Finally, a Feminism 101 blog

Please Update Your Bookmarks and Feed Subscriptions

2007-05-21T14:04:00.001+10:00

Here's the new link again:
Main page | Feeds

The blog move is now complete, even without being able to port the comments over from ##$*&^@!!! Haloscan. Those comments threads will stay here and be linked from the posts at the new blog.

Barring disaster, this should be the last post at this blog. I shall have the LJ feed updated to receive posts from the new site ASAP.

Moving the blog

2007-05-20T23:14:00.001+10:00

I wanted some more flexibility with the layout, particularly I wanted some static pages, so I've ported all the posts over to Wordpress.com - the new link is http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/

Please hop on over and let me know what you think. This blog isn't going anywhere, especially because I can't figure out how to port the Haloscan comments over. But all the posts here are duplicated over at the new site, and hopefully all the material will be easier to navigate for you all.

Feminism Friday: Rape Jokes Aren't Funny

2007-05-19T13:11:00.000+10:00

Late, I know, and not much from me: I'm just pointing you at these three posts below from Melissa McEwan at Shakesville.

Trauma-Trigger Alert: Melissa describes her own rape in harrowing detail in order to point out how rape is not funny, and although the discussion threads start out thoughtful and interesting, they end up invaded by shockjock fans who troll the thread with graphic threats of rape directed against Melissa and other commenters.

Aren't we feminists lucky, we get some cyberbullying to go with the defense of rape jokes as well!

Melissa has decided not to delete them in order to show just what sort of threats these jerks perceive as "jokes" that we "need to get a sense of humour" about.

Rape Is Hilarious
Rape Is Hilarious Part II
Rape Is Not Only Hilarious; It's No Big Deal

Cyberbullying:
Kate Harding has a great post in response to the cyberbullying. Let those folks read it who claim that men bloggers get flamed and threatened just as much and as creepily as women bloggers. Suuurrrre they do.

As usual for Feminism Friday, feel free to leave a link to recent Feminism Friday posts from other blogs in comments - your own or others.

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Belated Weekend Roundup Roundup

2007-05-14T06:46:00.000+10:00

Apologies, I've been trying to sleep away a headcold. Here's some other people's roundups of recommended reading this week.

Feministing's Weekly Feminist Reader

Carnival of Radical Feminists - this is a bit later than planned, because Heart put so much work into setting the stage for what radfem is and isn't and what radfems have achieved as she introduces the festival. Some thoughtprovoking reading about Women as a Colonized People, with specific areas of colonization highlighted. You don't have to agree with every aspect of radfem theory to find the posts here highly valuable.

Lauren (Faux Real Tho): Things Your Mother Guilt Trips You Into Reading

Last week I missed the 22nd Carnival Against Sexual Violence and for a broader view of anti-oppression writing and activism, Blogging Against Disablism.

Feel free to use this post as an Open Mothers' Day reading thread as well - any posts about Mothers' Day that have a feminist or anti-feminist slant you want to highlight, leave a link in comments, please.

Call for links: debunking the malicious stuff

2007-05-11T13:11:00.000+10:00

Mandolin had a suggestion I'd like to highlight and get some input on:

Andrea Dworkin/Germaine Greer/someone else said something complicated, and I have a reductionist summary of that which comes out to "men hate women" / "all sex is rape" / "something else catchy" ... why am I wrong? Only, competently stated.

The competent concise statement is always the tricky part, but I though while I'm working up to that some links to specific debunkings would be useful. Here's my favourite for debunking the "MacKinnon/Dworkin said all sex is rape" myth.

RadGeek (Geekery Today): Misquotation in Media: Catharine MacKinnon never, ever, ever, ever said “All heterosexual intercourse is rape.” Ever. Ever. (posted 19 February 2006)

Elizabeth Anderson, in a post quoted by RadGeek, said this:

Here’s a measure of how much a group is despised: how much malicious absurdity can one ascribe to its members and still be taken as a credible source on what they say and do?

So what's your unfavourite piece of malicious absurdity and what are your favourite debunkings of malicious absurdities about feminism?

FAQ: But men and women are born different! Isn't that obvious?

2007-05-10T17:09:00.000+10:00

That idea is known as "essentialism": the belief that there are uniquely feminine and uniquely masculine essences which exist independently of cultural conditioning. Both actual (minor) and alleged (major) differences between the sexes have been used to justify inequities and constraints which harm women emotionally, financially and physically.

Even where (and if) such differences do exist, why should such differences justify sexist oppression? *

Biological determinism is one form of essentialism which has been used to argue for male superiority for all of recorded history: that men are naturally stronger, smarter, more rational and more trustworthy and thus are entitled to rule both politically and domestically. The more science discovers about biology the more this male biological superiority is shown to be utterly without foundation: for any quality measured there is far more variation among the group of all men and among the group of all women than there is on average between individuals of opposite sex.

A common corollary belief is that while men are physically and rationally superior, women are morally superior. At times influential groups of both men and women, both feminists and anti-feminists, have subscribed to this view. It is equally without evidentiary foundation, and has often been used to give women a sense of power in the role of morality enforcer which acts to support the larger social system of male dominance (and which especially excuses the male sexual exploitations of women as due to a baser moral nature which can't be changed, but which "good" women have the duty to "tame").

Masculine and feminine traits have been culturally placed in opposition to each other, and claimed to thus complement each other and result in harmony when men and women are constrained within the accepted sex roles. Masculine roles differ across societies, but are always portrayed as not only different from but also superior to the feminine. Women and men who transgress the boundaries of the accepted sex roles are considered "not real" men/women, and usually denigrated and sometimes abused and punished by outraged defenders of normative sex roles. It is this rigid ghettoising of masculine and feminine, and the assigning of superiority always to the masculine, that feminism challenges.

* Spot-the-strawfeminist: It is often claimed that feminists say there are no differences between men and women, by people who tend to condescendingly point to women's chest area as they "debate". Rubbish - feminists are, on the whole, not blind. What feminists say is that neither the size of the fatty glands on one's pectoral muscles, nor whether one's reproductive organs are innies or outies, are indicators of deeper essential differences, and nor such indicators of sexual dimorphism relevant when discussing rights, equity and sexual egalitarianism.

Clarifying Concepts:

Winter (Mind the Gap!): Biological Determinism - A Rant

Kathleen Trigiani - Out of the Cave: Exploring Grays Anatomy - a series of essays ripping the veil off the romanticised submission of Venusians in John Gray's odes to essentialism and thus male dominance, the Mars/Venus canon.

Evidence vs Myth:
A classic debunking from Mark Liberman(Language Log): the popular claim is that women utter 20000 words per day compared to men's 7000 (recently resurrected by Louann Brizendine). A survey of linguistic studies show no such evidence - men and women are found to utter roughly equivalent numbers of words and more often as not the men talked more than the women.

Recommended Reading Offline:
Myths of Gender: biological theories about women and men
By Anne Fausto-Sterling 1992 ISBN 0465047920

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Weekly Online Reader

2007-05-06T00:28:00.000+10:00

The round-up of Roundups.

Ariella Drake: Anti-Oppression Roundup

Kate Harding: Stuff to Read

Of course, the 37th Carnival of Feminists at KitKats Critique and the 1st Carnival of Radical Feminists will be up any minute now at Womens Space/The Margins.

Feminism Friday: using FF101 FAQs for more than blocking derailments

2007-05-04T14:14:00.000+10:00

I've just done a bit of retouching to the "Why Was I Sent To This Blog?" post, aka FAQ:I Asked Some Feminists A Question And They Sent Me Here: Why? The main reason I reworked it is because I have both great gratification and some disappointment from how I see FF101 being used to deal with disruptive questioners in feminist discussions.

I'm a bit tentative to put this out there, because not only am I not the high priestess or pope of any feminist anything, I'm not even an anointed acolyte; I have no actual control over how others use links to this blog in their discourse with others (and wouldn't want to) but I do have a vision of sorts, and that vision isn't quite happening.

That vision is that links to the FAQs are potential conversation starters, not just conversation-derailer stoppers.

I'm seeing lots of referrals to the blog from threads where someone is asking 101 questions and disrupting a more theoretically advanced discussion, which is terrific, but I don't think that those getting the referrals, or the lurkers who also click on the link, are being best served by a habit that I'm also seeing.

What habit is that? Dropping a link just to this blog's index page, instead of taking a few moments to check out which FAQ here best addresses the disruptive question and drop a link to that relevant FAQ in the thread. I think it's only fair that when asking people to go and do some homework that a little bit of groundwork gets done by the referrer, otherwise it really does just seem totally dismissive and unhelpful.

It may be hard to avoid seeing questioners you suspect are trolls as worthy of dismissal and unworthy of help in finding the answers, and sometimes you may indeed be right: why bother for "obvious trolls"? But remember, only a small fraction of readers are commenters, and only a small fraction of commenters are trolls. The trolls aren't going to be persuaded, but other commenters and certainly the lurking majority might well be, but only if we feminists are actually persuasive and not just dismissive.

Please consider using the link to the FAQ roundup rather than just the blog alone for questions that seem genuine, or use the link to the "Why was I sent to this blog?" post for someone pouting about their questions not being answered. (I've noticed a couple of people have blogroll links to the FAQ roundup rather than just the FF101 front page, and I think that's an excellent idea, as that's the proper core of the blog.)

Now, the core of the vision, really: think about whether the disruptive questioner actually had the basics of a good discussion starter in the question, if only it hadn't been such a derailer to the discussion already happening. If it was a good question, something that you do actually find interesting or worth addressing separately, then maybe throw up a post which addresses some aspect of what the questioner wanted to know?

That way, if the questioner has actually followed the link here and done some reading, then the questioner gets a chance to be part of a discussion about that without being viewed as a derailer. (Corollary: if it was a really disingenuous question aimed solely at a derailment, maybe a post that dissects exactly why the question was disingenuous, and that indulges in a bit of recreational troll-mockery, might be an equally valid conversation starter). These are the sort of posts that will draw in lurkers to comment who are intimidated by more intermediate/advanced topics, and isn't enticing lurkers to join discussions a big part of the reason for online feminist discussion in the first place?

Obviously, lots of feminist bloggers have no interest in addressing 101 questions at all, and that's a totally valid position. That's another reason this blog exists. If you're a feminist who just doesn't want to deal with introductory stuff ever, I hope you still find this blog valuable for blocking derailments and troll-stopping. But please consider taking the time to find the link to the pertinent FAQ for the disruptive question nonetheless. We may well never win the heart/mind of a single disruptive questioner, but we may well sway swathes of lurkers with just that little bit of effort. We do want to sway some hearts and minds, right?

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Parenting and reproductive freedoms

2007-05-03T14:24:00.000+10:00

Just came across this today:

dreama (Again I Said): of note:parenting controversies edition

dreama has collected some excellent reading (including a post from my co-blogger Lauredhel at my other blog) regarding the ideological and practical struggle against overmedicalised and overcommercialised views of both birth and parenting. Several excellent examples of looking at traditional practises through an evidence-based analysis as well.

