Get your dirty laundry out of my feminism

So Rebecca Walker thinks Alice Walker sucked ass as a parent, and it’s all because of feminism.

If what Rebecca has to say about Alice is true, then yes indeed, Alice flunks Parenting 101. But its petty and ignorant to blame one individual’s cluelessness on feminism.

You can’t throw a stick these days without hitting a mother who lets their kid have sex at 13, leaves them with relatives, ignores school events, makes them go shopping for clothes alone, etc. etc. It’s called neglect, not feminism. And what do we call it when fathers do these same things? I’m pretty sure nobody clucks their tongues at how feminism has destroyed their paternal instincts.

If Alice truly believes motherhood “enslaves” women, as Rebecca claims she does, well, that’s really sad for both of them. But Rebecca should know by now that if anything, feminism has liberated women from the enslavement of lack of choice.

Rebecca goes on in this article about how she loves being everything Alice was not, now that she’s an “adult.” Problem is, adults don’t publish long, whiny rants about their evil mothers. That’s what vindictive, emotionally stunted adult-wannabes do. Actual adults get therapy.

And adults don’t make self-serving generalizations about ideologies, in effect blaming many for the faults of one.

Technorati Tags: Alice Walker, Rebecca Walker, feminism

This is what misogynists comment like

Some real winners have crawled out from under their rocks to comment on the video “This Is What A Feminist Looks Like” from the Feminist Majority Foundation.

This video is less than 3 minutes long, filled with celebrities, and is really…well, I won’t say milqetoast, but it’s clear the filmmakers tried hard to make it non-threatening.

So the comments on it prove just how little it takes to make today’s misogynists foam at the mouth.

The comments range from pseudo-intellectual diarrhea: “What rests at the core of the feminist movement is power. This is evident in their demands for economic equality, omitting of course differences in abilities and ambitions. Essentially they want to be paid more for doing less work. This has no economic value”

…to the blessedly succinct: “girls suck”

And then there’s the dazed and confused: “if thats not borderline gay or gay itself then the gay line is seriously being blurred by hollywood…. great job jews.”

Dude, the “This Is What A Closeted Gay Homophobic Racist Looks Like” video is over there.

Technorati Tags: feminism, Feminist Majority Foundation

“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”

In honor of Women’s History Month, I thought I’d post a little reminder of sorts.¹

Can you say “backlash”?

Continue reading »

1. Quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich [↩]

Only in New York

This article in the NY Observer proclaims the rise of the “urbane tomboy:”

[Gals] who, while not lesbians, dress like guys (young guys), well into their 30’s; who leap into games of pickup basketball with male friends while the rest of us watch wanly from the sidelines; who affect a wry detachment from their sex’s conventional concerns of shoe-shopping, man-hunting and family.

Well, hello, New York: this new “trend” describes nearly all the women I know here in Seattle. And in California. And Oregon. And Nevada. And…

Before I go any further, please note that I’m choosing not to address the “while not lesbians” comment, which is insulting to both gay and straight women for reasons the under-educated, pillbox-hatted reporter would not understand. Nope, not even going to address it, not going to say a thing.

I’m also not going to point out how, far from seeming “wryly detached,” the interviewed “tomboys” instead just sound patronizing and full of false modesty. They say things like “I feel clownish when I dress up” and feel that “if you’re a pretty lady” you can just drop all that silly feminine shit.

They remind me of women who say proudly that they “have more men friends than women” because they “don’t get along with women” - implying (if they don’t say it outright, which they often do) women are catty and superficial. I guess it doesn’t occur to these women that making such a generalization, they prove themselves to be that rule, not the exception.

But I’m not going to go into all of that because I don’t want to rant.

Now, what was I saying?

Today in What A Beeyatch

Proving that anti-feminist women are hypocritical in more ways than one, last week conservative TV talking head Laura Asshat Ingraham mocked Brett Favre for being “a woman” because he cried during is goodbye-to-the-NFL press conference.

Laura’s probably very proud to be both misogynist and misandrist at the same time. Don’t fence her in!

And before I forget - Today in Double Standards…

Most of the comments on the blogs I’ve read about Asshat Ingraham’s remarks are from people vehemently defending Favre’s right to cry all he wants.

Which is great, except why is it that in the court of public opinion, Brett should be allowed to cry all he wants about his career — but Hilary’s pilloried for (almost) crying about hers? Things that make you go hmmm…

Technorati Tags: Brett Favre, Hilary Clinton, Laura Ingraham, misogyny, misandry, double standards

The Female Gaze

This morning during my usual drink-coffee-read-feeds-become-human morning half hour, I spied with my little eye a post entitled “Can a feminist write romance novels?”

As a feminist and aspiring novelist, how could I resist that one?

In her post, writer Karen Kendal says that genre romances have a bad rap “because male fantasies are seen as legitimate in our society, while female fantasies are seen as ludicrous. Why?”

Because, continues Ms. Kendal, in a patriarchal (i.e., every) society, the vast majority of media, from Nobel Prize winning books to the Victoria Secret catalog, caters to the male gaze. They portray women - and, significantly, men - the way men want to see them.

Enter the uppity romance novel, in which the male is the subject, portrayed by and for the female gaze.

Not surprisingly, men do not like being the subject if they can’t control the product.

Just as we’d rather not compare ourselves physically with models, most men don’t want to be scrutinized next to body builders or romance heroes. What if they come up short? So they point and laugh at the guy on the novel’s cover and sneer that he’s only a stupid fantasy.

And because the male eye has become the norm, women diss romances, too, without even reading any.

I must admit I’ve done my share of dissing romance novels. I always chalked it up to being a literary snob and thought no further. How could I have missed this? Bad feminist, no biscuit!

I’ve read a few romance novels here and there, and while in general they’re still not my cup of tea, I must say it is clear that “bodice-ripper” is an outdated stereotype. Most modern romance protagonists are at least as feminist (if not more so) than those in their “literary” counterparts.

As Ms. Kendal puts it:

[Modern heroines] don’t shriek – they act. They engage in power struggles with the hero and often win. Along the way they have some great sex, and I happen to think that’s a good thing, since historically women – busy being the objects of male fantasy – have put up with a lot of bad sex, too.

Amen, sister. Amen.

Technorati Tags: feminism, literature, romance, writing