Comments on: Feminism, Aliens, and James Tiptree jr.

By: projektleiterin

projektleiterin — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 20:34:55 +0000

I just don’t like them and they don’t like me. I can argue with people on other subjects and we will still be ok later on, but this is something that almost always gets personal. If you don’t agree with them, you’re automatically an ugly menhating lesbian. Maybe I should correct myself, it’s not that they are too stupid to study history, it’s that they choose not to understand it.

By: Jason Rayl

Jason Rayl — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:53:15 +0000

“Are these women who are afraid to be called “feminist” too stupid to study history?”

In a word, yes.

But the same can be said for male and female on most subjects at most times.

By: projektleiterin

projektleiterin — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:27:23 +0000

Anybody who lets others take property of a word, be it “liberal” or “feminist”, has never been truly liberal or feminist anyway. Are these women who are afraid to be called “feminist” too stupid to study history? Where do they think they would be now without other women who fought for their rights? It was in November 27 1990 that the last canton in Switzerland followed a court ruling and gave women voting rights (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frauenstimmrecht_(Schweiz))! I still believe the main reason for many women to reject feminism has more to do with competition and butt-kissing than butch feminists (how many of them are there anyway?).

Who cares what Neocons think, really.

By: Jason Rayl

Jason Rayl — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:40:18 +0000

I suspect you’re far more than half right. Neocons have coopted the term and made it derogatory, indicative of women who reject “being feminine” in the name of political activism. You can get a sense of this in off-the-cuff polls regarding lesbians—how many (male or female) think of lesbians as ugly women who can’t make it heterosexually. Show them a picture of so-called “lipstick lesbians” and they reject that such an attractive (and well-groomed) woman could be.

But I think on another level it is simply a rejection of hard thought and self-awareness. “Getting by” is easier. Seeing gender roles for what they are and figuring out which is desirable and which is oppressive and under what circumstances….well, that’s just hard work. Doesn’t leave much time for–*ahem*–romance.

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:48:32 +0000

Jason: I have to wonder how much of the resistance to “feminism” is resistance to the word rather than the idea. More accurately, I think the word “feminist” means different things to different people. To neocons, “feminist” does mean (as you suggest) loud-mouthed self-centered butch lesbians who attempt to blame everything wrong with the world on men. To progressives, feminists include sensitive and intelligent women who choose to take away time from their jobs to raise their young children. To progressives, there are many other types of feminists, of course, and many of them embrace feminist principles without consciously thinking of themselves as “feminists.” They might avoid the word “feminist” because conservatives have confiscated the word “feminist” just as they have confiscated the word “liberal,” making derogatory caricatures out of anything self-describing with either of these terms.

To have a real conversation about what all of us feel about feminists, perhaps we need to paste a thousand photos and bios of the various types of feminists on the side of a big building, make sure that everyone involved in the conversation can first agree that all of those women depicted are feminists in that they live and make choices as feminists. Then let the conversation begin.

By: projektleiterin

projektleiterin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:16:27 +0000

I remember this discussion on a forum where this girl proudly proclaimed that she didn’t like feminists, that she had a good education, many facettes and was very sexual. I told her that if she didn’t like feminism she should go to Afghanistan where girls didn’t go to school and were raised at home as nature had intended it to be. I wonder where she got the crazy idea that without feminism society would let talk about sex so freely, let alone have it.

I so strongly disliked the women on this board who emphasized that they were not feminists. They were bitchy and quite competitive concerning men. Rejecting feminism just seemed a strategy to demean the competition and to elevate themselves in the eyes of men. And the bad thing is, the majority of the guys loved them… *rolls eyes and goes crying to bed*