The PRoblem of Feminism & A Problematic Feminist

NMyTree

danika_bookworm wrote:

Here's what I suggest you read: "Egalia's Daughters" by Berg Bratenbergg. It's about a matriarchal society where men groom their beards and take the baby to his wife's office to be breastfed (while she works). Where women in offices get to playfully slap the little laddie secretaries' butts. It's an old book, and it was published in Seattle.

What, not even a chuckle or giggle at my parody?

Tough crowd:D

suffragette

danika_bookworm wrote:

Oh, that's what I hate about some feminists. I have a friend, and he's dating this wpman who already has a kid. HIs mom (incidentally my professor and is one of the movers of feminism in our local literature) doesn't like her, because she had an "accident" that made her pregnant. Aren't we women supposed to work together, despite the mistakes we've made in the past?

That would be nice. If we could all be sisters. But then all we're doing anyway is fighting over men, so how can we be sisters?

Kidding aside, women are their own worst enemy.

I think of my grandmother, made to marry at 16. She never had any say over anything and saw life as babies and drudgery. I have all these choices. Lucky me.

El_Kabong

zensideofyin wrote:

d. There is a common misconception of feminism, that it is a mass of raging females with short hair wearing flannel trying to strike a mass takeover. Feminism and the feminist movement has always been about equality. Even today men with the same qualifications as women make more, women have to work twice as hard and twice as long to make as much of an impact. It's all about equal rights, and with every movement there are always going to be individuals that will set you back a few steps along the road.

manhattan is an island
like the women who are
surrounded by children in a car
surrounded by cars
or manhattan was a project
that projected the worst of mankind
first one and then the other
has made its mark on my mind

it's sixty years later
near the hypo-center of the a-bomb
i'm in the middle of hiroshima
watching a twisted old eucalyptus tree wave
one of the very few lives that survived and lives on
remembering the day it was suddenly
thousands of degrees in the shade
and what all of nature gave birth to
terror took in a blinding ray
with the kind of pain
it would take cancer so many years just to say

oh to grow up gagged and blindfolded
a man's world in your little girl's head
the voice of the great mother drowned out
in the constant honking
haunting the car crash up ahead
oh to grow up hypnotized
and try to shake yourself awake
cuz you can sense what has been lost
cuz you can sense what is at stake

yeah, so
it took me a few years to catch on
that those days i catch everyone's eye
correspond with those nights of the month
when the moon gleams like an egg in the sky
and men are using a sense
they don't even know they have
just to watch me walk by
and me, i'm supposed to be sensible
leave my animal outside to cry

but when all of nature conspires
to make me her glorious whore
it's cuz in my body i hold the secret recipe
of precisely what life is for
and the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it
is the same one making war
and i've said too much already
but i'll tell you something more

to split yourself in two
is just the most radical thing you can do
so girl if that shit ain't up to you
then you simply are not free
cuz from the sunlight on my hair
to which eggs i grow to term
to the expression that i wear
all i really own is me
yes to split yourself in two
is just the most radical thing you can do
goddess forbid that little adam
should grow so jealous of eve
and in the face of the great farce
of the nuclear age
feminism ain't about equality
it's about reprieve

suffragette

El_Kabong wrote:

manhattan is an island
like the women who are
surrounded by children in a car
surrounded by cars
or manhattan was a project
that projected the worst of mankind
first one and then the other
has made its mark on my mind

it's sixty years later
near the hypo-center of the a-bomb
i'm in the middle of hiroshima
watching a twisted old eucalyptus tree wave
one of the very few lives that survived and lives on
remembering the day it was suddenly
thousands of degrees in the shade
and what all of nature gave birth to
terror took in a blinding ray
with the kind of pain
it would take cancer so many years just to say

oh to grow up gagged and blindfolded
a man's world in your little girl's head
the voice of the great mother drowned out
in the constant honking
haunting the car crash up ahead
oh to grow up hypnotized
and try to shake yourself awake
cuz you can sense what has been lost
cuz you can sense what is at stake

yeah, so
it took me a few years to catch on
that those days i catch everyone's eye
correspond with those nights of the month
when the moon gleams like an egg in the sky
and men are using a sense
they don't even know they have
just to watch me walk by
and me, i'm supposed to be sensible
leave my animal outside to cry

but when all of nature conspires
to make me her glorious whore
it's cuz in my body i hold the secret recipe
of precisely what life is for
and the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it
is the same one making war
and i've said too much already
but i'll tell you something more

to split yourself in two
is just the most radical thing you can do
so girl if that shit ain't up to you
then you simply are not free
cuz from the sunlight on my hair
to which eggs i grow to term
to the expression that i wear
all i really own is me
yes to split yourself in two
is just the most radical thing you can do
goddess forbid that little adam
should grow so jealous of eve
and in the face of the great farce
of the nuclear age
feminism ain't about equality
it's about reprieve

