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

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

I think I worked out that I'd worked bloody hard for it and deserved it, and if it got me a slightly better airline seat then... (The one time it did, I was assumed to be Mr fjm or Dr FJM's husband which was disturbing on more levels than would be polite to acknowledge. I have also had the "Are you a medical doctor?" moment, to which I didn't reply that I do smeicolons; not colons.)

With Mr there is a whole class status thing and who is the elder/eldest son thing (Esq. is as bad) which isn't quite as impertinent as assumptions about one's marital status which are gleaned from the use of title and whose initial. (Apparently Ambrose Bierce suggested the use of Mush as the male equivalent to Miss.)

There are moments when I think that some of the worst advertisements for an idea can be some of the people that hold it - but the media is very good at patriarchal propaganda. It always feels odd, as a male, to be telling women what feminism is. Hello grandmother, here's an egg... I try to play to its plurality, but the burning bra image is so strong.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I have also had the "Are you a medical doctor?" moment

My PhD is actually in history of medicine: my leeches and cupping glasses, let me show you them.

And more seriously, I think there are real problems with the way that feminism gets defined by the media, whether it's in the direction of 'hairylegged humourless bra-burner' or conversely 'pole-dancing as female empowerment' at the other end of the spectrum.