When time allows I may well add some of these (or other writings by the same authors) to the Reproductive Freedoms FAQ.

Great resource

2007-05-03T08:52:00.000+10:00

Second Wave and Beyond - I just discovered this while following some other links.

The "Second Wave" and Beyond scholarly community, launched in 2006, is an innovative form of electronic communication and research that brings together feminist thinkers, scholars and activists, to analyze compelling questions about feminist activism and theories, define new directions for historical research on this period, and provide a new venue for publishing traditional articles but also for writing and recording this history in ways made possible by the medium of online publication.

There's several links to lists of recommended reading at their Teaching and Research Resources page, which I'm just about to add to the Recommended Reading post from last week.

Feminism Friday: Roundup

2007-04-28T17:49:00.000+10:00

Unapologetic Female: Feminisms. Plural.

Thinking Girl: The Weaker Sex

RebelGrrl has had a few Feminism Friday posts she didn't let us know about the last few weeks:
Fairy Tale Endings
Vilifying Yoko Ono

Bluemilk hasn't tagged this as Friday Feminism, but I'm going to add it to the roundup anyway: Yummy Mummy, Are You Happy?
(This led me to two of bluemilk's I missed last month - Work and Family - A Very Unequal Marriage and Sorry, is our struggle stifling your productivity?)

Please add other recent Feminism Friday posts, or posts which could have been Feminism Friday posts, in comments.

A New Feminist Festival

2007-04-27T15:20:00.000+10:00

Way down on the sidebar are links to current blog-festivals that feature feminist issues. There's a new one going on the list:

Carnival of Radical Feminists - May 2, 2007 edition

Host blog
¤ Women's Space/The Margins
Scheduled for
¤ May 2, 2007
Submission deadline
¤ Apr 29, 2007 23:59:02 -1200
Description
¤ Carnivals of Radical Feminists will consistently include the best of the previous month's blog posts on topics of interest to radical feminists.

Open Thread: Top 5 Introductory Texts

2007-04-21T14:14:00.000+10:00

Reader A suggested:

I was also interested in book suggestions, but I think that the LibraryThing might be a little too involved (the interface looked a little confusing to me). I think what would be nice would be either a simple, concise list of the five to ten most influential books or essays, or a multi-part series of lists that sort of define the three waves. I don't know, though, since there are so many different kinds of feminism, can most people agree on what those writings are? If not, perhaps there could be an open thread for people to comment with their top five recommended (introductory!) books or essays.

There's a lot of good ideas there, but time demands that here and now FF101 goes with an open thread of top 5 recommended books/essays. A short line or two as to why the recommendation would be good, and would allow later commentors to still recommend the same book but for a different reason/emphasis.

If anyone wants to write up some more detailed book lists as per A's comment, or knows where such a thing might already exist, please leave a link to that in comments too.

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Weekly Online Reader

2007-04-21T13:51:00.000+10:00

I'm going to aim to do this every week, anyway. A roundup of other people's roundups.

Pen-Elayne has a great roundup.

Carnival of the Feminists #36 has been put together by Belledame, and it's a monster:

[ Part One ] [ Part Two ] [ Part Three ]

Please do add other roundups or notable posts from the last few weeks in the comments thread.

Updated to add: May's edition of JANE has put together a comprehensive feature promoting physical and emotional breast health, in response to a reader survey indicating that 75% of their readers were unhappy with their breasts.
Online: “The JANE Guide to Breast Health”

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Feminism Friday: Safety vs. Patriarchal Overprotection

2007-04-20T18:29:00.000+10:00

Reader Justin wrote and asked me for advice on an ethical balance problem, and with his permission I quote his email:

I have a question which has been bothering me for some time, and which may/may not be worth addressing on the site. In any case, its something I don't feel precisely comfortable asking my close friends, but it does bother me. Not that you have any obligation to spend time assuaging my liberal guilt, but worth a try.
. .
I'm a male college student from the Midwest and I've been self-identifying as feminist (or feminist ally) for quite awhile. Through activism and academia, I'm pretty familiar and comfortable with feminist thought. About a year ago, my best friend--who attends another Midwestern college--was raped at knifepoint by two strangers who attacked her as she walked to her dorm one night. As I've attempted to help her work through the fallout of that experience, I've grown very protective (read paranoid) of my female friends. Particularly, I feel like I should refuse to let them walk home by themselves at night, and do my best to convince them to let me
accompany them after parties, etc., which usually isn't a problem.

Still, sometimes I feel a bit patriarchal and condescending, and I recognize that discouraging women from walking at night is a sort of variation on the whole "asking for it" theme, shifting the blame from the victim to the victimizer. My question is, how do I find an ethical balance between protecting my friends from often underestimated dangers, and avoiding stereotype reinforcing paternalism. Obviously, in a sense my personal stake in this issue is minor compared to the actual threat of sexual violence, but I would still like to know how best to handle these situations. . .

Thanks for listening to my ramblings; any thoughts you have would be appreciated, though certainly not demanded. . .

Now, as I mailed back to Justin, I had two immediate responses come to mind.

1. although your protectiveness is noble, as I'm sure you're aware most sexual assaults are date/acquaintance/partner rape, and you can't be there for that. So the utility of your protectiveness is, through no fault of your own, limited.

2. the greater work to be done is challenging sexist attitudes in men around you when women aren't there. It's a long term effort, with no short term fanfares of triumph, but as more and more profeminist men undertake to challenge misogyny it's more likely to make a difference in the end.

Now, while I was waiting for Friday to roll around, Kate Harding posted her terrific essay that I quoted in the FAQ: What Can I Do For Feminism?, which addressed my #2 above.

As to #1, I certainly wouldn't want to minimise the fear, pain and distress of stranger rape, and I don't have the personal experience to back it up, but I'm sure from what I've read of others' experiences that the fear, pain and distress can only be multiplied when the rapist is someone known and trusted, and there's sadly little the Justins of our world can do about untrustworthy deceitful men.

EXCEPT: as said above, don't reinforce their casual misogyny about crazy bitches who are asking for it.

You might not know which of the men around you are untrustworthy deceitful misogynists, but guaranteed that some of them are, and if blokes who would never bully or harm a woman play along with the crazy-bitch jokes just for a laugh, some of those men laughing are getting their misogynistic violence fantasies reinforced by what they perceive as acceptance from other men.

Justin, thanks so much for writing.

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FAQ: What can I do for feminism?

2007-04-19T00:21:00.000+10:00

Object to any speech or action which demeans, constrains and/or harms women, whether you know the women concerned personally or not.

Do not accept that there is a "war between the sexes" and challenge anyone who assumes that there is and that it is natural.

Do not accept that "men just can't help being X" wherever X is something that women are complaining about as demeaning or harmful to women (or gender roles that are constraining, demeaning and harmful to men).

If you are a pro-feminist man, this is especially important, because when you don't object:

"You are missing an opportunity to help stop the bad guys.

You’re missing an opportunity to stop the real misogynists, the fucking sickos, the ones who really, truly hate women just for being women. The ones whose ranks you do not belong to and never would. The ones who might hurt women you love in the future, or might have already.

‘Cause the thing is, you and the guys you hang out with may not really mean anything by it when you talk about crazy bitches and dumb sluts and heh-heh-I’d-hit-that and you just can’t reason with them and you can’t live with ‘em can’t shoot ‘em and she’s obviously only dressed like that because she wants to get laid and if they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen and if they can’t play by the rules they don’t belong here and if they can’t take a little teasing they should quit and heh heh they’re only good for fucking and cleaning and they’re not fit to be leaders and they’re too emotional to run a business and they just want to get their hands on our money and if they’d just stop overreacting and telling themselves they’re victims they’d realize they actually have all the power in this society and white men aren’t even allowed to do anything anymore and and and…

I get that you don’t really mean that shit. I get that you’re just talking out your ass.

But please listen, and please trust me on this one: you have probably, at some point in your life, engaged in that kind of talk with a man who really, truly hates women–to the extent of having beaten and/or raped at least one. And you probably didn’t know which one he was.

And that guy? Thought you were on his side.

As long as we live in a culture where the good guys sometimes sound just like the misogynists, the misogynists are never going to get the message that they are not normal and that most people–strong, successful men included–do not hate women.
Kate Harding: On being a no-name blogger using her real name

What else can we do for feminism?

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FAQ: what do you mean by "Not my Nigel"? (feminist abbreviations/jargon)

2007-04-17T07:07:00.000+10:00

Updated 03May07

Like any other field of debate and controversy, a lot of issues and positions in feminism end up being discussed so often that they are abbreviated for convenience into acronyms, initialisms and shorthand phrases that make up a jargon.

"Not my Nigel" is shorthand for the common reaction of many women to feminist observations and explanations of sexist activity and sexist motivations i.e. "Not my Nigel! He'd never do anything like that" or more invidiously "well sure, my Nigel says/does that but he doesn't mean any harm by it".
(The feminist response is that truly one has no idea what sexist activities one's Nigel engages in when performing manliness to impress other men (you think all those gropers and harassers tell their wives/mothers/sisters what they do?) and that not meaning any harm because "boys will be boys" is exactly the root of the problem.)

Below are a few common abbreviations/jargon terms. There's a more formal academic list of terms at Feminist Lexicon, and you may find some of the differences/distinctions between their entries and this list instructive (for more on differences/distinctions see the Feminisms FAQ).

Descriptive:

first-/second-/third-wave - different periods of feminist activism with different priorities. An Anglo-Americocentric description of feminist history, although largely generalisable.
First wave feminism : the advocacy of basic legal (de jure) equality: suffragists, property inheritance and contractual agency rights. Historically a movement for wives of the propertied classes, but a broader movement today in those countries where women are still denied de jure equality.
Second wave feminism : working for the implementation/enforcement of de jure equalities but also concerned with de facto (unofficial) inequalities: finding the political in the personal and fighting for changes in long-standing sexist prejudices and traditions - socioeconomic equality not just legal equality, and for more than just the propertied classes.
Third wave feminism: a challenge to essentialist views of femininity (as biologically reductive) and feminisms (as homogenously directed) combined with an emphasis on the intersectionality of oppressions.
MRA - male rights activist (an extreme masculinist example)
patriarchy - one of the most misunderstood critical-theory concepts ever, often wilfully misunderstood. Patriarchy is an ancient and ongoing social system based on traditions of elitism (a hierarchy of inferiorities), privilege and the subjugation of women via strict gender expectations which constrain individualist expressions. Some societies are more patriarchal than others, but patriarchal social traditions are universal in human societies. [more in the Patriarchy FAQ]
"the personal is political" - a radical 1960's concept that there is a politics of sex/gender based on power relationships in families, and that describing family power imbalances as "personal" was simply dismissive and condescending. First cited in an essay by Carol Hahnisch in 1970 defending consciousness-raising from charges that it was merely "therapy": Hanisch states "One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time."(the term has since been adopted by other protest movements).
PHMT - Patriarchy Hurts Men Too. Men are also constrained from full individualist expression by strict gender expectations. (Corollary: FBMT - Feminism benefits men too - thanks Helen)
privilege - advantages that some groups have over others in the social hierarchy. Some privileges are situational and temporary (parent over child, employer over employee) and serve a pragmatic social purpose but other privileges are societal and traditional and serve to perpetuate elitism. Some elitist privileges are de jure (e.g. South African racial apartheid, rules against the ordination of women as priests) but most are de facto (informal discrimination against "others" in the workplace, education, financial transactions (e.g. exclusionary "mates' rates") and social recognition/reward). [more in the Male Privilege FAQ]
radfem - radical feminist
rape culture - a constellation of behaviours and attitudes embedded into patriarchal society. These attitudes, socialised from birth and often wielded unconsciously, enable and encourage the subordination of women by maintaining a environment that is pervasively hostile and threatening to women. The behaviours include a spectrum of acts which function to keep women in an object role and perpetuate their fear. They include (but are not limited to) certain aspects of "chivalry", victim-blaming, leering, intimidation, sexual harrassment and coercion, domestic violence, assault and rape. (defn from lauredhel) [more: Biting Beaver]
sex-pos - sex-positive feminist
strawfeminist - a false construction, created to scare people away from the juicy crops of equality, equity and the end of female subjugation (See "strawman fallacy" and our "spot the strawfeminist" category)