Grandma had 10 babies by the time she was 30. Her reprieve came when the oldest was big enough to keep grandpa away from her. No more babies.

hippiemom

El_Kabong wrote:

manhattan is an island
like the women who are
surrounded by children in a car
surrounded by cars
or manhattan was a project
that projected the worst of mankind
first one and then the other
has made its mark on my mind

it's sixty years later
near the hypo-center of the a-bomb
i'm in the middle of hiroshima
watching a twisted old eucalyptus tree wave
one of the very few lives that survived and lives on
remembering the day it was suddenly
thousands of degrees in the shade
and what all of nature gave birth to
terror took in a blinding ray
with the kind of pain
it would take cancer so many years just to say

oh to grow up gagged and blindfolded
a man's world in your little girl's head
the voice of the great mother drowned out
in the constant honking
haunting the car crash up ahead
oh to grow up hypnotized
and try to shake yourself awake
cuz you can sense what has been lost
cuz you can sense what is at stake

yeah, so
it took me a few years to catch on
that those days i catch everyone's eye
correspond with those nights of the month
when the moon gleams like an egg in the sky
and men are using a sense
they don't even know they have
just to watch me walk by
and me, i'm supposed to be sensible
leave my animal outside to cry

but when all of nature conspires
to make me her glorious whore
it's cuz in my body i hold the secret recipe
of precisely what life is for
and the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it
is the same one making war
and i've said too much already
but i'll tell you something more

to split yourself in two
is just the most radical thing you can do
so girl if that shit ain't up to you
then you simply are not free
cuz from the sunlight on my hair
to which eggs i grow to term
to the expression that i wear
all i really own is me
yes to split yourself in two
is just the most radical thing you can do
goddess forbid that little adam
should grow so jealous of eve
and in the face of the great farce
of the nuclear age
feminism ain't about equality
it's about reprieve

Thanks Kabong That's possibly my favorite of all the things she's written.

wendy1976

NMyTree wrote:

What, not even a chuckle or giggle at my parody?

Tough crowd:D

I did not feel the need to giggle...i felt the need to run and hide for a world filled with dominant women;)

lets just hope that no one in that story of yours (considering it wil be 3010)is thinking of dna and the posibility of gendercontrol...before birth....that would change your story even more dramaticly:)....turning it in a complete horror movie!!!lol
but as far as feminism goes ,i think that women saying they want control over men are doing the same thing as what they are complaining about..repressing some one else!I think men and women are different in a lot of things and that is a good thing;),but i do not see why they should have differt numbers on their paycheck for the same job.so what does that make me....semi feminist? i don't know....

VictoryGin

suffragette wrote:

That would be nice. If we could all be sisters. But then all we're doing anyway is fighting over men, so how can we be sisters?

Kidding aside, women are their own worst enemy.

I think of my grandmother, made to marry at 16. She never had any say over anything and saw life as babies and drudgery. I have all these choices. Lucky me.

No offense, but plenty of women do act as sisters. Maybe you should join them instead of buying into the whole 'play women off each other' thing.

And you have 'all these choices' because women fought for them for you. So maybe don't villify them.

Coming back to life

Many bi women will testify that feminism has its fair share of bigots.

VictoryGin

Coming back to life wrote:

Many bi women will testify that feminism has its fair share of bigots.

Wait. Which way do you mean this?

Thanks

Coming back to life

VictoryGin wrote:

Wait. Which way do you mean this?

Thanks

One of the many faces of bi phobia. Along with heterophobia and homophobia, bi's also suffer from outright bi-phobia. One of its guises is in the fact that according to a minority of monosexuals (straights and gays) you can't help being straight (if the bigot is gay) or gay (if the bigot is straight). But bi people have a choice and choose to be attracted to the "wrong" sex (this is bollocks since you don't choose your sexuality). Many gay feminists (or bi feminists who convince themselves they're gay) see straight and bi women as traitors, but especially bi women as they're more traitors since they have the "choice".

DopeBeastie

a... definitely a

ryan198

Some of you people's conceptions of feminism are funny. Firstly there is no one feminism, there exists considerable disagreement within the feminist community of what exactly feminism is and/or should entail. I myself am attracted to Joanna Zylinska's model of feminism which questions whether or not there are actually just male/female, straight/gay, etc. binaries. However, this should not preclude what most feminism is based on and that is positive social change for women preferable under the auspices of women.

FinsburyParkCarrots

ryan198 wrote:

Some of you people's conceptions of feminism are funny. Firstly there is no one feminism, there exists considerable disagreement within the feminist community of what exactly feminism is and/or should entail. I myself am attracted to Joanna Zylinska's model of feminism which questions whether or not there are actually just male/female, straight/gay, etc. binaries. However, this should not preclude what most feminism is based on and that is positive social change for women preferable under the auspices of women.

