Feminisms

[faustus]

I've recently been copied into an email correspondence with a writer who claims not to be a feminist. Have you been educated beyond the age of 10? Are you published under a name rather than initials? Do you work other than in a factory, as a teacher, a nurse, a nanny or a mother? Still, her choice, of course. Her life would have been very different without feminism though. I did enjoy that the response to her began Ms---.

And on a related note, an account from a woman who, like Rose Marie in A Very Peculiar Practice, has rejected the patronymic. Curious how such things are now more difficult than they were. I wonder how Peri 6 copes.

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

It's a very small world.....

I strongly suspect that the writer in question would be utterly comfortable with describing herself as a feminist in nineteenth and early twentieth century terms. The issue is that she does not regard herself as actively advocating feminism and a critique in the modern world which is what was implied by the other person in this discussion.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

No doubt - the exchange I've seen part of opens up a large number of cans of worms but I've not read the thing that set it off. She is of course free to take or disavow any label she wants. Still, maybe the invisibility of the novelty of education of women and the vote is in itself is a success of feminism.

Normally about this time of year I see a classroonm half full of people who don't see themselves as having any connection to any form of feminism but are only there because of it. (The other half are male, and feel that the pendulum has swung too far, because now we have Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) I also spent part of last night talking to a woman who had just realised she did all the cooking, cleaning etc for her ex- and let him choose her clothes, yet thought of herself as a feminist.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree it's a can of worms. Assuming we are talking about the same person (whcih we may not be of course), I did find it remarkably odd in that discussing intention he hadn't actually checked to see what she had said on the matter.


Re the last one: oh dear. But not the first or last to get into that rut.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

I'm not identifying the writer - in fact I probably should have said person or woman because the specifics aren't what matter. (And I actually like her as a person even if she does infuriate me on occasion.) Just a constellation of thoughts around issues of female (and other) identity.

Intention in itself is a can of worms. Public pronouncements are worth taking into account - but my experience of working with Philip K. Dick's fiction is that I could often find a quotation from him to support the opposite position. Sometimes an attitude is not apparent to a speaker. ("I'm no racist/amti-semite/homophobe but ...") Ideology blinds us. Still, I haven't read the article that sparked the exchange.


Not the first, sadly not the last. From two meetings she strikes me as a trainwreck waiting to happen, but that a gut reaction and probably prejudiced as a result. There's just something about women and pints of Stella that often doesn't end well. Of course, it need not end wel with men either.