Disparaging:

empowerful: used to reveal how sexist marketing appropriates "empowerment" in order to persuade women into yet more sexual displays for male titillation [Twisty's post coining the term]
godbag - religious authoritarian, theocrat (not used to describe tolerant believers who respect the rights of others to make their own choices)
"I'm not a feminist, but" - a common utterance by those who notice and are disturbed by instances of sexism, and totally agree that something should be done to combat such sexism, if only they could argue against such sexism without perhaps being mistaken for one of those humourless, hairylegged, manhating feminists. (i.e. folks who have been intimidated by the strawfeminists(see above)). Often women who disdain feminism while describing the benefits of feminist-earned rights to work, child care, education, vote etc as "basic rights".
“Nice Guys™” - There are two types, which often overlap in one individual:
1.a guy who believes that the simple act of being decent means that the universe owes him a girlfriend.[defn from Mickle]
2. men who are looking to date a woman with the appearance of a supermodel, and yet they continually whine about how "women don't like nice guys - they only want good-looking assholes" [source] [more at the NiceGuy archive at Heartless Bitches International]
pornulated/-acious - extremely sexualised women's fashions, usually uncomfortable and impractical as well as emphasising the vulnerable flesh of female secondary sexual characteristics.
PUA - Pick Up Artist. Sexual predator as serial scorekeeping seducer. [link from theriomorph] The goal of PUA as a sport is to defeat the minds so inconveniently attached to ladybits rather than treat women as people who could enjoy sexual fun together with egalitarian men. A growing movement designed to persuade both men and women that this reduction of gender relations to a hunt for sex is a reasonable and sane model for human interaction.

The list could go on and on, and that's where you, dear readers, come in. Please add more abbreviations/jargon in the comments of terms you've had to explain most often, or requests for explanations of abbreviations/jargonisms that have been puzzling you. (Update: thanks for all the suggestions so far!)

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Feminism Friday

2007-04-14T00:08:00.000+10:00

I haven't managed to come up with a particular Feminism Friday post myself this week. Luckily I came across a couple to recommend:

A specific Feminism Friday post from Erimentha on melding Western feminist theory with Indian feminist action: Here and Now

A serendipitous find - a thoughtful post and thread from an Anabaptist blog on "The Problem with Feminism"

Updated to Add: Feminism and Rape - two posts from Feministe that discuss why rape victims are subject to so much more scrutiny and skepticism than victims of other crimes, and why so many people are comfortable with failing to distinguish between accusations that cannot be proven in court and false accusations from lying women.

The first is a 2003 post from Lauren, written in response to the press about the Kobe Bryant case, relating how she was raped as a teenager and why she didn't tell anyone at the time, much less report it to police.

The second is a post from Jill, in response to the dropping of charges against the three charged men in the Duke rape case. Warning - the thread is already 200+ comments long, and the anti-feminists are out in force.

FAQ: Why are you concentrating on X when Y is so much more important?

2007-04-12T05:59:00.000+10:00

I/we often address Y, but right now we're addressing X. We can and do work on both X and Y, but persuading others and planning productively means concentrating selectively. Besides, working on X and Y seperately but in parallel is more productive for both matters, as they both counter Z (which we both detest, right?) from different directions.

Derailing a discussion of X with demands that others address Y because "it's so much more important" is a very common trolling tactic, and long acknowledged as a cheap rhetorical trick: just another red herring.

If you don't mean to troll, if you are genuinely and adamantly of the opinion that discussing X is a waste of time in light of the importance of Y, then simply disrupting the discussion of others is unlikely to make them sympathetic to your arguments.

Even if you are a fellow-feminist with a different area of emphasis, demanding that your special concern is discussed Right! Now! is disruptive nonetheless, and actively works against feminist solidarity. Are you sure that's what you want to do?

How about you, whether feminist or anti-feminist, instead try this? Write about how much Y matters on your own chunk of cyberspace, and then make a short comment in the discussion-about-X saying "By the way, I'm also hugely concerned with the problem of Y, and I've written about it [here] if you would like to discuss it".

Point made, discussion of X still on track, and very possibly a productive discussion of Y taking place in parallel. Everybody wins, except the trolls.

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FAQ: Why "feminism" and not just "humanism"? Or "equalism"? Isn't saying you're a feminist exclusionary?

2007-04-12T05:19:00.000+10:00

This question implies that one must be either one or the other. People and philosophies are far more complicated than that. A feminist may also be both a humanist and an equalist.

There's no law that says only one box can be ticked here, and it's hugely important not to get sucked into thinking that one choice excludes the others. A major reason that most populist debate in the corporate media (and in online forums too) is a pitiful sham is that way too many questions are argued on an either/or basis, instead of acknowledging the probability of a both/and stance. The either/or method of framing a debate is technically referred to as a "false dilemma" [more], and is one example of a logical fallacy.

As to why feminism requires a distinct agenda within the equalist movements? The special and distinct problem of misogyny both oppressing and directly harming women, pure and simple. Unless misogyny is directly addressed and acted against, general equalist activism will not be enough. [FAQs: Does feminism matter? and Isn't feminism just "victim politics"?]

P.S. It's also a good idea when throwing around the term "humanist" to make sure that one's audience is on the same page about exactly what you mean.

Reading:

Introductory:

Andrea Rubenstein (Official Shrub.com Blog): Why “feminism”?

Colleen Wainwright (Communicatrix): ¡Feminista!

Clarifying Concepts:
More on Either/Or and Feminisms

We’re not either/or thinkers here, but both/and thinkers. I am neither a liberal feminist who supports only attacking power by going after its underpinning through the courts and through legislation nor a radical feminist who wants to address how oppression is lived out in the day-to-day. I’m both. Without focusing on how sexism and heterosexism permeates our very existence, attacks our very way of thinking and our daily existence, it’s far, far easier for people to not care because it’s someone else’s problem. But, as I state firmly in this post, it everyone’s problem.
[Amanda Marcotte, in comments to a Blog Against Heteronormativity post at Pandagon]

Lauren (Faux Real Tho): On Feminism and Attractiveness

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Blog Against Sexual Violence Day

2007-04-11T11:41:00.000+10:00

was April 5, and I missed announcing it here. Hopefully lots of you already found links to it elsewhere, and I'm sure that if there's a post just hanging around inside you waiting to be written that it won't matter if it's a week late.

Click on the image below to go to abyss2hope's blog where she rounds up the posts.

(via)

Some art for the holidays

2007-04-07T11:54:00.000+10:00

Artkrush features Feminist Art

The latest issue of Artkrush, which is available online now, explores contemporary feminist art from around the globe. Artkrush #55 features a survey of the Global Feminisms exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and an in-depth interview with Cornelia Butler, curator or WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. We also profile multimedia artist A.L. Steiner and review a new monograph of provocateur Tracey Emin. The issue includes reviews of exhibitions by Monica Bonvicini and Cerith Wyn Evans as well as a mix of news and other international exhibition reviews.

Check it out at http://www.artkrush.com/mailer/issue55

Thanks to Artkrush Editor Paul Laster for sending me the announcement.

Feminism Friday: a roundup

2007-04-06T15:33:00.000+10:00

A few other bloggers are picking up on this Feminism Friday idea (originally Thinking Girl's idea), which I'm glad to see.

Last week Ilyka (Pandagon) had a cracker on Saying No to Passivity, while there was some good discussion here on Young Feminists and how they find feminist fellowship.

This week Amanda (Pandagon) and I both came up with different looks at compulsory femininity: Amanda took on the common points between headscarves, pushup bras and pantyhose while over at Hoyden About Town I look at how It Starts So Young.

If you decide to join in with a Feminism Friday piece, or if you already have done so in the last few weeks and I missed it, please leave a link in comments.

To mailing list, or not to mailing list?

2007-04-05T17:55:00.000+10:00

On a previous post, it was suggested that some people might find discussions on blogs more difficult to join in than discussions in a Vbulletin or a mailing list format. It made me realise that some folks these days might easily come to blogs as discussion forums without ever having been introduced to good old fashioned mailing lists ever (I've never been into V-bulletins, but I know mailing lists).

One of the advantages of mailing lists is that they are text-only, so that if you are in a region without broadband access you can download the discussions quickly to your email folder. Or for those who'd rather not have the emails on their own computers, if you use a yahoo or gmail address for the mailing list subscription then you can read the mails on the web without having to clutter up your inbox at all. The lists are subscriber only, and moderated, so with little effort they can be kept troll-free.

I'm very happy to set up a FF101 mailing list associated with my personal domain, to which any regular blogger or commentor with a feminist outlook is welcome to subscribe. It could be a useful backup for bloggers in discussing certain thoughts and concerns about interacting and communicating effectively in the more public forums of blogs.

So, I'd like to gauge the level of interest. Anybody?

FAQ: I've got nothing against equal rights for women, but we've got that, so isn't feminism nowadays just going too far ?

2007-04-03T11:02:00.000+10:00

aka "Why do we still need feminism?" (see "Does feminism matter?")

This question is based on several misconceptions.
1. Even if women in your part of the world do have legal equality, what about women elsewhere? Feminists who fight for the rights of other women to have what they already have are justified in doing so.
2. Simple, basic legal equality regarding the right to own property, sign contracts or vote does not always translate into social equality in work, the community or the home. Feminists who point out residual cultural traditions and reactionary business practises that disproportionately disadvantage women are not making it up (see FAQs on Patriarchy, Gender Gap and Objectification).

This FAQ is mostly clarifying-concepts rather than introductory. If you haven't read any of the basic level FAQ posts (See FAQ roundup here) then I suggest you start with some of those before reading these posts.

I've been seeing a lot of "Why we still need feminism" posts around lately. Here's a few I've found powerful. Please add links to other posts on the same theme that I've overlooked in comments.

