At the risk of pushing all other posts off this page, I'm going to paste a bunch of quotes that answer this question for me:
Feminism as bumper sticker:
"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people"
Women's Rights Manifesto
Because woman's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or repetitious and we're the first to get fired and what we look like is more important than what we do and if we get raped it's our fault and if we get beaten we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we love women it's because we can't get a "real" man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect childcare we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and "unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical weak females and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're unnatural and because we still can't get an adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion and ...for lots and lots of other reasons we are part of the women's liberation movement.
"Well-behaved women seldom make history."
-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
-Madeleine K. Albright
-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
-Madeleine K. Albright
"Considering how dangerous everything is nothing is frightening."
-Gertrude Stein
"It is not possible to address society's needs at any level while ignoring the perspectives, priorities, and knowledge of more than half of the world's population."
-Rosina Wilshire of UNDP
"Women give life. We have the capacity to give life and light. We can take up our brooms and sweep the earth."
-Isabelle Letelier
"Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender."
-Alice Walker
"Violence against women will end when legal, philanthropic, governmental and non-governmental organizations and impassioned individuals unite and stand up to say it is a priority, to say that the time for ending violence is now."
-Eve Ensler
"And ain't I a woman?"
-Sojourner Truth
"Also we've found that when we discuss women's problems, we need the men to be present, so that they can contribute by giving their opinions of what to do about the problem. And so that they can learn as well. If they don't learn, they don't progress."
-Rigoberta Menchu (222)
-Gertrude Stein
"It is not possible to address society's needs at any level while ignoring the perspectives, priorities, and knowledge of more than half of the world's population."
-Rosina Wilshire of UNDP
"Women give life. We have the capacity to give life and light. We can take up our brooms and sweep the earth."
-Isabelle Letelier
"Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender."
-Alice Walker
"Violence against women will end when legal, philanthropic, governmental and non-governmental organizations and impassioned individuals unite and stand up to say it is a priority, to say that the time for ending violence is now."
-Eve Ensler
"And ain't I a woman?"
-Sojourner Truth
"Also we've found that when we discuss women's problems, we need the men to be present, so that they can contribute by giving their opinions of what to do about the problem. And so that they can learn as well. If they don't learn, they don't progress."
-Rigoberta Menchu (222)
Posts
I'm a feminist because I will never accept an existence within the narrow confines of existing female stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteThis comes to me first of all as a linguistic question, because as I had not previously thought so much about feminism, and easily identified with not being a feminist (i assumed i was disqualified in my weakness for actually liking to have someone carry things for me sometimes), it was quite an eye-opener to me when--incidentally--at EGS at one point, i overheard someone complaining about one of the students, accusing her of her staunch "old school feminism", the kind of a rampantly aggressive, angry and frigid sort. it dawned on me that their descriptors of this old school feminism were exactly all my connotations of what feminism was in general, so it led me to start thinking about what a 'new school' kind of feminism could be about, and why most of my strongest female friends/colleagues would also not want to identify themselves as feminists. I think most of us still hang on to the feminists' staunch cries who have come before us, the very necessary voices who had first opened the doors and the discussion, raised fists and garnered movements. And while these things were necessary steps considering their situations/contexts, i think we can easily trace the changes in discourses since those times, as well as the ongoing process that is our understanding(s) of ourselves as women relative to society at large. I think 'feminism' does not have to be a 'fight', as it is so often associated, and somehow it seems to me that the manifest declarations of identity bely the strength of the woman in the first place, who has always been matrixially aware of her severality (thinking Ettinger here).
ReplyDeleteThus, for me, asking oneself if he/she is a 'feminist' subsists at the surface of all such labels, perhaps unavoidable but immensely tricky, incomplete and capable of multitudinous understandings... And as with moving beyond any kind of gender roles, stereotypes or generalising labeling, we must always continue the dialogue, open oneself to that possibility of the other.
I am a feminist. The term is often rejected because of what others have made it. It has been attacked so viciously that it has been reduced to a group of middle class white women fighting for the right to pro-choice. So as the generations progress we reject, rename, change, and rebuild. We become aware that to be a woman is more than sex. To be a woman is our class, our ethnicity, our geographical location, and our age. It's our lifestyle our dreams and desires.
ReplyDeleteTo me, to be a feminist is the desire to understand the challenges facing women that result in their inequality from men. Perhaps it means to then take that understanding and work to remove those challenges. (Unfortunately what our society tends to do is to drag men down to join the women).
Throughout the decades the media has declared feminism dead again and again. Jennifer Baumgardener argues that feminism has never died, merely that it has been internalized. We've rejected the term feminism in favor of personal understanding.
And the wonderful thing that's occurring in our generation is the expansion of feminists to really include men. And as men join the ranks the term feminist (as it *is* still associated as a womans term) becomes less relevant. To be a stay at home mother doesn't just affect women. It demands that men work more (sacrificing their families and endangering their health). Paying women less doesn't just hurt women but through economic competition it drives down the wages paid to men and everyone suffers.
And it's important to consider that a strong way to further "feminist" causes is to involve men. Women have the power to influence their men. We(women) *are still* the ones spending the most time raising the children of the world. And we can change the way our sons treat our sisters and daughters.
As we change our understanding of gender and its intersection with class/race/ect we become not only feminists but economists, sociologists, anthropologists, and biologists.
I still chose to embrace the term feminist (I usually call myself a raging feminist) but what it means it always different
I love being a women and I love that I can make that mean whatever I want. I can be a bitch or your best friend. I can cuddle you or demand you worship the magnificence of me. I can adore the times when you perform traditional masculine acts (like opening my door or paying for the check or being jealous of that guy who keeps gazing at me) or I can switch it up and pay for breakfast(and oh by the way our waitress is hot).
I could spend days analyzing what feminism means to me. My mom is my hero, my girl friends are my sisters, and my men are still my knights in shining armor. But what feminism does for me is it means I've mounted the white steed and am leading the charge into battle.