I'm sure you're familar with Julia Kristeva, too. I'd give her credit for formulating the first, major post-structuralist approach to language and gender.

surferdude

ryan198 wrote:

However, this should not preclude what most feminism is based on and that is positive social change for women preferable under the auspices of women.

What I like about this is that it out right acknlowedges that most feminism is not based on any idea of equality. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

ryan198

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

I'm sure you're familar with Julia Kristeva, too. I'd give her credit for formulating the first, major post-structuralist approach to language and gender.

Familiar with, but not having read I cannot be a proponent for or against her. You would place her before Foucault and Derrida though? Or are you talking about straight up in your face discussions of gender?

VictoryGin

Coming back to life wrote:

One of the many faces of bi phobia. Along with heterophobia and homophobia, bi's also suffer from outright bi-phobia. One of its guises is in the fact that according to a minority of monosexuals (straights and gays) you can't help being straight (if the bigot is gay) or gay (if the bigot is straight). But bi people have a choice and choose to be attracted to the "wrong" sex (this is bollocks since you don't choose your sexuality). Many gay feminists (or bi feminists who convince themselves they're gay) see straight and bi women as traitors, but especially bi women as they're more traitors since they have the "choice".

Ah, thanks for the explanation.

FinsburyParkCarrots

ryan198 wrote:

Familiar with, but not having read I cannot be a proponent for or against her. You would place her before Foucault and Derrida though? Or are you talking about straight up in your face discussions of gender?

She was very influenced by Derrida, and Lacan. She was at the vanguard of the post-structuralism, and formulated a psychoanalytic approach to linguistic signification. She argued that in the pre-linguistic stages of language acquisition, a child communicates with their mother through sound and through physicality. She argued also, that the first intervention of the father in the child's psychological development, what Freud called the oedipal stage, arrives at the same time as the beginning of learning language as words or symbols/tokens for thoughts. Spoken or written language, Kristeva proposed, is male, and phallocentric. A child loses their pre-genderedness in learning language, and is assimilated into the "symbolic order" (where words are phallic symbols of male power). Kristeva argued that, by exploring emotive vowel sounds, fluid syntax, wordplay and any stream of consciousness that breaks down traditional male, linguistic constructions of reality, a writer could subvert language from within and disrupt the symbolic order, re-discovering their pregendered voice.

Anglo-American, materialist feminists often argue that that's just a load of pretentious guff, that pleases the post-structuralists in male-dominated academies. But Kristeva's ways of looking at semiotic interventions in language provide interesting ideas for reading, say, Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, or The Waves, as novels or even prose poems, that work against previous conventions of realism.

ryan198

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

She was very influenced by Derrida, and Lacan. She was at the vanguard of the post-structuralism, and formulated a psychoanalytic approach to linguistic signification. She argued that in the pre-linguistic stages of language acquisition, a child communicates with their mother through sound and through physicality. She argued also, that the first intervention of the father in the child's psychological development, what Freud called the oedipal stage, arrives at the same time as the beginning of learning language as words or symbols/tokens for thoughts. Spoken or written language, Kristeva proposed, is male, and phallocentric. A child loses their pre-genderedness in learning language, and is assimilated into the "symbolic order" (where words are phallic symbols of male power). Kristeva argued that, by exploring emotive vowel sounds, fluid syntax, wordplay and any stream of consciousness that breaks down traditional male, linguistic constructions of reality, a writer could subvert language from within and disrupt the symbolic order, re-discovering their pregendered voice.

Anglo-American, materialist feminists often argue that that's just a load of pretentious guff, that pleases the post-structuralists in male-dominated academies. But Kristeva's ways of looking at semiotic interventions in language provide interesting ideas for reading, say, Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, or The Waves, as novels or even prose poems, that work against previous conventions of realism.

Well I must say that I am all for tearing apart any pretense at realism or objectivity, so I'll bet that I'd find her at least somewhat useful. Isn't semiotics a somewhat dated philosiphical theory in that we all use forms of semiotics everyday? This isn't to say that it's not useful, but just reading the text doesn't necessarily get at the production (values) in and around the text(s).

FinsburyParkCarrots

ryan198 wrote:

Well I must say that I am all for tearing apart any pretense at realism or objectivity, so I'll bet that I'd find her at least somewhat useful. Isn't semiotics a somewhat dated philosiphical theory in that we all use forms of semiotics everyday? This isn't to say that it's not useful, but just reading the text doesn't necessarily get at the production (values) in and around the text(s).

Kristevan semiotics is a very different concept, from conventional semiotics (the study of signs, that goes back to Saussure and is common in structuralism). "Semiotic", in Kristevan terminology, means pre-oedipal, pre-linguistic signification.

ryan198

well I'll actually have to do some reading on this, but does this pre-xxx form of semiotics get into the modes of pre-xxx production? In other words does she consider the relative levels of (under)privilege that the baby experiences in the womb?