Where do you stand on feminism?

dietz199 · November 3, 2014, 2:58am

I attended several college classes with a gentleman who became a titan of Silicon Valley. I complained about some of the responses/looks/attitudes I was getting from faculty in my department. His response. (paraphrasing)…well… use what ya got…if it turns them into hormonal idiots then THEY are the weak ones, not you. That made sense to me. However, bring this up to the avowed feminist (that I know) and I’m still told that this amounted to prostitution and, in the end, I was denigrating myself. Weird.

And…I use botox, fillers, hair highlights, and an occasional body wrap. The lovely man I am married too for 25 years wouldn’t notice the difference if I presented it to him in 27 8 by 10 glossy pictures with circles and arrows :))

intparent · November 3, 2014, 3:00am

This is horse puckey. My D1 has been dating the same young man since freshman year of college. At the age of 25 she has been promoted twice in her company and now manages 25 people. In no way is she giving up any of her feminist ideals and trading it for “hook up culture”. She now shares an apartment with her BF, and I think both assume they will marry in a few years. She hasn’t given up a thing – she has her dream job in her dream city.

Cardinal_Fang · November 3, 2014, 3:06am

I don’t wear makeup, and I’m much more likely to be found in bike clothes than dresses and heels. But I support other women’s right to wear those things.

poetgrl · November 3, 2014, 3:12am

Here’s a pretty well thought out response to Hanna Rosin’s book.

<a href=“'Coercion and Conformity and Despair': A Feminist Critique of Hooking Up - The Atlantic”>'Coercion and Conformity and Despair': A Feminist Critique of Hooking Up - The Atlantic;

from the article:

Rosin’s argument in The End of Men is really interesting. It makes a lot of sense. It’s the hookup stuff where I get off. One critique is that she talked to women at parties when they were drinking. My number one rule was not to talk to students in groups, let alone at parties. All you’re going to get is the performance. I don’t see hookup culture as an empowering culture. I see it as a culture of pretend, where you’re distancing yourself from what you truly want. It’s a culture that limits choice. I’m not saying hookups should be banished, but I would be psyched if students saw a hookup as one among many options for sexual expression. When it’s the only one, empowerment goes away. I also don’t think we can define independence as rejecting a relationship. To put those things on opposing sides is problematic. What we need to do is figure out how our society can better accommodate relationships for both women and men.

Either way, whoever you agree with, these are both feminists discussing hook up culture as a question that needs to be answered. It’s not like my daughter came up with the prompt for the paper herself. She was a second year.

Cardinal_Fang · November 3, 2014, 3:34am

In the Atlantic interview, Freitas also says:

Interestingly, Hanna Rosin, the End of Men author, is not an academic. She’s a journalist. Donna Freitas is an academic.

Panhandlegal · November 3, 2014, 3:39am

In response to the original question asked: Are you a feminist? Damn straight!

I don’t think how women dress is a pertinent part of feminism. I do think many women dress for other women–primarily because many men are oblivious!

Feminism is about equality on all levels–socially, economically, politically–And it’s about being able to make choices that work for each woman.

poetgrl · November 3, 2014, 3:40am

right, but as she says in your quote, “I am intensely liberal, and have struggled myself. The fact that I’m pushing back on a culture that most people see as a culture of sexual liberation makes me nervous as a liberal feminist.”

It’s “most people” It’s a “culture of sexual liberation.”

It’s only been in the last couple of years feminists have been willing to critique hook up culture as possibly not the liberation they had wanted it to be. Inside the academy or outside.

DocT · November 3, 2014, 3:45am

“I don’t think how women dress is a pertinent part of feminism. I do think many women dress for other women–primarily because many men are oblivious!”

You’re kidding right? Perhaps men can’t distinguish between expensive clothing and brand names. Every straight man that I know including me is very aware of how a woman is dressed and how she is made up. How a woman looks is the first thing and sometimes the only thing that a man notices.

saintfan · November 3, 2014, 4:03am

For me being a feminist means that we can even have this discussion where different people can define for themselves how they want to move through this world. Our ideas may be different but we have, for the most part, the power to choose for ourselves. If you appreciate that power of self determination I don’t see how you could be anything but a feminist.

HImom · November 3, 2014, 9:02am

I have worn makeup when I have been in wedding parties–my own and others. I do not otherwise wear makeup or anything but comfortable shoes and sandals. I will wear form-fitting clothing when I choose (& do still have the figure to carry it off well), as well as less fitted clothing when that is what I prefer. Generally, I prefer classic styles as I believe it is more elegant, timeless and flattering to most people, including me.

I believe feminism allows women and men to choose the roles they want and equal pay for equal work. Women and men have the right to have whatever makeup and enhancements they choose, wear the clothing and footwear that works for them.

I believe H & both S & D believe this, tho we haven’t had this specific discussion.

zoosermom · November 3, 2014, 1:33pm

Among other reasons, because I believe that the word feminist excludes every human being who is not exclusively a woman.

saintfan · November 3, 2014, 1:50pm

Well . . . you could say “humanist” instead if you want. The term feminist was coined when women had fewer actual rights so it made sense to differentiate. If your starting point is a place where women can’t vote, own land, inherit, choose to marry or not, bear children or not or live free from the risk of sanctioned domestic abuse which is inherent in the idea that they are property without the rights of self determination and free will then it makes a lot of sense to use the term feminist.

saintfan · November 3, 2014, 1:57pm

@dietz199 - you gave me a real chuckle! As we are working up to Thanksgiving I love the reference . . . particularly dropped in the middle of this discussion. The incongruity makes it all the more fun! whistling and breaking into a little shuffle :-"

jym626 · November 3, 2014, 2:24pm

I don’t see the term feminism as excluding others who identify as transgender or other. It just describes equal rights between men and women. Don’t have a word for equality for those who self identify in another category, but in an ideal world there should not be discrimination of any identified sexual orientation. But starting with the larger, majority categories is a good start and hopefully would be a model for equality amongst all.

saintfan · November 3, 2014, 2:29pm

^^^ and note that @jym626 said equal rights and did not imply that men and women are EXACTLY the same - a red herring that some seem to be drawn to. Most feminists (excluding some fringe groups) don’t argue that men and women have no inherent differences, but that we should have equal rights despite our differences.

