With the exception of one part that I was a bit iffy about, I thought that Emma Watson did a good job with that speech. Side note: I could be wrong, but she seemed a bit nervous, which sort of endeared her to me because I would probably be shaking if I were up there.
Funnily enough, another article that I read about her speech mentioned Beyoncé, too. It also said that Emma Watson is potentially better for the feminist fight. I don’t know what to think about this.
Because honestly, I don’t think the #WomenAgainstFeminism movement would exist if there weren’t so fucking many bad feminists running rampant around the Internet.
I agree. While I wish that people wouldn’t take out their frustration by making anti-feminism pages and hashtags, I do understand their frustration.
And the responses to the #WomenAgainstFeminism movement upset me because I feel like they only reinforce the problem, by being pedantic, condescending
I agree here, too. Once again, I understand this reaction, but I wish people would think before posting instead of sharing knee-jerk reactions.
saying things like “you are a feminist you just don’t know it” may be true, but it’s not going to win any arguments or convince people to change their minds — it just pushes people further away.
This is one of the less offensive things I’ve seen, but you’re right: assigning someone a label is probably just going to piss them off, as will the myriad of similar statements that internet feminists make. I saw it firsthand in Thinking Sex; I’m sure you remember me telling you about some students’ taking offense when one of the authors claiming that everyone was transgender. She made the argument calmly, rationally, yet people were still up in arms. It’s no wonder the belligerent, self-righteous tone that some internet feminists use alienates people. I’ve said it before, but every time I read stuff like that, I’m like, “Does this person think that they’re helping the cause? What do they think they’re accomplishing?” When people call them out on what they say (sometimes in just as immature a fashion – once again, there’s that knee-jerk reaction), their responses are always something along the lines of, “Fuck you, I’m not here to make men feel comfortable.” In the end, we get this situation in which internet feminists, instead of trying to educate others, just ridicule and blame people for their ignorance. They acknowledge that sexism and other issues are structural, then treat them more like individual problems.
Feminism on the Internet has become an excuse for inactivism.
This, I think, is an extremely valid point, and might be what bothers me most about internet feminism and some other concepts, like privilege. Here’s the piece I’ve mentioned on the latter subject. Funnily enough, it sounds like there was a tenure controversy surrounding the author similar to Willamette’s. Anyway, obviously I don’t actually know these people on the internet, but as I’ve said before, I get the impression that most of them don’t actually do anything in real life to try to correct social injustices they profess to care so much about. I hope I’m wrong. Of course, they might argue that complaining about TV shows is doing something. And I suppose it is. But like that article says about privilege, it’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough. Yes, representation in media is important, and it does affect society to an extent, but what about representation in real life? Yes, a black female in a TV show, for instance, will inspire black girls, but what about, say, a black female president? What about all of those problems that affect our standard of living, like corporations screwing people over, climate change, wage gaps, education, etc. I feel like the attention that TV, film, and books receive is disproportionate to their effect. I mean, I understand why people focus on entertainment: they’re passionate about those things, it’s really easy to talk about, it’s interesting, it’s fun, and as I said, it does have some influence. But to me it almost feels like a distraction. Also, back to what I said above, and referencing the article, part of the problem is that they focus too much on the individual.
Americans in particular might veer towards this sort of behavior because there’s so little faith in government and other institutions. Congress is completely dysfunctional, the UN can’t actually do much, the economy sucks, etc. We complain, but do nothing. We’re all so defeated, we feel so powerless. In keeping with the entertainment theme I’ve been discussing, I’ll let Howard Beale describe what I’m talking about (the first part of the scene) 😛. Maybe people feel like working on an individual level is the best they can do.
But I think a lot of it is that much of the language that is leftover from the early Feminist movement is misleading or confusing or else no longer culturally relevant.
That’s probably part of it. Plus, the most radical voices tend to be the loudest/most noticeable. But maybe stuff like this and this also contributed to the misunderstanding. And, to quote JS Mill:
All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds… The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose. All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of other… Can it be doubted that any of the other yokes which mankind have succeeded in breaking, would have subsisted till now if the same means had existed, and had been so sedulously used, to bow down their minds to it?
I think we’re at a crossroads where we’re brought up in the way that Mill describes, but we also have these ideas about equality floating around. Result: mass confusion and reluctance.
I wish I could be a culturally relevant person like a celebrity or a famous blogger or something so that I could just tell everyone to shut up about Feminism and start calling themselves Equalists.
I’ll get to the latter part of this comment in a bit, but oh, my God, that first part. One of the fan fiction writers whose work I really like made a post the other day that said,
When I joined tumblr a year and a half ago, I thought I was a fairly aware feminist.
I wasn’t…
I consumed media without much critical thought.
She went on to give writing credit for contributing to her eye-opening experience – more credit than Tumblr, actually – but then she continued,
It didn’t happen over night, but suddenly, I started questioning things. And it’s changed everything for me…
Yes, it’s harder to consume media. It’s harder to like things, to like other people even. I see patterns everywhere now, in everything from kids movies to real life relationships, things that are portrayed as sexy or romantic or desirable in media but in reality are creepy and harmful. Once you’ve started seeing it, you can’t stop.
I’m really grateful that tumblr and fandom have helped me see this.
The emphasis is mine.
After reading this, I wanted so badly to send her a message pleading with her to make sure she thinks critically about feminist critiques from Tumblr. Of course, I refrained because I’m just a random person on the internet, which is incredibly frustrating in cases such as these. I was just like this writer when I took Thinking Sex: I thought I was an aware feminist, then I learned that there was so much more. That’s great, and I think people do become more aware to an extent, but it quickly turns sour. Remember how everything became social construction with me? People get extreme; I think they feed off each other’s enthusiasm instead of carefully considering each other’s analyses (most of which are bad) and statements. As I said, the extreme voices are the loudest. That’s what people see. I could go into more detail, but it’s late.
Now to your comment about dropping the term feminism. You might have something there. Feminism has become something more all-encompasing than the root of the word suggests. Then again, there are plenty of labels that we use that have changed in meaning over time. I know you’ve said that the word feminist isn’t comparable to other labels, but I disagree. Is a contemporary Christian comparable to a Christian from when the religion first started? And which sort of Christians am I talking about, anyway? There are so many different branches, each with their own sub-labels. The religion has retained the basics over time, but there’s been quite a bit of transformation. I’d argue that the same is true of feminism: it’s branched out a lot, and a feminist today is not the same as a feminist 100 years ago, but there is a constant, and that is the belief in the economic, social, and political equality of the sexes(/genders). No one has trouble calling themselves and others Christians (or almost any other label), so why should the word feminist be a problem? Perhaps you will say that associations have tainted the word. Well, why not reclaim it like other words have been? Of course, some words are too vile for reclaiming, but I don’t think feminist is one of them.
Ok, I think I’ll stop here.
No, wait, one more thing. That second article mentioned Jessica Valenti. I was unimpressed by Full Frontal Feminism.
– A
P.S. The contradiction between the content of this post and the act of posting it is hilarious.
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