many have said “the radical idea that woman are people”, or as Amanda defines it above, “the idea that men and women are equals and should be treated as equals.”
So, for instance, you have all these various movements, out in the world of liberalism or the left end of politics. Let’s take, for example, the welfare rights movement. A lot of leftists using different approaches can all come together ("intersect", if you will) to work towards welfare rights. You have the feminists, obviously, who want women’s work to be fairly compensated, even if that work is housework, childcare, and other kinds of invisible work that somehow magically doesn’t count as “work”. You would also obviously have people coming from a class-oriented approach, who want the poor to have access to the same basic needs and rights and even comforts that currently come attached to material wealth in our society. Additionally, you could have anti-racist and civil rights oriented folks, because class and welfare intersects with their philosophies as well. All these people, seeing the world through different frameworks, falling under different liberal/leftist rubrics, can come together to make a movement, and that movement can have a set of concrete goals and paths and strategies that can realize those goals.
“Feminism” is really just one of the many rubrics or approaches through which you can come into a movement. One idea amongst many. And yes, obviously, a person can hold as many of those different approaches/ideas at the same time as is natural for them. This is intersectionality. The idea that I can be feminist and anti-racist and queer-inclusive (for example), all at the same time, and apply all of those frameworks to the movements I make myself a part of, whether that’s reproductive justice, gay rights, or whatever.
Whew, that was a little long winded. I hope it made a little bit of sense…
Herein lies the problem: like certain WOC bloggers of the world, these Harriets and Geraldines have NOT been excluded or “banished” from the feminist movement.
They have chosen to throw tantrums over their inability to dominate discourse with their own personal subgroup issues, and stomped off.
It may make them feel better to self-segregate and commiserate amongst themselves, but it isn’t effective activism.
I don’t think this is an accurate, fair, or helpful characterization of the complaints of invisibility from WOC bloggers. During the perennial “where are all the women bloggers?” conferences, the same kind of charges were levied against the self-segregating women bloggers who just weren’t popular enough to compete with the big boys.
It’s bunk, of course. Quality and regularity of posts count for a lot in maintaining a successful blog, but they’re not everything, and I’m skeptical that they’re most of what accounts for becoming successful in the first place. Blogging success, like employment success, is heavily driven by social networking. When WOC bloggers’ work isn’t talked about, that success is made more difficult.
Rather than complaining that WOC bloggers are throwing tantrums for the failure of their subgroup issues to dominate the discourse (though how white, straight, religious, male discourse is not a dominating subgroup I don’t know), it’d be better to ask what could be done to address WOC bloggers’ complaints.
I always thought “intersectionality” was more of a tool of study than a course of action. Then again, I was an English major.
dear mr zimmerman who i am almost 100% certain is not the real bob dylan as the real bob dylan isnt a tool,
nobody was proven anything in the duke case, it never went to trial.
more importantly, if you dislike amanda so much, why are you here? have you considered taking up a fucking hobby?
oh, and i assume you to be a kool-aid drinking 20%er, which makes me seriously question your ability to refer to anyone else as a fringe movement.
Oooh, my favorite little trollie-troll is back! How ya doin’, Bob? I heard rumors you were lurking around again. The stench of the upcoming election must have drawn you out.
Thom, do you know what happens when people like Amanda try to include people like this?
They are bullied and attacked because “you can’t possibly get it” or “you can’t hijack MY issues and say white women have similar concerns” etc. Their sympathizers become a save place to vent anger through abuse, and then are further abused when they turn away from the bullshit.
I’m not talking about all of the WOC blogs because that would be unfair. But I have seen the same “I’m marginalized if I don’t get to take over the playground” arguments rip apart progressive political groups, green groups, etc. If people want to join into the larger movement, fine. If they want to piss on the party because they don’t get to run it, they need to go start their own revolution with their 5 or 10 percent and be happy.
“I have watched with amusement as Amanda Marcotte repeatedly takes it in the ass by the same people she perports to support. I believe she did her best, but it demonstrates the infighting, backbiting of these fringe movements. That coupled with the subjective nature of the political correctness that rules their lives makes for interesting times.”
I seem to recall that the most virulent and troubling attacks on Amanda and her book cover (and her alleged plagiarism) (and her plot to enslave WOC) were *not* hurled by women of color.