Natasha Walter (orig. in The Guardian): We Still Need Feminism

The suggestion is constantly put out that women must be "free" to choose their own way of life, even if it is clear that many women whose choices are shaped by discriminatory workplaces and poor childcare provision do not feel very free at all. Indeed, even if few people choose to identify themselves as feminists, it is hard to find a young woman who would not sign up to the feminist goals that are meant to be so outdated, such as being treated equally at work and being able to share family responsibilities with their husbands. But even if the desire for equality remains, it is still unmet.

Rad Geek (Rad Geek People's Daily): Atrocious Dating Violence Against Young Women: We Still Need Feminism

If anyone asks you why we still need an organized, agitating feminist movement, tell them to think of five women they know. Ask them whether they want one of those five women to be tortured by someone she should be able [to] trust. If the answer is no, we still need feminism.

Mr Shakes (Shakesville): Feminism benefits us all

Men need to get it through their heads that they, too, are under the heel of power structures that have no interest in promoting their welfare. They must understand that the rights and privileges that they have hitherto been enjoying fall far short of the privileges they could enjoy were they to try and achieve them. The internecine warfare that occurs between women and men, people of color and white people, straights and gays, as they all squabble like schoolchildren in an attempt to gain or deny rights, is exactly what those in power want.

Aunt B.(Tiny Cat Pants): Remedial Feminism

Does Ivy hate men and want to mock and belittle them at every turn? No.

Ivy wants to be able to walk into McDonald’s and get for her daughter a toy without it turning into a lesson in how either 1. Boys get all the cool toys and girls have to learn how to put up with shit. Or 2. Because you’re a girl, you usually only deserve the girl toy, which sucks, but because someone has pointed out that you are “exceptional,” you might be able to get the boy toy.

See how nothing about this has to do directly with boys? This isn’t an anecdote about boys. No one is suggesting that any boy should have to suffer or put up with a shit toy. There’s nothing in this story directly about boys.

(nb a lot of the attitude of the questioner for this FAQ overlaps with "I'm not a feminist, but...", which is a common utterance by those who notice and are disturbed by instances of sexism, and totally agree that something should be done to combat such sexism, if only they could argue against such sexism without perhaps being mistaken for one of those humourless, hairylegged, manhating feminists)

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Women online: coping with abuse, threats and cyberstalking

2007-04-02T10:30:00.000+10:00

There's been a lot of discussion of the threats made against Kathy Sierra online over the last week.

Many other women online know how it feels to be objectified and have your arguments trivialised or mocked because of your gender, and a substantial number also know about graphic threats of sexualised violence and brutal death. So what to do about it? There is no one answer that is right for every woman who feels threatened, but there are some general guidelines.

BlogHer have a couple of excellent posts: Today is Stop Cyberbullying Day and a post from last year: What do you do when you're cyberstalked, taunted or abused online?.

The Kathy Sierra threat situation is one of the top stories on Technorati, so chances that your favourite blogger has written something about it are fairly high. I myself have written a long piece about Sierra's experience in the light of other cyberharassment incidents, and what it means for enforcing commenting standards in online forums, that I've posted at both my own blog Hoyden About Town and Aussie political group blog Larvatus Prodeo.

In general I agree with the advice from BlogHer that the best response is to ignore them online, deleting their comments from discussions, while saving all their comments and emails in case they are needed for demonstrating a pattern of escalating harassment to law enforcement at a later date. Ensuring that your own site has a clearly laid out comments policy that is strictly adhered to ensures that anarchic escalations at least don't dominate your own online space. What advice do others have?

Feminism Friday: Young Feminists

2007-03-30T09:55:00.000+10:00

What with the continually alleged "death of feminism" in this "post-feminist" age, how are young women finding their way into feminism going about it? Particularly those who are not going to tertiary education facilities that offer a Women's Studies Course?

How did those of us who are not so young find our way into feminism? How were we helped/hindered by family and friends?

I had a father who encouraged me to read Germaine Greer and Betty Friedan and always pay my own way on dates at the same time as he refused to agree to my mother returning to full-time work until my 6-years younger sister was in secondary school, and who thought that making a big deal about complimenting me on my body in front of his mates was OK. My mother resented being held back from working after having kids but also expressed doubt about a lot of the Women's Lib (as it was referred to at the time) agenda. Most of my school-friends thought my feminist beliefs were at the simplest (votes, equal pay) obvious and at the more anthropological (dating rituals, sexist language) weird. Mixed messages.

I never studied Women's Studies or feminist theory at a tertiary education level - I've just read a lot of books and made a lot of feminist friends over the years, some of whom have formally studied feminist theory and some of whom, like me, have read a lot and thought a lot about it outside college/uni. Different paths.

So what are young feminists doing for themselves to make sense of feminism here and now?

I just found one young feminist online community linking to this blog in my sitemeter stats: the All-Girl Army, whose tagline is Ovathrow the status quo! which I love. They're a community of feminist bloggers ranging from age 10 to 23, which is far younger than the feminists online whom I usually read. Check it out.

Any other young feminists (let's make an arbitrary cut-off of age 25) wanting to promote their online and/or offline communities/activities please leave a comment about yourselves! The rest of you, please reminisce about the feminist or proto-feminist you aged 25 or under.

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Comments working again?

2007-03-26T10:51:00.000+10:00

Updated 28March07

I think.

So, please add your favourite feminist links that are on-topic for particular FAQ posts in the comments threads. I can't read everything, so the more suggestions for further reading from different parts of the feminist spectrum the better.

UPDATE: sorry for light posting the last few days. First I got some tinges of tendonitis after heavy keyboard work the last few weeks, and now I've got a head cold.

The normal rate of a new FAQ post every few days will resume when my sinuses stop attacking my brane. If you've felt inspired and written one of your own, please leave a link in comments.

Comments being eaten

2007-03-24T03:42:00.000+11:00

I've received a few emails today from people whose comments are being eaten.

Anyone who felt like trying to make a test comment on this post, and sending me a quick email at tigtog at gmail.com if it doesn't get through, I would be very ~~greatful~~ GRATEFUL (should not post at three ack emma, should not post at three ack emma). It might help me get some action from Haloscan.

Update: I've put up an FF101 Open Thread over at my other blog, Hoyden About Town. If you were really wanting to discuss Lori's Feminism Friday op-ed, or any other post, please head on over there for the time being.

Friday Open Thread and Feminism Friday Op-Ed

2007-03-23T12:44:00.000+11:00

Updated 28March07

I've been admiring Thinking Girl's Feminism Friday archive so much that I'm nicking the idea, and I would encourage other bloggers to do the same. Not necessarily every Friday, but every now and then, when you have an opinionated big-picture essay bursting to get out, let that post loose on a Friday and give it the "Feminism Friday" category tag to make it easy to find on search engines. We can have a multitude of virtual feminist salons!

For FF101's first Feminism Friday Salon, I present a guest op-ed by Lori Heine, a fairly new but frequent commenter at Pandagon. Lori adds:

I'm a playwright and essayist, whose work most often appears in the GLBT webzine Whosoever. I live with seven cats and one poor, outnumbered little dog. I am single, eligible and searching for the ultimate woman.

This essay came about from Lori's ruminations on two of the questions in this blog's masthead: "Does feminism matter?" and "What can I do for feminism?". Please add your own ideas on those two questions, and any responses/arguments provoked by Lori's essay, in comments (please go check out Thinking Girl's archive as well). If you've decided to put up a Feminism Friday post yourself, link to that for us as well, please.
~~UPDATE: Haloscan is eating comments at the moment, so head on over to the FF101 open thread at my other blog to comment, please.~~ (problem appears to be solved)
-----------------------------------------------------
Friday Feminism Op-Ed
by Lori Heine

A non-feminist world, throughout history, has almost always been an anti-female world. It is dominated by a human race perilously out of balance.

Every animal species, in order to survive, has evolved in a way that enables its feminine side to exist in harmony with the masculine. For the sake of survival, all the caring and nurturing, creatively-collaborative qualities of a species are given equal prominence with its defensive, acquisitive, possessive and self-interested characteristics. Even most males in the animal world have a highly-developed feminine side. An overemphasis on the masculine would ultimately mean the destruction of the species. No matter how safe it might be from its outside enemies, its members would inevitably be unable to cooperate with one another and eventually destroy each other and themselves.

Feminism does not seek to destroy the masculine, but merely to bring it into harmony with the feminine so that a healthy balance may be maintained. A healthy society respects the feminine and gives it room to realize its full potential. An unhealthy society, in which the masculine suppresses and oppresses the feminine – valorizing selfishness, competitiveness, acquisitiveness and possessiveness – is not long for this world.

Might a society that goes too far to the feminine extreme also destroy itself? We don’t know. History offers no precedent of such a thing. Since it’s never happened (and men are, by their very nature, unlikely to let it), it’s hard to tell if this is a legitimate worry. As it is highly unlikely that such a thing would ever be allowed to happen, it’s doubtful we need lose sleep over the prospect.

As a matter of fact, feminism enables the masculine side of human nature as well. Patriarchy forces girls and women to suppress that element in themselves. This is yet another way to keep people from being complete. It also attempts to deny those who are female the ability to defend themselves from male bullying. “Real” women are not supposed to stand up for themselves.

There are, however, many constructive ways for both women and men to resist this oppression. To begin with, we can recognize how crucial it is that society – and the individuals in it – respect the feminine. There is no need to fear that this might “weaken” men, as every whole human being is a balance of both the masculine and the feminine. We can strive to be complete human beings, regardless of our gender. And do our utmost to allow all other human beings to do the same.

If you are female, waste no time wishing you had been born a man. Seek access, for yourself and other women, to all privileges men have traditionally hoarded for themselves. A bigger pool of human talent and good ideas expands the potential for every person. If the best among us are allowed to reach their full potential, they will contribute to the quality of life for us all.

If you are male, dedicate yourself to justice for all. A world in which the rights of any human being are trampled upon is a world in which no one’s rights are secure. A world in which most other people are happy will be a world in which it is more likely that you will be happy, too. Unhappiness and injustice are like contagious diseases, and when a society is infected with them, the growth and potential fulfillment of every individual – female or male – is severely inhibited.

We can refuse to listen idly to sexist remarks or ignorant stereotyping about women. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, we can ask questions that do not seem to occur to others. Let’s help people think in creative and liberating new ways. How many of the diseases that still plague humankind might have been cured years ago, had women been permitted equal access to careers in science and medicine? How many devastating wars might have been avoided, had more women been given the chance not only to govern, but to make the presence of the feminine perspective felt on a wider scale?

Feminism is all about liberation – for men, as well as women, and for straights as well as gays. Most of the great leaps in human rights have taken place because of the influence of women. The feminine influence in society has made life better for everyone. Had we waited for men alone to change things for the better, most of us – including most men – would still be waiting.

The children of happy and fulfilled mothers grow up to be happier adults. This is as true of sons as it is of daughters. It has been widely observed that the men who respect women generally seem happier, and more at peace with themselves and other men, than do those who are contemptuous of women. It doesn’t hurt for us to point this out when we get the chance.