Indiana91 · November 3, 2014, 3:53pm

This thread sparked an interesting conversation with DS last night about who gets to define what words mean. I am an avowed feminist because I agree with saintfan’s definition that it’s simply the power of self-determination, although I realize that others assign additional connotations to the term. Once we remove the word and discuss the idea, a lot more people agree.

Loading simple terms with additional meaning is pretty common these days and is the cause of a lot of the unnecessary division going on. Saying “Happy Holidays” is anti-Christian and a war on Christmas!? Feminist hate men!? Allowing someone to discuss “end of life treatment options” with their doctor is a death panel!? I blame the 24-hour media cycle and the need to create news, but DS blames politics.

emeraldkity4 · November 3, 2014, 6:14pm

Im with Bey.

<a href=“http://m.pitchfork.com/news/53563-read-beyonces-essay-on-gender-equality/”>http://m.pitchfork.com/news/53563-read-beyonces-essay-on-gender-equality/</a>

To be successful, the civil rights movement needed those who benefitted from discrimination by race, to fight against “special interests”, towards equal rights for everyone.

Men need to become more involved in changing the place of women in society.
To equalize pay, and to speak out when women & girls are harmed because of their sex.
To become more visible in their feminism, and women need to welcome them in the fight for justice.

Consolation · November 3, 2014, 8:22pm

This discussion reminds me about some discussions we have had here about sexual assault. I’ve also talked to my S about this quite a bit.

It has to do partially with self-definition. When we first got onto the subject of assault, mini (IIRC) posted some studies in which women were asked if they had experienced certain things, covering a range from unwanted touching through penetration in various circumstances. Then the researchers classified these events as “assault” or “rape” or whatever. The individual women may or may not have considered themselves to have been assaulted or raped.

Now, according to those researchers, I would be a “sexual assault survivor” because I have experienced unwanted touching of a certain sort. But I don’t consider myself to have been assaulted. I consider myself to have been annoyed by a drunken jerk. Similarly, I have experienced what might loosely have been called a “drunken hookup.” I considered myself to have made a questionable choice, but did not consider myself to have been “raped.” Because I did indeed make the choice. But according to some, I was incapable of consenting because I was drinking. (The fact that he was drinking too doesn’t matter, in this view.)

If I say that I was not “assaulted” or"raped," some people will say that I do not get to make that determination, because I have lived my life in “rape culture” and have absorbed its values, etc, etc. I find this mightily annoying. Just as @zoosermom finds it annoying to be told she is a feminist even though she does not identify as one. I find it condescending and paternalistic to be told I don’t know my own mind. I am NOT a victim, thank you very much, and no one is going to convince me otherwise. There is a certain strain in contemporary feminism that seems to me to be intent on claiming victimhood in too many situations, and depriving women of agency and responsibility. To me, this is the antithesis of feminism. Usually I react with the same eyeroll we did when I was college and a tiny minority of radical lesbian feminists advanced the POV that all heterosexual sex was rape. (Give me a break!)

At the same time, I have to admit that I react negatively when women say they aren’t feminists, even though they enjoy the fruits of feminism: voting, birth control, jobs, greatly lessened discrimination in general, the ability to define themselves as they will.

I know that some sexual assault activists would react equally negatively to my refusal of survivor status.

I think the reason for both of these things is that women to whom the ideals of basic feminism are important experience the refusal of the label as an assault on hard-won equality of the type mounted by Phyllis Schafly and her backers, back in the day. Even though it might not be.

Similarly, sexual assault activists lump my refusal to label my experiences as crimes as a rejection of the work done to bring sexual assault out of the shadows and get justice for real victims and–most importantly–make it unacceptable and lessen the occurrence. Even though it isn’t.

Pardon my length.

Cardinal_Fang · November 3, 2014, 10:13pm

Consolation, I understand why you think that you made a questionable choice after drinking, but were not raped. It doesn’t sound like I’d call that situation rape either. It’s possible to be under the influence of alcohol but still able to grant or withhold consent. But let’s do this thought experiment about language, feminism and rape.

Suppose a college student told you that her former boyfriend had pulled her into his room, held her down, and penetrated her while she protested. Suppose she then said, “But I wasn’t raped.” Would you think to yourself, Yes you were? If you were her therapist, and she seemed to be suffering from the lingering affects of this assault, would you accept her view that she wasn’t raped, or try to bring her to the view that in fact she was a victim here? Or do you have to respect her view of the matter, however much you disagree?

I’ve been thinking about issues of consent a lot in the last few days, because of the sordid Jian Ghomeshi scandal up in Canada. Ghomeshi claims he had consent for his violent sexual acts. His partners or victims say he didn’t. What’s a jury going to say, if he goes to trial?

romanigypsyeyes · November 3, 2014, 10:19pm

I just recently had a situation just like this. Young lady passed out from drinking and “had sex”. She didn’t think it was rape and was only mildly receptive to support services.

I still had to report the incident as assault regardless of what she calls it because I’m a mandated reporter. I would never try to convince her to label herself a victim or survivor though.

Where do you stand on feminism?

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