Originally posted at The Feminist Anthropologist
Captain Obvious has brought the news to us this weekend: abortion is not the cause of society’s ills and feminists are not all man-hating, childless, cold-hearted, career-minded bitches.
Today’s feminist movement has tackled so much, but one issue of supreme importance that is still being fought for is a more favorable view of feminism. Criticisms of feminism include the very important fact that it is led primarily by affluent, educated, white, cisgendered women. While movements to include men, women of color, and queer and trans persons have been gaining traction in modern feminism, I believe that one form of intersectionality- class – is too often ignored.
Feminism is stereotypically white and liberal, but it is also affluent. Feminism is lousy with privilege. Feminists are more likely to be college-educated, while the people who need feminism the most, those who are disadvantaged by working-class wages, high costs of childcare, and poor access to reproductive healthcare, are often misinformed about feminism. Breaking down the old stereotypes about bra-burning feminist is the first step in introducing feminism as a tool and an identity to the people who may be most affected by sexism, racism, heteronormativity, lack of representation, and abuses of power committed by our patriarchal systems of government and law enforcement.
This class divide within the feminist movement enforces a traditional binary within anthropology, where the educated, white, affluent person has more power, and therefore speaks on behalf of the disadvantaged person. This speaking on behalf of is a problem that contemporary anthropology tries to address by allowing the subaltern and the disenfranchised to speak for themselves. This is where modern feminism most often fails. The movement is dominated by white, educated, affluent, cisgendered women who are constantly speaking on behalf of the issues that most affect people of color, transwomen, and women in the “third world” or the global South.
One of the most important things that modern feminism can do is rebrand the movement. We need to make feminism not only acceptable, but cool, and cool from many different angles. Books like Jessica Valenti’s Full-Frontal Feminism and Julie Zeilinger’s A Little F’d Up address this issue for a very specific class and racial identity, but fail to reach out to people who may not be willing or even able to read. The ideals of feminism needs to be subliminally introduced earlier, on the Disney Channel, on reality television, in our schools, so that once young people hear what feminism is about, they won’t be automatically turned off by the image of a bra-burning, man-hating, lesbian feminist.
Important links:
Feminist class struggle by bell hooks
Enough middle-class feminism by Carrie Hamilton
7 Comments
So… wait, when you bring up Jessica Valenti and Julie Zeilinger’s books, you think there should be catering towards people who are illiterate or chose not to read? (To use an old chinese proverb: Those who do not read are no better off than those who cannot.)
Pardon my French, but I call bullshit. The problem of people who cannot read… that’s a problem of the educational system, so I’d say another chore to add to the plate is reforming it and making nationwide literacy another priority. But CHOOSING not to read? Uh… no. No, people who deliberately choose not to read and get the shaft are getting exactly what they deserve. Don’t encourage them.
I love Valenti and Zeilinger’s books, but the way that they are written caters to a very specific, educated and liberal audience. Obviously, the choice or ability to not read is very much about education, but I truly believe that we need to find alternate ways of bringing feminist ideals to people who would not otherwise find them. A lot of young people grow up in communities where literacy is not valued at all and people don’t read unless it is necessary– I know I have experienced this first hand where I grew up. While teaching someone to like reading is another task altogether (and a very important one) I think we need more venues to spread feminist ideals to younger people without asking them to read a book written for a fairly educated person by a very educated white woman.
…Again, you’re playing the race card. So, reading a book is for ‘educated white women’? And, by proxy, uneducated women of color need to have this information dumbed down for them by putting it on television?
…No.
You’re reading my argument totally wrong.
There are so many people who would never pick up a book explicitly about feminism. (And many people who just won’t pick up books.) I believe these are often the people who would really benefit from feminism. I wasn’t framing this in terms of race at all, besides the fact that many books introducing feminism are written by very educated heterosexual white women, which might alienate people who don’t feel any sense of common identity with those authors and their feminist concerns. I was referring to various intersections of class and education level that can often contribute to an ethos that shuns reading. I was referring as much to poor white women or men who don’t go to college as to people of color.
My suggestion was not to “dumb down” feminism but to find ways of introducing it that is not necessarily through literature. I think when you said that “people who deliberately choose not to read and get the shaft are getting exactly what they deserve” is extremely disheartening. As much as I believe that a passion for reading can improve someone’s life, I’d rather have them learn important feminist ideas through another source than just give up on them because they won’t read a book.
True, ensuring that all people are enfranchised to the movement is not the same as dumbing it down. Those two are not synonymous. But you know what two terms are synonymous? Dumbing down and ‘adapting for TV’. You’re making the argument that we need other forms of media that portray feminism. To normalize it? Sure, great. But to reach out to people? No — because, no matter how clever and intelligently written the show is, TV is always the least common denominator and always the stupidest form of media out there.
And, on a side note, all those clever and intelligently written and executed shows out there — anything from House and Burn Notice to Batman the Animated Series — guess what demographic those shows are aimed at? Affluent white people. So, making shows that portray feminism and get across issues still won’t solve the problem.
So, really, the bottom line is that society in general needs to raise the bar for thinking: Not just for feminists, but people in general. Why? Because the only two consistent descriptors for feminists are ‘smart’ and ‘thinker’. You can’t be a feminist and not be able to think. And the most guaranteed way to STOP thinking is… watching television and not reading. See a pattern here?
And, while I’m at it, you know what OTHER important activity that shouldn’t just be encouraged but compulsory for American citizens many women CHOOSE not to do? VOTE! There’s a link between women who can’t (Or won’t) read and women who don’t vote. And, in some cases it’s a matter of being disenfranchised, but more often than not, there are women who are perfectly capable and allowed to vote, but don’t because ‘They just don’t feel like it.’ (Oh, yes — you would not believe how many personal acquaintances I have who, despite having had decent enough educations to make them literate and give them tools to be able to vote, they don’t because they just don’t care.) So, I stick by my position of having no sympathy for those who are perfectly CAPABLE, but CHOOSE not to, and not for any outside influences, but because they just don’t want to.
Have you considered looking into writings or speeches by Angela Davis?