The male-supremacist insistence on seeing men and women as two totally different species is suicidal. And unchecked, it can only get worse. Where will the male-supremacists allow it to end? Will they be happy when they’ve exercised the ultimate in masculine self-assertion? Thanks to one of the chief male contributions to history, the nuclear weapon, we may one day get the chance to find out.

Socializing boys to be “all boy” is essentially dehumanizing. In their compulsion to separate themselves from every trace of femininity, men have succumbed to a sort of insanity. They are now being made to believe that showing any emotion beyond derisive humor, rage and lust (for women, of course, in a detached and objectified sense) is “girly.” At no time in history have men ever been so limited. They are no longer allowed to feel, to learn anything in school (again, too “girly”) or even to take the most basic care of their own health.

If that isn’t insanity, then what is?

They can abuse alcohol, drive recklessly, deny themselves medical care and do their utmost to kill themselves and others. They’ve come a long way, baby.

Some people – including many women – say that it’s the name “feminist” they find objectionable. Call it something else, they say, and they will be fine with it. “Mankind,” “fellow man,” and the rest – terms that make maleness the all-encompassing human norm – they have no problem with, but a word, merely suggesting that women are people too, sends them into a tizzy. Even those who embrace the concept have been bullied out of using the word. But if the word itself can no longer be used, how much longer will the concept itself be permitted?

Feminism is nothing less than an attempt to bring humanity into harmonious wholeness. As yet another generation of American GI’s returns from yet another senseless conquest war – trained to kill, to suppress feelings, to scorn compassion – we will have to deal, once again, with the fallout of male supremacy. Another generation of young people have been broken, inside and out. And what do the powers-that-be blame for the problem, as they do for every other? Why feminism, of course.

But are feminists the crazy ones? Watch Spike TV for an hour and you’ll find out. No, watch the news for even half an hour and you’ll know the answer to that.

(C) 2007 Lori Heine
----------------------------------------------------

Have a lovely weekend, everybody!
~~Update: remember, you may comment using this link while Haloscan is not playing nice.~~

FAQ: What is sexual objectification?

2007-03-23T08:36:00.000+11:00

Sexual objectification is the viewing of people solely as de-personalised objects of desire instead of as individuals with complex personalities. This is done by speaking/thinking of women as only their bodies, either the whole body, or as fetishised body parts.

Sexual attraction is not the same as sexual objectification: objectification only occurs when the individuality of the desired person is not acknowledged. Pornography, prostitution, sexual harassment and the representation of women in mass media and art are all examples of common sexual objectification.

The concept of objectification owes much to the work of Simone de Beauvoir regarding the basic dualism of human consciousness between the Self and the Other: the general mental process where humans classify the world into 'us' and 'them'. Women are universally viewed as the Other across all cultures, a role which is both externally imposed and internalised, and which means that women are generally not truly regarded as fully human. An important point of de Beauvoir's was that this Othering effect is the same whether women are viewed as wholly inferior or if femininity is viewed as mysterious and morally superior: Otherness and full equality cannot coexist.

Introductory:

earlbecke (Definition): But don't you like to be objectified sometimes?
Persona non grata (☀☁☂☃☠☠☠☠): Objectified does not equal Idealized

Clarifying Concepts:

Gaze, especially the "male gaze" (Wikipedia): Gaze

More on gaze and objectification:

Yes, I admit, there is a “female gaze,” although some feminists like Laura Mulvey argue that “the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification,” and that besides, the female gaze is merely the co-optation of the male gaze. I would myself add that the female gaze is inherently different. While the male gaze objectifies and sexualizes, the female gaze is “emmasculated,” that is powerless.
[Belle Lettres (Law and Letters): Pictures and Patriarchy]

drumgurl (Redneck Feminist): Hot enough to be feminist (see also: tough enough to wear pink)

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34th Carnival of Feminists

2007-03-22T18:56:00.000+11:00

It's on now over at A Somewhat Old, But Capacious Handbag. Your hostess for this carnival is the lively and talented Miss Prism.

And the 2nd edition of Scientiae, the blog-carnival for women in science, went up last week at Post Doc Ergo Propter Doc, hosted by the equally lively and talented Propter Doc.

Haloscan playing up

2007-03-22T14:30:00.000+11:00

Apparently there are some issues with commenting. I thought you all were quiet today!

If there's anything someone really wants to say to me you could email it using the link in the sidebar.

FAQ: Isn't "the Patriarchy" just some conspiracy theory that blames all men, even decent men, for women's woes?

2007-03-21T13:10:00.000+11:00

Updated 18March07

Patriarchy: one of the most misunderstood critical-theory concepts ever, often wilfully misunderstood. Patriarchy is an ancient and ongoing social system based on traditions of elitism (a hierarchy of inferiorities), privilege and the subjugation of women via strict gender expectations which constrain individualist expressions. Some societies are more patriarchal than others, but patriarchal social traditions are universal in human societies.

Not all men are Patriarchs. A Patriarch is a man who has special power and influence over not just his family but also in society, due to privileges gathered through intersections of age, wealth, achievement, lineage, patronage and the exploitation of others.

Men do not generally conspire with Patriarchs (although they may aspire to become one): men simply have a place above women in the traditional socioeconomic hierarchy from which Patriarchs skim the cream, meaning that men (as a group) benefit more from the injustices of Patriarchy than women do (as a group).

In primitive and lawless societies patriarchal organisation has survival benefits for women and children, at a price: subjugation and often misogynistic abuse. Civilisation (generally) has advanced a long way from the days of the ancient ruthless patriarchs who held the power of life and death over their extended families/clans, and survival is (generally) no longer dependant on formal subjugation to a Patriarch, either for men or women.

However, society is still structured along patriarchal lines of submission in nearly all forms of organisations, to the great benefit of those at the top. The male elites, the magnates (currently white, but who knows what the next century will bring?), continue to wield disproportionate influence and power over the situations of other men and especially women.

"So, there is no one Patriarch, leastaways not outside of Constantinople. There's no single dude in a nifty hat (or not) at the top of the power structure, surrounded by scantily clad women whom he feeds to tigers for his kicks and giggles. If it were only that simple, we could off the old wanker, free the women and give them some trousers, find loving homes for the tigers, and have a great party around the bonfire of his palace (after salvaging all the good art, books, and chocolate). Alas, because the patriarchy is instead a very very old system that has warped everyone's thinking right down to the sub-rational, axiomatic, non-verbal ideological level, it's much more difficult to overthrow. (We've seen how well wars against ideas work.)"
[jennie (zingerella): Who Are The Patriarchs, Anyway?]

Extra-Credit Reading (not a feminist primer):

"patriarchy is a violently tyrannical but nearly invisible social order based on an oppressive paradigm of class and status fetishizing dominance and submission. Patriarchy’s benefits are accrued according to a rigid hierarchy at the top of which are rich honky males and at the bottom of which are poor women of color."
[Twisty Faster (I Blame the Patriarchy): Patriarchy-Blaming the Twisty Way]

Even in modern-rule-of-law countries with full legal sexual equality, there are still many patriarchal remnants in the way that men (as a group) seek to discourage women (as a group) from social independence and independent financial security. These remnant patriarchal traditions do more harm to women, on balance, than good.

The continuing subjugation and abuse of women in more traditional societies, along with the continued inequity even in rule-of-law societies, is why feminism seeks to dismantle patriarchy. Which is why some patriarchs are so antagonistic towards feminism:

Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
[Pat Robertson, multi-millionaire televangelist and former presidential candidate, 1992]

Clarifying Concepts:

Patriarchy and sexism intersect and buttress each other:

"It's using a male default as the standard and then because (well, duh) women are different from that standard, we are found lacking."
[Sarah in Chicago(kiwi_grrl) in comments at Bitch PhD, Misogyny in Real Life]

High Status Women defending the Patriarchy:

This phenomenon doesn't mean that Patriarchy isn't unjust, it only means that such women like the benefits they derive from high status and wish to keep them.

"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"."
[roula (in comments here) responding to questions about Wendy McElroy, Cathy Young et al (emphasis added)]

As usual, please feel free to add your favourite links to articles about the subject to the comments thread.

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Sexual Harassment

2007-03-20T12:12:00.000+11:00

Haven't put together an FAQ for SH yet, but I just found an excellent resource for anyone looking for clearly laid out material.

From the Memorial University of Newfoundland: Sexual Harassment Information Site.

Obviously, their definitions and referenced laws are specific to their own region, but the site offers more information about the conceptual and theoretical framework underlying laws and actions against sexual harassment. Good info, and a very well laid-out site that's easy to navigate.

FAQ: Can men be feminists?

2007-03-19T14:51:00.000+11:00

Edited 26Mar07

Many men are entirely comfortable with calling themselves feminists, and many feminist women are very happy to accept them as fellow feminists working for the end of sexist oppression.

Photo: A man wearing a "This is what a feminist looks like" shirt at a political rally. Cropped (with permission) from an original image uploaded by Alarming Female (it's her father).

However, there are also men and women who are ideologically uncomfortable with men calling themselves feminists, because it seems to be a co-option of movements built by and for women. These groups express a preference for the terms pro-feminist or feminist allies when speaking of men who support and advocate feminism.

The debate over the terms is an undercurrent of controversy rather than an enormously divisive issue.

Introductory

Michael Flood(XY-Online): Pro-feminist men's FAQ
jeff (Feminist Allies): Allies; Another reason I call myself a Feminist

Clarifying Concepts

Chris Clarke (Creek Running North): Why I Am Not A Feminist
Tia (Unfogged): An Uncongenial Post - "guidelines for avoiding actively irritating women who are discussing feminist concerns".

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FAQ: Aren't you all just a bunch of "feminazis"?

2007-03-19T12:59:00.000+11:00

The word "feminazi" is a false construction, a strawfeminist, created to scare people away from the juicy crops of equality, equity and the end of female subjugation.
(See the "strawman" entry in the Logical Fallacies section at the Critical Thinking Website.)

stealthbadger (Stealth Badger): A dudely introduction to feminism (utterly debunks the arguments made to support the "feminazi" invention by slime-shill Rush Limbaugh)

For further contrast with the actual feminism movement, examine 12 Warning Signs of Fascism here.

More strawfeminists and myths about feminism:
Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon): Feminist Myths 101
Mad Melancholic Feminista: Feminism 101 - Myths & Facts

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FAQ: What do feminists mean by "reproductive freedom"?

2007-03-17T14:42:00.000+11:00

Updated 19Mar2007

Reproductive freedom is so much more than merely being pro-choice. Without reproductive freedom, women's rights to legal equality and social equity cannot be guaranteed.

"Defined by feminists in the 1970s as a basic human right, it includes the right to abortion and birth control, but implies much more. To be realised, reproductive freedom must include not only woman's right to choose childbirth, abortion, sterilisation or birth control, but also her right to make those choices freely, without pressure from individual men, doctors, governmental or religious authorities. It is a key issue for women, since without it the other freedoms we appear to have, such as the right to education, jobs and equal pay, may prove illusory. Provisions of childcare, medical treatment, and society's attitude towards children are also involved."
--The Encyclopedia of Feminism (1986) Lisa Tuttle
ISBN 0-09-944900-5

There are many issues affecting reproductive freedom in various parts of the world: forced-childbirth (eg Romania), forced-abortion (eg China), access to affordable birth control (all countries without universal health care), any access to birth control, access to a healthy diet sufficient to grow healthy babies and safely undergo childbirth, unnecessary caesarians (most Western nations), female genital mutilation (increases childbirth risks), inequitable access to healthcare for women, and many many more.