The vast majority of backbiting comments was hurled by them Margaret B. Jones beeyatches who grew up in the ghetto of their mind, learnin’ to talk sheet about other white people who do things (such as blog or publish books) they can’t seem to muster up the courage to do.
BTW Thom, next time read more carefully: there is a difference between the phrase “CERTAIN WOC bloggers ...” and the phrase “WOC bloggers”. There is a difference between saying “CERTAIN supporters of HRC” and “all people who supported HRC”, etc.
They are bullied and attacked because “you can’t possibly get it” or “you can’t hijack MY issues and say white women have similar concerns” etc. Their sympathizers become a save place to vent anger through abuse, and then are further abused when they turn away from the bullshit.
Actually, what’s really ironic is that 9 times out of 10, the people screaming loudest in the comments about how horrible it all is usually admit that they’re white about halfway through the argument. So they’re complaining about people speaking on behalf of WOC by ... speaking on behalf of WOC.
Honestly, I think it’s the “supporters” who manage to cause most of the trouble, not the bloggers themselves. Brownfemipower did have a legitimate issue that needed to be discussed, but it got swept up into an entire bullshit argument about plagiarism when (IIRC) that wasn’t even what her complaint was in the first place.
Ignoring the troll: seriously, jess, the “they weren’t proven innocent” line is not a good one. The prosecutor was disbarred for hiding exculpatory DNA evidence. The case very quickly turned out to have no merit, and should have been dropped, if brought at all. It was staggeringly unethical prosecutorial misconduct. That much *was* proven in the disbarment proceedings.
None of that is to say that the Duke players are good people, or that their myriad defenders are pure of heart. They aren’t. Most disturbing to me was that the very serious problems with the criminal justice system became a cause celebre of the right only when and to the extent that those problems affected relatively wealthy white kids. Folks like Kathleen Parker don’t really care about criminal justice reform, or she’d have been upset about the large-scale miscarriage of justice that is the underfunding of public defender offices, police corruption, and so on. That selective outrage is itself part of the problem, but papering over that corruption when it hits people who we (even rightfully) don’t like by making arguments that sound like the “well, they must have done something” defenses of the status quo only makes it harder for people actually doing reform work to accomplish their goals.
Oh, geez, I think I just went to the gossip well.
Sorry. I’ll leave it alone from here on out.
Honestly, I think it’s the “supporters” who manage to cause most of the trouble, not the bloggers themselves.
Good point. However, the bullying was not a constructive use of anger or even indignation. The simple fact is that there will always be “supporters” and “activists” who are extremely self-serving or entitled that they create division by throwing fits, bullying, attacking would-be supporters, etc. It becomes a petty power game, not a means to solve problems or raise issues.
Name the “movment” and you will find some. Guarenteed.
“Bob Zimmerman”:
Does anyone here really believe Marcotte to be a racist?
BZ, do you claim to not be racist? Have you never been racially insensitive? never taken advantage of being White, if you are White? What would make a person a racist as opposed to ignorant, lazy or stupid?
There’s a big difference between “Amanda is a racist” and “Amanda committed a racist act.” At least some commenters here made that distinction during the dust-up.
I mean, I get so tired of labeling. I get angry; does that make me an angry person? I do something thoughtless; does that make me a thoughtless person?
I honestly wish it were easier to get people to admit to having racist thoughts and feelings, or having committed racist acts or failing to act in a perfectly egalitarian way, either intentionally, lazily, or out of ignorance.
No one seems to claim to be perfectly altruistic, or perfectly sensitive, or perfectly anything else. Why should this be anything different?
Intersectionality huh? Never heard of it, to be honest. However, I do like the concept. Tip of my tongue you just gave it a name and all that.
I find that opinions that are not intersectionalist to be horribly flawed. It’s 2d in a 3d world, so to speak. It’s so single minded, that it just can’t see the bigger picture, or possible tangents that might advance things towards the goal. The Modern Conservative Movement, by and large has the same problem but worse. Quite often, they have no concept on that way of thinking in the first place.
The reality is that everything IS connected in one way or another. And unless you’re willing to look at the faint threads, you’re missing the picture.
