this is just to say

[lotesse]

I am disappointed in the leaders of the feminist second wave. I've always supported them, defended them. For a third-waver perspective they can look pretty uncool, but I genuinely believe that some of their work remains intensely important. It's much more fun to be the sex-positive third wave girl who's unthreatening and sexy and "successful" at being everything that a woman ought to be even though she's a feminist, but the unpleasant realities exposed by second wave critiques of porn, prostitution, patriarchal constructions of sexuality, and the beauty myth haven't gone away. We need to address them. By all means, we should respond to critics of the second wave, we should try to do better at integrating issues of race and class, we should be good allies to queer and transgendered people. But I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, and plenty of third wavers do just that.

However.

The behavior of the remaining second wave establishment in this election cycle has been beyond the goddamned pale. First Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, now Geraldine Ferraro. I want to scream at these women for their stupid, racist remarks, because as a young feminist I want desperately to be able to look up to them. I want to be able to be proud of the history of my movement. Ferraro was the first female vice president candidate on the ballot, and I want that to mean something, I want to be able to claim her for the side of the angels. But every time second wave women open their mouths of late, they're spewing right-wing talking points about affirmative action and uppity black people. I am ashamed of the feminist second wave. I am ashamed to be their philosophical descendant. It's going to be really hard for me to defend their feminist positions now, because my god, who says things like they've been saying in public?

They're supposed to be our allies. They were supposed to be our mentors. But damn, keep saying shit like that and I'm going to start seeing why my mama says she's not a feminist but.

Comments

[theprimrosepath.livejournal.com]

...and I'm going to start seeing why my mama says she's not a feminist but.

That's all I've ever been able to call myself - "not a feminist, but -" though I'll admit my problem may be as much with the label itself as with some of the ideas and statements attached thereto.

[lotesse]

yeah, that's where my mama is. We talk about it a lot, because she raised me to believe in women's rights, and I DO call myself a feminist. But she sees the movement as limited, angry, and unsympathetic. I don't entirely agree with her - as tiamatschild says below, we've got bell hooks and a lot more awesome, awesome women - but I do see her point. that makes me sad.

[tiamatschild.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, bell hooks is a second wave feminist.

I doubt we're going to hear any cluelessly racist comments from her any time soon.

[lotesse]

Oh, thank heavens for bell hooks. I don't know what we'd do without her. But the fact that it takes women of color to unite anti-racist and anti-sexist movements makes me so sad. we white girls need to be able to do it too.

[theprimrosepath.livejournal.com]

Utterly unrelated, but have you seen this? It's an academic job search page. A bit cart-before-horse if you lack the necessary degrees, but at least there are some have some directional sign-posts once we have diplomas in hand. :)

[lotesse]

mm, thanks. Oh, I also wanted to ask you - where'd you get the River manip for your journal, and is it gankable? It sure is pretty!

[theprimrosepath.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I made it. :) There's another version too, with a sort of half-moon thing behind her instead of the nebula. I've been a little photoshop-mad lately.Totally gankable, have and enjoy. :)

[lotesse]

It's a lovely thing!

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

*sighs*

I'm 52, didn't become a feminist until about 30, but these were the women whose work convinced me--and I'm bloody ashamed of them in so many ways these days.

I went into my doctoral program a while later, and worked with the critiques by feminist of color (bell hooks!!!!) and wrote my dissertation about the issues of race and gender in N. American feminist narratives....and yes, voted for Ferrardo and what's his name!

But what they're been posting lately--I guess it does show the necessity to identify as a critial race feminist because too many feminists are coming out with racist b.s.

[lotesse]

Yeah. I keep hoping that we can drop the terminology, that it can be taken as par for the course that feminism also involves interrogation of race systems, but that keeps not happening. Grr argh.

And it bothers me that we haven't moved farther forward in the space between the waves. I'm frustrated by the fact that, at 21, I'm still having to make the same arguments within the movement. bell hooks is still terrifyingly relevant, and I can't help thinking that we should have listened to her, integrated and accepted her critiques, and moved on long ago.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

::Sigh:: Yes.

We *are* the movement

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

or else we are bystanders who don't get to complain. To complain that there aren't enough people like us in a movement - not an *organization*, which is a closed system with hierarchies which may or may not be assailable - but a movement, which is amorphous and to be determined by the actions/composition of those who choose to join and affect it - and then to go off as a result, is like those people who complain at other ficcers for not writing the fic they want to read: well, and what are you writing, eh? GAFIATE if you like, but don't blame Fandom™ for not being perfect for your decision.

The so-called leaders (of this as any movement) are just people, for all they're women, with the same faults as anyone else, and the ones who are politicians are *politicians* first and foremost: to expect a politician to be above power-seeking is like expecting a cat not to chase birds. Cliche as it is, you do have to be the change, and that means kicking butt and taking names and generally being obnoxious, rather than resting upon laurels or venerating anyone else's laurels, either.

Moreover

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

Myself, I still feel squiffy about publically self-identifying as a feminist, because I was raised to venerate Phyllis Schlafly and all the other professional antifeminists, and partly I feel like I'm self-identifying as a Godless Commie Pagan Heretic by doing so, and partly I don't feel worthy or fit to claim the mantle, since I coasted, accepting my right to work, to vote, to own property without ever facing up to the work and the workers that got it for me, all those years of "I'm not a feminist but..."

But my views don't matter: the *fact* that I accept, nay, insist on my right to vote, to work, to own things in my own name, to not marry nor have children as I please, to be regarded as a full *person* and not a mere *thing* by males, and that I think this freedom should be available to every woman, means that in the eyes of all antifeminists I am not merely *a* feminist, but a *radical* feminist, no matter how I demur about it.

So might as well be hanged for an ewe...because they will hang us regardless, no matter how far we grovel.