Submissions are requested for articles addressing these issues.

The pro-choice/pro-life debate will be covered in detail in a separate post (in progress).

Introductory
Evidence Based Midwifery Care
Joyous Birth (homebirth advocacy)
Birthrites (caesarian advice): Scroll down their sidebar for various links (shocking site layout) | Planning a Positive Caesarean for women who need/want a caesarean and want to be in control.

Anyone know some sites where Obstetricians fully embrace evidence-based obstetrics rather than economically/professionally/traditionally rationalised obstetrics? There must be a few. Surely?

Clarifying Concepts

Rights during Childbirth/Birth Abuse
You may never have considered intrusive obstetric practises as abuse, or as "birthrape", a term coming into wider use. This may change your mind.

"Just because it is the standard of care, doesn't mean it's ethical."
Navelgazing Midwife: Oh, the homebirth debate blog...

Why pro-choice?
thinking girl (Thinking Girl): Blog for Choice Day 2007 (lots of links, and a very interesting discussion addressing dissenters)

Check Googlesearch for top-linked "Blog for Choice" posts.

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Saturday Retrospective: early feminist writings

2007-03-17T10:36:00.000+11:00

Please feel free to leave comments quoting your favourite excerpts from these and why they speak to you.

A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) by Mary Wollestonecraft
With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects

It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms and weakness.

On the Subjection of Women (1869) by John Stuart Mill (and probably Harriet Taylor Mill)
An essay partnering Mill's "On Liberty", an analysis on utilitarian philosophical grounds.

That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes--the legal subordination of one sex to the other--is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.

NB: It's an interesting example of the US-centricity of the internet that my first searches on "early feminist writing" were all links to writers from the Second Wave of Feminism, the US Women's Liberation Movement in the 1960s-70s. Great writings, but not that early, to me. These much earlier writings, written in measured, stately language to counter the stereotype of women as overly emotive and unable to reason, are an excellent source for the philosophical fundamentals.

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Wow, what a week!

2007-03-16T18:02:00.000+11:00

There I was last week thinking that I'd noodle along with this FAQ thing with a post every now and then and eventually it might get some attention. I was obviously not accounting for the "Feministe effect" after zuzu, bless her cotton socks, linked here with not just one but two separate posts recommending FF101.

I'm immensely thrilled by all the traffic and positive feedback, and to see so many hits coming in from feed-readers after a new post goes up, and to see how many hits are coming in from other people's blogs because they've linked to this very new and essentially untried blog. Especially when all those links have pushed up the search-engine ranking of individual FAQ posts so that they're already often on the first page of results for search-strings with all those basic questions, which is more than I could ever have hoped for in the first week of reviving the blog.

It's all rather humbling. I have to admit that looking at the sitemeter made me gulp a bit about how little of the basics I'd got covered yet when all these people were coming to look, so it's been a little hectic adding posts this week to clarify the purpose of the blog and cover a few of the most contentious matters (still plenty to go!).

I very much doubt that I'll keep up the pace of this week as long as it's only me posting FAQs [SFX: sound of heavy hint dropping], but I'll aim to get several posts up per week. I hope this blog lives up to my goal for it to be both a useful feminist resource and a supportive feminist community.

FAQ Roundup: Introductory material

2007-03-16T13:16:00.000+11:00

Updated 03May07

Wanting to join in a discussion with feminists on a blog or other online forum? Need more information? It's a good idea to start with one or both of these two posts, depending on how you came here:

Below are the FAQs thus far (this page will be regularly updated on approximately a weekly basis). Qs in small font are in progress but not yet posted. If your question is not addressed in the FAQs below, please check the Open Suggestions Thread to see whether someone else has suggested the same question and/or provided a useful link to an article addressing that question.

Each of the FAQ posts below contain links to other material, especially other blog-posts, from other authors online. The comments threads provide links to further reading supplied by the readers of this blog.

There is some necessary repetition in some of the FAQs, because not everybody is going to read every Q, so material needs to be placed in more than one post to effectively cover various issues.

NB: The FAQs attempt to be descriptive from a reasonably neutral position. There are other posts on this blog which are not FAQs which are intended as general feminist resources and op-eds: these posts are not intended to be neutral documents.

Absolute basics:

Specific Issues:

Clarifying Concepts:

What is "sexual objectification"?
What is the "male gaze"?
I've got nothing against equal rights for women, but we've got that, so isn't feminism nowadays just going too far ? (aka Why do we still need feminism?)
Why "feminism" and not just "humanism"? or "equalism"? Isn't "feminism" exclusionary?
Why are you concentrating so hard on "X" when "Y" is so much more important?
But men and women are born different! Isn't that obvious?
How can Feminity be "socially constructed"?
Feminists just hate heterosexual sex

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Friday Open Thread: Favourite Feminist Music

2007-03-16T07:01:00.000+11:00

Please add your favourite performers/songs/musicals/operas in comments. Especially keen for an international sampling outside the Western mainstream hit parade.

If you've written a review on any of them, please add the link.

FAQ: What can feminism do for me?

2007-03-15T11:33:00.000+11:00

Updated 16Mar07

1. You will find that you are not alone in thinking something is disturbing and unjust with the way that society deals with gender.

my first encounter with feminist writing reassured me that i wasn't insane, and that amongst other things, it was in fact normal to be bothered by violence and misogyny.
[m. (sthreeling): 5 things feminism has done for me]

This is one of a series of testimonials from bloggers via a meme on feminism. Find more of these testimonials using this Google search string "5 things feminism has done for you"
(If you want your own feminist testimonial to show up on that search, write a post using the quoted words in the post-body)

2. You will find ways to actively work for reform, both singly and collectively.

Organisations:
Global
Association for Women's Rights in Development
Global Fund for Women
UNIFEM: United Nations Development Fund for Women
UN: Womenwatch
Global List of Women's Organisations

National/ethnic: (alphabetical order)

Australia
Emily's List
National Foundation for Australian Women
Govt: Office of the Status of Women
Women on Boards
Women's Electoral Lobby

India
India Women's Organisations (Names and contact details, no websites)

New Zealand
Auckland Women's Centre
Govt. Ministry of Women's Affairs
NZ Women's Centre's Directory

United Kingdom
Emily's List
The Fawcett Society
Older Feminists' Network
Women Against Rape

United States of America
Emily's List
Feminist Majority Foundation
National Organisation of Women
Radical Women
The WISH list
List of many other US women's organisations from feminism.eserver.org

Feed the FAQ! Links to national directories of women's activist organisations for other countries, please! (Or if someone knows an existing international directory that I've missed, even better)

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FAQ: Does feminism matter?

2007-03-15T10:46:00.000+11:00

Updated 22Mar07

Hell yes.

1. Society deals with gender in a way that, on balance, harms women.
2. This is a problem that must be corrected.
[yami (Green Gabbro): Feminisms]

Related reading:
All FAQ articles below have links to further reading on other sites

Harm to women:
FAQ:Isn't feminism just playing "victim" politics?

Gender inequity:
FAQ:What is male privilege?
FAQ: What is the "Gender Gap"?

Clarifying Concepts

Feminist Theory in Liberal Arts Courses
What is Feminism (and why do we have to talk about it so much)?

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FAQ: -What’s wrong with suggesting that women take precautions to prevent being raped?

2007-03-15T07:03:00.000+11:00

Updated 04May07

Short answer: because it puts the onus on women not to get themselves raped, rather than on men not to do the raping; in short, it blames the victim.
(from Grendelkhan, in comments, emphasis added)

Introductory:

Blaming the Victim
Melissa McEwan (Shakespeare's Sister): Dear Ladies: Please Stop Getting Yourselves Raped

Key quote:

Left to my own devices, I never would have been raped. The rapist was really the key component to the whole thing. I was sober; hardly scantily clad (another phrase appearing once in the article), I was wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt; I was at home; my sexual history was, literally, nonexistent—I was a virgin; I struggled; I said no. There have been times since when I have been walking home, alone, after a few drinks, wearing something that might have shown a bit of leg or cleavage, and I wasn't raped. The difference was not in what I was doing. The difference was the presence of a rapist.

JoAnne Schmitz (Jupiter9): It's not the empty street that causes rape

The question is, why do the warnings not help? Is the warning not strong enough? I don't think so. I don't know any women who don't consider rape a realistic threat to them, and I don't know any women who never alter their behavior because of a fear of rape.

Well, the obvious answer: Rape keeps happening because rapists keep doing what they're doing. Because it works. So how can what they're doing work if we have all these strong warnings about?

The warnings women get are misleading. They leave out the acts of the rapist himself. They focus on the situation. They also may focus on the "kind of man" the potential rapist is. If he's a friend of a friend, or your uncle, he's "safe." It's the stranger who's the threat.

And we know that's not true.

Men against rapists:
ross (The Talent Show): I am not my cock

Clarifying Concepts:

Rapists are rarely Strangers
ifritah (GROWL): Facts and Figures - a 2005 post citing studies several years older then, however patterns have not changed much.

Stranger rape and sexual assault is only one of several possible types of sexual violence. Here's the reported percentages according to National Health and Social Life Survey:

- Someone with whom the respondent was in love: 46%
- Someone that the respondent knew well: 22%
- Acquaintance: 19%
- Spouse: 9%
- Stranger: 4%

(Rathus, Nevid and Fichner-Rathus, 565)

Consent:
Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon): Real Consent Manifesto

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FAQ: I asked some feminists a question, and instead of answering they sent me here. Why?

2007-03-14T10:46:00.000+11:00

Updated 03May07

Your question probably covered ground they have gone over many times before, and they didn't want to derail the interesting discussion they were already having.

People find ignorant questions frustrating, and questioners find being ignored frustrating, and such mutual dissatisfaction can totally disrupt a discussion. By sending you here the feminists hope to avoid being interrupted, yet are also not completely ignoring your question(s).

Maybe you didn't ask a question at all, but stated an argument that denied the importance of the topic being discussed. Feminists naturally don't care for the thought of trying to run you through reams of introductory material before you gain the grounding to realise the basis whereby they perceive an important problem where you may not.

Either way, educating you on the basics would derail the discussion about the actual topic the feminists are interested in, just for you. That's an awful lot to ask of people on the net who don't even know you, isn't it?

This blog exists to give you a few pointers to places you can find more information to answer your question (although we're only in early days yet, FAQs will continue to be added until the basics are covered). Once you are better informed you will be able to contribute to lively feminist discussions productively, armed with facts and theory, even if/when you don't end up agreeing with all the theories.

First:

How To Use This Blog

NB: If you had a specific question rather than a general question, and the person who sent you here didn't give you a link to a specific FAQ that answers your question, then you may be feeling somewhat aggrieved. Fair enough, too. Polite persistence ("That's a large resource - which particular FAQ should I be reading?") should make the point that a little bit of effort on their part as well can be fairly expected, without derailing the discussion. Hopefully what you read here can generate on-topic discussion in good time.