BTW Thom, next time read more carefully: there is a difference between the phrase “CERTAIN WOC bloggers ...” and the phrase “WOC bloggers”. There is a difference between saying “CERTAIN supporters of HRC” and “all people who supported HRC”, etc.
I read it, Ms Kate, and stand by my post. I’m not saying that you are attributing those characteristics to all WOC bloggers, but that your argument dismissing even those certain WOC bloggers--whichever ones they are--is the same as the one made to dismiss concerns about the inclusion of women bloggers generally.
Actually, what’s really ironic is that 9 times out of 10, the people screaming loudest in the comments about how horrible it all is usually admit that they’re white about halfway through the argument.
I’m male. I expect that it’s good to tell other men to stop advancing misogyny. I agree that it is specifically unsavory for a white person to stand up and say, “On behalf of the silenced WOC, I demand you stop this!” but I think it’s a good thing for white people to actually call each other on the things they (we) do that advance racism.
The basic problem with the illustration debacle is simply “proportion”, that a retribution demand must equal to damaged caused. It was pretty easy for me to isolate the issue, and start dismantling all arguments. (but that was such a tiring thread, kinda boring to rehash the points in there)
Feminism is an idea, not a movement.
It’s really a very simple idea, the idea that men and women are equals and should be treated as equals.
That was the theory behind the name “Feminist Majority” - most people believe women and men are equal so most are feminists. But it was wrong then and it’s still wrong now. The idea that men and women are equals and should be treated as such is not in itself feminism, that should be obvious to anyone who reads *any* feminist material.
That interpretation does not match the reality of feminist rhetoric. According to Eleanor Schmeal (sp?), the founder of the Feminist Majority and current (?) head of NOW, simply using the word “catfight” makes one not a “real feminist.”
If feminism is simply “the idea that men and women are equals and should be treated as equals.” why are their entire academic departments devoted to feminist theory? What *is* feminist theory under that formulation? Why is there a Feminism 101 blog and constant fighting about what Feminism is and who is one, big F vs little f, etc.
Why can someone like myself say that I agree that men and woman are equals and should be treated as such, but I don’t consider myself a feminist? That should be a contradiction, but for many if not most people it isn’t. Which is why the “Feminist Majority” monicker was such a loser, it glossed over the very real problem that to the majority of people feminism is only vaguely related to basic ideas about equality.
That’s not to say that feminism is about male subjugation or destroying the family or anything silly like that. But it’s certainly much more than a very basic belief about equality, at least as practiced by people who choose to identify themselves as feminists.
I believe a lot of things and I’ve never felt a need to name any of them. Is there any reason other than making it easier to associate with like-minded individuals to form something greater than yourself?
Wall of text crits you for 537 damage!
All the same Thom, I reject your argument (and the arguments that started this thread) that people like bourgeous white women and aggressive bullies are banished.
They are not banished. They choose to marginalize themselves. Harriet Hothead Racist Clinton Supporter, those who refuse to join on larger intersecting issues because they would rather talk amongst themselves about how they are marginalized, all of them.
That is why certain groups have committees, subcommittees, caucuses, etc. to address subgroup concerns without derailing the train for everyone. For those who cannot be a democrat if Hillary is not the nominee, for those who cannot work on gender equity issues that affect all of us or even poverty issues that affect massive numbers of women without it being all about their 5-7% of the population all the time, I ain’t gonna worry too much about them. I came of age at a time when feminism was all about educated women from comfortable backgrounds living in northeast states, rather than about women with two jobs and no healthcare excluded from better paying jobs like logging and truck driving. I’m still here.
But it’s certainly much more than a very basic belief about equality, at least as practiced by people who choose to identify themselves as feminists.
Margalis on 06/12 at 10:24 PM
so, what is this “practice” then? ritual? lingo? ...
Ah, well for what it’s worth, I agree with you that bourgeois white women and aggressive bullies aren’t banished. And now I’m seriously going to shut up.
If feminism is simply “the idea that men and women are equals and should be treated as equals.” why are their entire academic departments devoted to feminist theory?
For the same reasons that Christianity has multiple sects and entire schools of theology, even though Christianity is simply John 3:16 (“God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”) People can’t stop thinking and theorizing about things.
