This Made Me Cry

Submitted by adammyerson on Fri, 06/19/2009 - 09:18

Quoted from Janice today:

"If you're a feminist who thinks that all the choices you make are feminist because you're "not doing it because men like it" but because you have the "right to choose", you're an asshole.

Breast implants, being a stripper, being naked on the internet, wearing makeup, wearing heels does not become a feminist choice just because you say you're reclaiming your sexuality or choosing to do it independent of "what men want". Neither does actively NOT doing those things. Because it's a patriarchal society, no matter what, and whether you're conforming or "rebelling" to it, it's still a reaction to the society in which you exist.

Blaming your emotions on being a woman - not feminist.

Denying your emotions because society deems them stereotypically feminine - not feminist.

It is impossible to understand what individual decisions have and haven't been influenced by the patriarchy, because we are inherently influenced. There really is no true freedom of choice.

Do whatever the fuck you want, and own it, but don't make it about feminism. You're just fucking it up."

 

Comments

Submitted by ChrisB. (not verified) on Fri, 06/19/2009 - 12:57.
That's awesome. And that's why I have a really long, but awesome story about how my wife and I handled the surname thing when we had a kid. The brief version: we blew off the name thing when we got married. She didn't change hers; I didn't change mine. But then when we were about to have a kid, we decided we had to do something. Hyphenate . . . no, think of the carnage of multiple generations of hyphenated names. Change my name, maybe, but kind of reactionary. And so we both changed our names. Mind you that for me, it really just involved going back to the original French/French-Canadien version of my surname, but that's not the point. The point was that as people we mindfully came up with an equitable solution to a really stupid problem and we did it together. Add that to that my wife wanted to be a "stay at home" mom, and you end up at Janice's closing comment: "Do whatever the fuck you want, and own it, but don't make it about feminism. You're just fucking it up." Oh and I should mention "the patriarchy" became a really personal problem when my parents (mind you I was 32 at the time!) utterly flipped out over it - apparently it was an "insult" to them. I guess nobody really ever worries about insulting the person who actually carries the baby and then gives birth to her/him.
Submitted by Janice (not verified) on Fri, 06/19/2009 - 14:58.
Does being naked on the internet make me a hypocrite, or just a credible source?
Submitted by Adam S (not verified) on Fri, 06/19/2009 - 15:06.
How does one not react on the Internet? I'm sitting here not reacting.
Submitted by Wayde (not verified) on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 05:39.
Growing up in new England and having the exposure to a lifetime of strong independent women (mother, grandmother, girlfriends, [ex]wife), coming to the middle east and seeing women here owning their femininity and choices (yes there are choices for Muslim women in this part of the Muslim world, is an interesting diachotomy from my previous perspective. Feminism, I believe is bound up in the choices women make for themselves, no matter what a society overlays in terms of expectation, role or peer choice. Feminism isn't anti anything, rather it's pro women in all their abilities, choices and lives. My mother taught me something that I have taught to my own daughter, that is , that a woman can do anything a man can do except pee standing up . . . I've been proven that they can do that too. Perhaps my mother's generation's brand of feminism hadn't been yet stretched to the full extent of possibilities of the piece of advise she conveyed to me. Proof that time will stretch any perspective to include Any and all possibilities.