Second:
Use the sidebar links to navigate through the Frequently Answered Questions (FAQ).

Peruse the FAQ Roundup post, which is irregularly updated.
The Introductory archive is here.
If you have a more theoretically-advanced question, try the Clarifying Concepts archive here.
Scroll down to the category listings to find posts discussing particular topics.

NB: The FAQs attempt to be descriptive from a reasonably neutral position. There are other posts on this blog which are not FAQs which are intended as general feminist resources and op-eds: these posts are not intended to be neutral documents.

Third:
If your question is not yet amongst the FAQs, please add it to the Open Suggestion Thread (and if you read through the comments there you may find that someone else has suggested a link that fits the bill). Read the comments policy in the sidebar before commenting, please.

OK, then. Welcome to the blog.

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FAQ: What do feminists want?

2007-03-13T13:34:00.000+11:00

To end the perpetuation of gender expectations that, on balance, harm women.

To explain the many ways that sexist stereotypes, double standards, and oppressions harm women generally is beyond the scope of this introductory post, but the reading below should give you some starting links.

Related:
What is feminism?
What is male privilege?
What is the "Gender Gap"?
Isn't feminism just "victim" politics?

For those on feed-readers

2007-03-13T09:29:00.000+11:00

I just realised that when I update posts with links etc, that refreshes them in most feed-readers so that they show as "new".

As the settings for the feed are currently to supply the full articles, is that a pain? Should I change the feed-settings to only supply an excerpt, to enhance the ease of skimming-over for revised older posts?

FAQ: why do some people talk of "feminisms"?

2007-03-12T20:52:00.000+11:00

Most recently updated 17 March 2007

Because, as was said back on the What is a feminist? and Why are there so many fights between feminists? posts, Feminism is not a monolith.

From the soc.feminism Terminologies FAQ compiled in 1993 by Cindy Tittle Moore, here is a following non-exhaustive list of feminisms (read fuller descriptions at the given link to clarify concepts). Some of the following groups are very small compared to the major strands of modern feminism:

Feminisms
Amazon Feminism
Anarcho-Feminism
Cultural Feminism
Erotic Feminism
Eco-Feminism
'Feminazi' **
Feminism and Women of Color
Individualist, or Libertarian Feminism
Lesbianism *
Liberal Feminism
Marxist and Socialist Feminism
Material Feminism
Moderate Feminism
'pop-feminism' **
Radical Feminism
Separatists

There are important new movements not included in the list above, particularly the Radical Women of Colour movement and the many non-Western national/ethnic feminist movements, which have all been caught up in the single classification "Feminism and Women of Colour" above.

The Feminist eZine (LilithGallery): 1001 Feminist Links (just keep on scrolling, and then scroll some more)

Feminist Theory Website (choose English/Francais/Espanol on homepage): Different National/Ethic Feminisms - biased towards academia, but a good starting point for specific readings.

* Just as not all feminists are lesbians, not all lesbians are feminists. It's a "correlation, not causation" thing, and not an easily distinguished movement as such either.
** Essentially media inventions rather than meaningful classifications.

Men's Movements
From the same FAQ: "many of these movements were started in reaction to feminism: some inspired by and others in contra-reaction to it"

Feminist Men's Movement
Men's Liberation Movement
Mythopoetic Men's Movement
The New Traditionalists
The Father's Movements

The Father's Rights Movement has grown greatly since this FAQ was compiled, and is probably now the largest cohesive Men's Movement.

Further reading into the differing details of these movements will be added to this post as time allows. I especially apologise for the US-centricity of the list thus far, (and me an Aussie!) and hope to add more information on other feminisms around the world. (Update: national/ethnic feminist movement directory now added above) Feel free to leave links to distinctive voices characterising one or more of these movements in the comments.

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Open Suggestion Thread

2007-03-12T09:46:00.000+11:00

Please add suggestions for questions that have not yet been addressed, hopefully with links to articles that address those questions, in the comments to this post.

What sort of suggestions could you make?

Firstly, links that cover basic material for the benefit of the genuinely curious.

Secondly, links that debunk common anti-feminist myths and address common arguments from trolls. The model for all efforts of this kind to emulate is the marvellous Index to Creationist Claims associated with USENet newsgroup talk.origins. The wonderful zuzu, who has kindly seen fit to widely promote this project, nails it:

Got a troll asking you disingenuous or stupid questions and don’t know where to tell them to go (other than hell, of course)? Drop on by the open suggestion thread and make a suggestion for a post to which you can later refer trolls (or the genuinely clueless). With a sweet smile and a suggestion to come back once they’ve covered the first-year course material.

As a general rule I'd prefer people to nominate other people's articles rather than their own in this thread, but it's fine to link to your own writing in other threads.

If you have an article you'd like to suggest as a link to be added to an existing FAQ post, please add it in the comments to that post. That way the comments thread becomes a user-generated "More Reading" list even if I decide against adding the link to the body of the post.

PS. I don't like the template much either, but am actually designing a website for a client what pays, so don't have the time to futz around with HTML and XML until next week probably. But if the site suddenly changes to one of the other Blogger templates, don't be surprised.

How To Use This Blog

2007-03-12T09:44:00.000+11:00

Updated 18Mar2007

This blog is a place where Frequently Asked Questions are Answered.

The idea of FAQs is a response to the following phenomenon: when new users come into an established discussion group, such as the commenting community at feminist blogs, they often ask questions that have been frequently answered beforehand. This often leads to mutual frustration, as the established community doesn't wish to go over old ground (especially when doing so derails an interesting discussion), and the new user doesn't wish to be ignored. Thus ariseth flamewars.

So, long ago in a USENet far far away, the convention arose whereby discussion groups put together an FAQ, and when one of the oft-covered basic questions was raised, people could just say "Read the FAQ" or, if they were being more helpful [1], point to the specific answer in the FAQ. This was often known as handing the newbie a cluestick.

New users who accept the cluestick can follow the links and become more educated about the subject area pertaining to their question. New users who don't follow the cluesticks to at least make their next question less ignorant tend to be seen as arguing in bad faith, and will probably continue to be ignored as wilfully clueless.

Each FAQ post is a work in progress, subject to revision and in particular the addition of new links to appropriate articles. Feed the FAQ with link suggestions, please.

Also, please use the comments threads to link to articles/posts/books that cover the subject area addressed in that FAQ. That way the comments threads will become a user-generated "further reading" list, and a way for fellow feminists to find more great feminist blogs/forums/resources.

Note #1: people who are told to "read the FAQ" without a pointer to a given article that addresses the question they are asking are entitled to return to the originating discussion and request a more specific pointer, IMO. If people are asked to go do some homework those making the request should do theirs first.

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FAQ: What is male privilege?

2007-03-11T01:06:00.000+11:00

One example of the privileged status that some groups have over others in the social hierarchy.

tekanji:“Check my what?” On privilege and what we can do about it
Covers the following concept areas with multiple links to other writings in each section.
[Accept Your Privilege]
[Understanding Your Privilege]
[Adopt a Language of Respect and Equality]
[How to Approach Minority Spaces]
[Treat Us Like Humans, Not ‘The Other’]
[If You’re Not the Problem, Then You’re Not the Problem]

Read the whole thing.

B. Deutsch: The Male Privilege Checklist: An Unabashed Imitation of an Article by Peggy McIntosh
[and Peggy McIntosh's original article here: White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack]

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FAQ: Isn't feminism just "victim" politics?

2007-03-10T21:31:00.000+11:00

updated 01May07

No. Women as a class are subjected to real hardship and oppression just because they are women. This is unjust. Pointing out that women are disproportionately victimised is accurate analysis, not "playing victim".

Witchy-Woo on the "will you women just stop whining" subtext:

I think that those who would rather avoid acknowledging the global injustices that women face, those who deem themselves successful in the struggle, those who find it easier to accuse us of ‘whining’ rather than critically examining their own role in those injustices when we speak about them, are further enabled in their deliberate ignorance by the “you can help yourself” school of thought. Individual solutions for collective problems don’t work.

Not everyone can help themselves. Should we stop speaking about that because it’s percieved as ‘whining’? Many, many women actually are victims - and many more still are survivors - should we, as feminists, really be saying “shit happens, get over it - I have” when, globally, the making of women as victims (and survivors) is systemic and political? I’m thinking, not.

I’m thinking the “stop whining” response is one that comes from those who’d like to close us down, shut us up, make us be quiet.

Read the whole thing.

Kevin T. Keith posted the following list from the UN about the worldwide traditions of impunity for violence committed against women:

Violence against women is the most common but least punished crime in the world.
It is estimated that between 113 million and 200 million women are demographically “missing.” They have been the victims of infanticide (boys are preferred to girls) or have not received the same amount of food and medical attention as their brothers and fathers.
The number of women forced or sold into prostitution is estimated worldwide at anywhere between 700,000 and 4,000,000 per year. Profits from sex slavery are estimated at seven to twelve billion US dollars per year.
Globally, women between the age of fifteen and forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die as a result of male violence than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war combined.
At least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Usually, the abuser is a member of her own family or someone known to her. Domestic violence is the largest form of abuse of women worldwide, irrespective of region, culture, ethnicity, education, class and religion.
It is estimated that more than two million girls are genitally mutilated per year, a rate of one girl every fifteen seconds.
Systematic rape is used as a weapon of terror in many of the world’s conflicts. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 women in Rwanda were raped during the 1994 genocide.
Studies show the increasing links between violence against women and HIV and demonstrate that HIV-infected women are more likely to have experienced violence, and that victims of violence are at higher risk of HIV infection.

KTK (Sufficent Scruples) then analysed how sexism leads to inequities in healthcare provision for women.

Ginmar (A View From A Broad) wraps the whole issue up in a gloriously clarified rant: One Simple Thing

Society is based on the notion that women are things to be used up and discarded. Therefore, while it is possible to work within a framework of society, one has to be very careful as to how one goes about it. Feminism is nothing less than an insurgency in society, disturbing the very framework of our lives. You have to brace yourself for hostility and hatred when you're an avowed feminist. You're disturbing people who've never much thought about women except when those damned women didn't do what they were supposed to.

There's a lot more to read on women's oppression. It really exists.

FAQ: Why are there so many fights between feminists?

2007-03-10T17:11:00.000+11:00

Updated twice on 02Apr07

Quoting from Sage's FAQ:

1. Why do feminists all disagree? Feminism isn’t a movement, it’s an argument!

We all want to raise the status of women to the level of men, to feel safe and respected, and to have a fair and equal chance for all our opinions to be heard. Since the movement is all about choice and the ability to make our own decision that affect us, then it’s necessarily going to be a group fraught with differences. We’re all making our own choices. That’s the commonality. Trying to actively be allowed these choices is the movement. Butting heads along the way from time to time is the reality.