But, feminist theory is a course (or series of courses) and not an entire academic department. You may be thinking of Feminist studies. From the UCSC FS department webpage:
Feminist studies is an interdisciplinary field of analysis that investigates how relations of gender are embedded in social, political, and cultural formations. The undergraduate program in Feminist Studies provides students with a unique interdisciplinary and transnational perspective. The department emphasizes theories and practices derived from multiracial and multicultural contexts.
So feminist studies are a way of looking at our world and thinking about our world.
I think that feminism is both an idea and other things. Sometimes it’s a movement, but not right now. All movements have a finite length of life and they fade away either when they have achieved some of their main goals or when it’s apparent that those goals will never be achieved.
The former happened with the second wave of feminism. The third wave, in my definition, is not quite a movement, so Amanda is quite right about that. But there have certainly been feminist movements.
So for me feminism right now is an idea, an important one. And I define myself as a feminist. But I don’t define myself as JUST a feminist. I’m many other ideas, too, and I act in various ways under the other labels I apply to me (a humanist, a liberal, an animal rights activist, a foreigner in this country and so on). Because of this I can’t really answer the kinds of questions that are discussed here, because some of them don’t belong under the feminist hat.
It was interesting to realize that others view the label “feminist” in a different way.
Again I would just point out that if feminism were that simple there wouldn’t be so many disagreements over it.
Once you say “I am this” rather than “I believe this” you’re buying into a group identity. “I believe that women and men are equal” is a statement of personal philosophy. “I’m a feminist” is a declaration of group membership, which is why a few months ago we saw some women melodramatically quit feminism. Were they quitting the notion that women and men are equal?
---
On the other subject, nobody is “banished” and it annoys me when people abuse language like that. Someone takes down her own blog of her own free will and she is being “silenced” while according to someone else the person who “silenced” her is being “banished"… It’s funny how depending on your viewpoint the active language of aggression can go either way.
Someone here recently wrote that a Clinton supporter was “forced” to leave the Democratic party - no, she chose to.
It’s a lazy way of winning an argument, using language to portray someone as the helpless victim of aggression.
Ok, I’m confused. Hirshman is against intersectionality, but she likes political “log rolling” just fine?
She’s mad Clinton lost, and is blaming WOC for not being intersectional enough to vote for Clinton, even though the group they most overwhelmingly get lumped into in this country is race-based?
Wow. My head is spinning. And how did Amanda get pulled into this whole thing, anyway? Is she too intersectional because she published an article on immigration, or not intersectional enough because she didn’t work colaboratively on the article with Brownfempower, who obviously felt her ideas were represented in that work but not attributed to her?
How can you be feminist and NOT intersectional? What is a “woman’s issue” that doesn’t intersect with some other identity? I’m always up for a challenge- let’s try:
Affordable childcare- Oops, the “affordable” part pretty much gives away the class tie in on this one;
Fair Pay- Hmmm- fair according to what? The standards of white men doing the same job? That becomes a race issue too...;
Sex Work- This one just screams class;
Glass Ceiling- Again, class and race- the Old Boy Network is as much about race and class as it is sex;
LGBT issues- Wait, that’s intersectional by it’s very nature;
Violence against women- race and class, here we go again;
Well, I’m stumped. What feminist issue is out there that doesn’t intersect?
Seventies feminists seem to have enacted a kind of separatism from other movements because they discovered from long unpleasant experience that they were expected to work to support other causes without getting anything in return.
I think this is pretty important in terms of why some feminists are not down with intersectionality. It shouldn’t be surprising that those who came out of “progressive” movements that talked about equality but limited women to making coffee, taking dictation and putting out feel like they have to put their gender first and foremost. But as just about everyone has pointed out, women aren’t just women. They are also black and brown and white and red and yellow, they are gay and straight, they are rich and poor and in between. And you’re not going to feel too liberated as a woman if you can’t exercise whatever rights feminists have won because of your race or your poverty or your sexual orientation. It would seem that the solution is not to reject intersectionality (what a mouthful - can someone please come up with a plain English word for it?) but to work to make it a two-way street and educate people involved in movements that are not explicitly feminist of the sexual politics at play in whatever it is.