Different feminists work within differing feminist constructs, and have different priorities regarding activism in the following three main (overlapping) arenas:

Work and Family
Sexuality and Health
Social Justice

Often the tactics of a feminist working primarily in one arena can seem to be in conflict with the tactics of a feminist working in primarily in another arena. The ultimate goal of an end to oppression and inequality is rarely in conflict, merely the plan for how best to focus resources and actions to achieve these goals.

In particular, there is a strong perception amongst those feminists working for social justice that privileged middle-class feminists are so concerned with their personal stake in arenas 1 and 2 that arena 3 keeps on getting put onto the back-burner.

Introductory

Happy Feminist: Feminism is not a monolith.

Clarifying Concepts

Some notable areas of conflict with respect to feminist priorities and attitudes are as follows, with the caveat that most feminists would describe themselves as aligned with multiple groups below: second-wave "essentialism" vs third-wave "post-structuralism", anti-pornography vs sex-positive feminism, feminine vs feminist aesthetics, cultural feminism vs liberal feminism vs radical feminism vs individualist/equity feminism, identity politics (groupings by gender/race/class), macropolitical vs micropolitical activism and many more. There are a few passionate posts on some of these conflicts below - please suggest more to fill the gaps!

N.B.some of the feminists linked below may be feuding with each other online either now or in the past. Don't assume when reading an old post that a feud described therein necessarily is still ongoing, and don't bring it back here, please.
nubian: gender does NOT trump race
brownfemipower posts excerpts from Lee Maracle on "The Women's Movement"
nubian:Blogging against heteronormativity roundup
ginmar (A View from A Broad): Can you cure racism with sexism? Do some guys get allowed to be sexist?
Alecto Erinyes (Sisterhood & Solidarity): on labour feminism, quoting from their FAQ

"There's lots of different kinds of feminism, lots of different ways to 'do' feminism. We believe that arguing about what's more important, class, race or gender, only hurts those on the down-side of all. We also believe that regardless of the symmetry of your chromosomes or the color of your skin, economic freedom is a precondition of political freedom. Industrial rights are fundamental to civil and human rights. So long as women labour in minimum wage, casual jobs to support themselves and their families, struggling to keep body and soul together, then feminism needs unionism, and unionism needs feminism. Sisterhood and solidarity go hand-in-hand. Federal Labor's Deputy Leader, Jenny Macklin, said it all in this speech."

[Editor: suggestions hereby solicited for posts addressing more on Race, Gender and Identity, Location vs Transnational movements, Second vs Thirdwave Feminism, and any more fighting-feminist categories.]

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FAQ: What is feminism?

2007-03-10T16:35:00.000+11:00

Updated 16Mar07

Introductory Essays

University of Montana Women's Center: a brief history of Western Feminism

International Women's Day: a brief history from the UN

Classic Quote

"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute..."
--Rebecca West, The Clarion, 11/14/13

Sarah Bunting: Yes You Are

Clover Patch's FAQ

Sage (Persephone's Box): Feminism 101

Karen Healey (Girls Read Comics (And They're Pissed)): I'm not doing this twice

Classic quote:

"The reason racism is a feminist issue is easily explained by the inherent definition of feminism. Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women --as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less than this is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement."
--Barbara Smith, 1979

Clarifying Concepts

Bitch PhD: Feminisms

The Happy Feminist: Feminism is not a monolith

yami: Feminisms

There are just two pieces of dogma in my feminist tent:
Society deals with gender in a way that, on balance, harms women.
This is a problem that must be corrected.
You’ll notice that they have nothing to do with: men, race, class, liberty, religion, teleology, biology, consumerism, violence, sex, or shoes. This is deliberate.

yami: Defining Feminism: Once More, with Feeling

Click on the category labels at the bottom of this post for more additions to the Introductory category in the future. There are more links to essays in the Clarifying Concepts category.

Frequently Whimpered Whine: "Feminists have no sense of humour"

2007-03-10T13:32:00.000+11:00

glumbert.com - Women: Know your limits

FAQ: Why do you feminists hate men?

2007-03-10T12:25:00.000+11:00

Updated 16Mar07

Feminists hate misogyny, not men. Kinda like that "hate the sin, not the sinner" thing, sometimes it's easy to separate the behaviour from the enactor and sometimes it's not.

It's understandable how sometimes criticisms of misogynists come across as generalisations about all men, when read by someone who isn't used to the jargon shorthand and feminist perspectives. Time to lurk and learn.

Ilyka's post: Occasionally conversations with my man are instructive is instructive here.

"A lot of the guys written about on feminist blogs do things I would never do."

"Then don't identify with them. It's not about you! You stand to pee, they stand to pee, beyond that, what's the commonality?"

Of course, the man-hating accusation is not always made by bewildered men of general goodwill. It is frequently made by men who simply don't want to hear any criticism of their privileged status-quo. See Witchy-Woo: I've had a lovely day(read the whole post)

Related:
Kate Jasper (Moment to Moment): And you think feminists hate men?

This is how Sam describes your average single man: "messy, greedy, sports-loving, junk-food-scoffing and as womanizing". Presumably a relationship somehow transforms Homo Singlemanus into a tidy, selfless gourmet who only watches sport sometimes, tosses a mean salad and only has eyes for you.

Seriously, my dear male readers, aren't you sick of this rubbish? Don't you get pissed off every time you turn on the TV and there you are, being presented as some idiot who needs a woman to work any domestic appliance in the home? Aren't you over the idea that you need to be tidied up and polished by the love of a good woman?

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What is the "Gender Gap"?

2007-03-09T18:52:00.000+11:00

The term "gender gap" refers to the observed inequity in earnings, whereby men earn significantly more than women both on average and when performing the same job.

There are a ton of sexist rationalisations for why it is right and proper that the gender gap should continue to exist.

Let a minor Greek Goddess explain why those rationalisations are made and why they are wrong: Echidne of the Snakes did an excellent 3-part series on the Gender Gap last year (1. Theory, 2. Empirical Evidence and 3. Addressing the Wingnuts).

OK, this blog has been moribund long enough

2007-03-09T14:01:00.000+11:00

I'm actually going to try and get this thing going again.

Rather than try and generate material specifically for this blog, I'm going to make it more of a link farm (with occasional calls to activism). Every now and then I might do a roundup of material that answers FAQs.

This week was International Women's Day and Blog Against Sexism Day (although all feminist bloggers know that every day is Blog Against Sexism Day) and there are some great posts out there, collected at the official site.

One of them was Sage's Feminism 101 FAQ, which inspired me to do something here again.

1. Why do feminists all disagree? Feminism isn’t a movement, it’s an argument!

We all want to raise the status of women to the level of men, to feel safe and respected, and to have a fair and equal chance for all our opinions to be heard. Since the movement is all about choice and the ability to make our own decision that affect us, then it’s necessarily going to be a group fraught with differences. We’re all making our own choices. That’s the commonality. Trying to actively be allowed these choices is the movement. Butting heads along the way from time to time is the reality.

Any time someone posts an essay that fits into a Feminism 101 framework, I'd like to link it here, which means that I need to know they're out there. It's fine to add them in comments, but to get the best boost from search engine spiders they need to be linked in a post.

Jill Filipovic and internet searches

2007-03-09T13:35:00.000+11:00

This is a crosspost to effect a Googlebomb, correcting an injustice against a fellow feminist blogger.

Jill Filipovic, who blogs at Feministe and Ms. JD, is a NYU law student who has been the subject of cyber-obsession on a discussion board allegedly populated by law students. The discussions regarding Jill Filipovic (and many other female law students) are sexist and sexual in nature, rating the women's physical attractiveness and fantasising about sexual contact, both consensual and non-consensual. Neither Jill Filipovic or any other of these women contributed, or gave their permission to be discussed, to the discussion board in question.

Jill Filopovic's name and class routines etc have been regularly posted to this board, and at least one of the pseudonymous board-members claims to be Jill Filipovic's classmate. Photos that Jill Filipovic posted (with full rights reserved) to an interent photo-storing and sharing site have also been posted to the sleazy discussion board without her permission. This is a horrendous invasion of Jill Filipovic's privacy, a violation of copyright law, and calls the ethics and character of the alleged law-students participating in these discussions on the discussion board into question.

A major side-effect of an already nasty situation is that the sexist, objectifying cyber-obsession threads come up on the first page of internet search results on Jill Filipovic's name. To an inexperienced user of the internet, it may even look as if Jill Filipovic and other female law students chose to compete in these Hot or Not rating competitions, instead of having their pictures posted without permission.

This post is an attempt to balance those internet results to point to the significant writings of Jill Filipovic instead, using the Googlebomb tactic and also linking this post to social networking sites (eg. del.ici.ous, Stumbleupon). Please feel free to copy any or all of what I've written here to your own blog in order to help change the top-ranked search engine results for Jill Filipovic. If you don't have your own blog then please at least link to one of Jill's ~~this~~ post[s] listed below at your preferred social networking site and give it the tag "Filipovic" (as well as any others you think appropriate).

I have linked to these sites in this post:
Jill Filipovic's bio page at Feministe
Jill Filipovic's blog posts at the Ms. JD blog
Jill Filipovic's article about these scummy lawschool sleazebags at Feministe
Jill Filipovic's article at Ms. JD: When Law Student's Attack

If any of the other female law students stalked by the same sleazy site wish to copy this text with names altered, you hereby have my full permission to do so. All other rights reserved. (C) 2007 tigtog

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Slippery Slopes and Begging Other Questions

2006-03-16T19:51:00.000+11:00

Quick - what's the difference between begging the question and raising the question?

If you're not sure, and especially if you've never even thought there was a difference, you need to brush up on rhetorical tricks and logical fallacies before you wade out into debates.

Start here.

Hello, world

2006-03-16T12:09:00.000+11:00

It keeps getting said on a lot of feminist blogs that they're not there to educate people in the baby steps of feminism, that they want to discuss matters at a level which assumes a reasonable familiarity with feminist theories and models. And they're right, otherwise the same basic things just keep getting said over and over.

So I thought: why not set up a basic blog for those wanting to learn whether feminists really believe [insert media stereotype here]? Or whether it's true that "we" don't need feminism anymore, because women are already equal. Or just why feminists are so upset about stuff. Because there are way too many people out there who just don't know. They don't even know they don't know.

So, here we are. Maybe, despite the regular bitching about the lack of a feminist web-primer, noone's actually that interested. Or maybe we'll have a permanent flamewar between different stripes of feminists, or spend all our time fighting off MRAs.

Now, I'm not an academic theorist nor a lifelong activist, and I've still got much to learn myself. I know there are lots of links out there for basic and intermediate level feminist material, and nobody wants to reinvent the wheel. I'll be linking to the old soc.feminism FAQs in the sidebar, but they're a bit beyond basic theory. So please tell me all your favorite feminist theory links! I'll read them, and try and organise them into categories. Try not to get too advanced for beginning/intermediate readers.

Suggestions are welcome for any ideas on subject organisation etc, and anyone with strong ideas who wants to co-blog is welcome to email me to discuss it.

NOTE: This space is open to all who genuinely want to learn about feminism. Sincere questions are welcomed. Anti-feminist trolls are not welcome.