Like others that have already spoken, I consider myself a feminist. I have contributed, marched and worked for reproductive rights, equal pay, housing access, labor rights, and free speech. Back in the day, the latter caused many dear friends to label me as anti-feminist. However, I have always thought of feminism as the idea that sex or gender should never be a barrier to ones ability pursue their lives the way the wish. Unfortunately, there seems to be a general flaw in human nature—on which those on the right exploit readily—which suggests that there is a limited pool or rights or privileges, and that to grant rights to one group inherently removes them from another. Social change and progress are never completed projects; they are constantly in conflict with the status quo and nostalgia, but the hope is that with each conflict we move forward.
Again I would just point out that if feminism were that simple there wouldn’t be so many disagreements over it.
Well, yeah, it probably is a little more complicated than that.
However, Amanda raises an important point in suggesting that feminism shouldn’t necessarily be thought of as an organized movement, but rather as a perspective and/or a set of ideas. It would certainly be a more useful way to think of feminism in many cases.
way late on this, but thom, yeah, the case was dropped, but i stand by the statement nobody was proven anything. to claim the duke boys were proven innocent is factually incorrect. and if some fucko wants to come in here prattling on about bullshit thats fully irrelevant to the conversation at hand i demand factual accuracy. truthiness is the domain of asshats.
but the troll was deleted and all is well with the world. tralala!
Again I would just point out that if feminism were that simple there wouldn’t be so many disagreements over it.
Once you say “I am this” rather than “I believe this” you’re buying into a group identity. “I believe that women and men are equal” is a statement of personal philosophy. “I’m a feminist” is a declaration of group membership, which is why a few months ago we saw some women melodramatically quit feminism. Were they quitting the notion that women and men are equal?
Margalis on 06/12 at 11:27 PM
huh? I don’t even understand what you are saying. So feminism exist because somebody says “I am a feminist” (declaration of group membership) but that is not a group identity.... what?
1. What is feminism to you?
2. In simple term what is its core idea.
3. how does that relate to you and your political activity?
(granted these questions are limited and defining in itself. But I always suspect elaborate BS is nothing more than a scam. What good is an idea that suppose to change society when average folks can’t even understand them? That is the most basic idea of political activism right? able to explain idea that changes in effective manner.)
Again I would just point out that if feminism were that simple there wouldn’t be so many disagreements over it.
If you read the post, I explain---very carefully---what misconception underlies so many of these problems. It’s that it’s believed that there’s a movement, when there’s not. And when people think there’s a movement, they argue over priorities and goals.
Which is a waste of time that I think should incline us to get out of of the movement mentality. Start thinking of feminism, like liberalism, as an idea. We can argue over ideas, but it gets less heated if you think that the winner of any random argument gets to define the goals of a movement.
“to claim the duke boys were proven innocent is factually incorrect. and if some fucko wants to come in here prattling on about bullshit thats fully irrelevant to the conversation at hand i demand factual accuracy. truthiness is the domain of asshats.”
Sorry, but I do believe the Duke Lacrosse players accused of rape were, in fact, proven innocent. Their DNA did not match the DNA found on the victim, and there was not a shred of evidence linking them to any sexual assault committed against the accuser. If you want anything more factual, I think you need to get your head examined. There was nothing to pin this sordid case on the Duke folks.
NC Attorney General: Duke Lacrosse Players “Innocent Victims”
http://www.wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=48656
Amanda, I think that part of the issue here is that the women that Hirschman describes and laments are pretty darn accustomed to *being* the women’s movement. At least, they are used to having their issues be the dominant ones on the table.
Women like my mother, who had very little in common with them, followed along because there was enough there in the reproductive rights and equal pay agendas to suit them for a while. Women like my high school boyfriend’s mother, who ran a NOW chapter, followed for similar reasons, but got pissed off at the lack of concern for the issues faced by the rural western working class women that they wanted to involve. You don’t join a activist group if there isn’t anything in it for you, or if you feel your values or your life circumstances are not supported.
These dominant voices moved on as their lives changed and they lost touch with those ever changing everywoman issues and the younger women’s dilemmas, wrote long and deep about their empty nests, their experiences of menopause, their issues of aging, and now they are left wondering why so many didn’t just join them in voting for Clinton.
They still thought that they were the feminist movement. They were used to being the “feminist movement”. Now they have to rationalize all sorts of ill will toward younger women because it is easier than dealing with the harsher reality of being a subgroup and not a movement.
Oh, and Amanda, I think you are right that we need to move on from “movement” thinking and toward demanding feminism as a pervasive ideology in all areas of legislation and social activism.
In simple way, I always see “movement” sort of the lower level, real manifestation of applied idea. After awhile one can’t just keep talking and thinking, something has to be done about what is wrong.
But like in other “movement” and organizations, the bureaucratic and group inertia take over. It is not about the original idea anymore, but about maintaining the “organization”. The movement/organization becomes an end to itself. It maintains leadership status quo, it snuffs competing idea, takes resource, etc.
Basic human instinct.
so the practical takes over the substantive idea. (You get the usual result, ego butting, budget fight, killing rivals, isolation, faction war, etc etc....) same BS, different day.
There is always that intricate balance between maintaining internal ideological coherency without choking new idea, applied theory in political activism without getting bogged down in daily bureaucratic and in-fighting.
I think Echinede is right. There are ideas that have no movements attached to them - for instance, the idea that the earth spins around the sun. Then there are programmatic ideas. Feminism, even concentrated in Amanda’s definition to a kind of idea of justice, does not describe how things are, but how things ought to be. But the form of social action that would make it come true is not analytically part of the idea. Whenever a movement is based on a particular idea of social justice, it faces an organizational question not faced by an organization based on simple self interest. Business lobbying groups, for instance, only worry that the tactics they are using are successful - that is their only operational criterion. A group that advocates equality, in contrast, must reflect that standard in its very organization. It is that double aspect that makes such groups trickier. As there is a strong subjective and emotional aspect of treatment (human beings being emotional creatures first), one can’t simply institute quantitative criteria to solve the problem - equal treatment has to feel equal. This is a hugely important fact, but organizers, who commit themselves to a vision of rationality that excludes the dimension of feeling, often feel that it is an irritating fact, and that, optimally, we can ignore it. That kind of organizational rationality is, in my opinion, delusional. When feminism has worked as the binding principle in a movement, it does so because it succeeds in acknowledging the validity of the “feeling equal” criteria, and adapted appeals to solidarity to that criteria - which, practically, means acknowledging there are different ways different people can be treated unequally, and taking a conciliatory attitude towards complaints about unfairness.
It would seem that the solution is not to reject intersectionality (what a mouthful - can someone please come up with a plain English word for it?) but to work to make it a two-way street and educate people involved in movements that are not explicitly feminist of the sexual politics at play in whatever it is. chingona on 06/13 at 12:15 AM
the solution is to ask, why exactly does a person want the rest of people vote to support his position only. (go pass the BS sweet talk, one usually find real reason. money, power, etc.)
Once you say “I am this” rather than “I believe this” you’re buying into a group identity. “I believe that women and men are equal” is a statement of personal philosophy. “I’m a feminist” is a declaration of group membership, which is why a few months ago we saw some women melodramatically quit feminism. Were they quitting the notion that women and men are equal?
No, they were being incoherent.
Saying “I’m not a feminist but I believe men and women are equal” is as coherent as saying “I’m not a theist but I believe in God” or “I’m not an atheist but I believe there is no God.”
“Feminist” is not a declaration of group membership. What unified group has “feminism” ever referred to? None whatsoever. It has referred to a set of reasoned ideals and principles, and “feminist” has referred to the people who identify themselves with these principles. Not to a bunch of friends who are part of some girl gang called The Feminists. It’s not some kind of a clubhouse, any more than “libertarian” or “anarchist” or “socialist” is.
Not to a bunch of friends who are part of some girl gang called The Feminists. It’s not some kind of a clubhouse
but seriously, if anyone starts a girl gang called The Feminists and gets a clubhouse, i totally want in. it would be even better if our clubhouse were a treehouse, but im flexible.
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that article made me want to spit fire. her whole premise was absurd and completely rooted in her own middle class white privilege. i like your point that feminism is an idea, not a movement. i hadn’t thought of it in those terms before, but that type of thinking makes me feel alot better about the irritation im having toward a fair share of prominent second wavers lately.