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Like many politicized and not so "political" women of color I've had my qualms identifying as a feminist. As addressed before the Internet blew up, traditional western feminist discourse connotes white, middle class, straight women and many of the issues fought center this group; that has been covered extensively Online, in print, and on Feministing by folks like Samhita. Zoom back to me, as a 27 year-old daughter of working-class Mexican immigrants and a single urban mama , my lifestyle and at times worldview does not seem to be grasped by western feminism.  Like I've said before in my other blog and in real life conversations, my mama, grandmama (resting in peace now) aunties, mentors and closest friends do not identify as feminists and are some of the staunchest, strongest, hard working, autonomous independent thinkers, and just people that I know. All without identifying with feminism, and as complicated as that is, I respect that and even admire it. Honoring the women in my blood and non blood family  relating to them, has made it easy for me to question and at moments reject dominant feminism.

Hello Feministing.com community!

My name is GayRightsFAIL, and I am just stopping buy to let everyone know that I am going to be starting a blog this January all about modern feminist theory!  I want to say that I hope it is not inappropriate that I am giving myself a little bump here to the feministing.com community, and if this post shouldn't be here, by all means delete it.

A little bit about me, I am an 18 male, currently enrolled in Oberlin College.  In case you could not tell by my name, I am gay and obviously in strong support of gay rights.  I am half white, half Puerto Rican, and I am from an upper middle class family in suburban New York.  I only tell you these things so that you can have some idea of where this blog will be coming from, whose perspective you will be reading about (if you decide to read the blog).

So I don't have a name for my blog yet (suggestions welcome), or a website, but I do have a plan.  This is actually a "winter term" project I am doing from Oberlin College, where I read books on modern feminist theory and then blog about what I am reading.  I get one college credit, for blogging every other day from January 2nd until January 31st.  After January my blog will be over, sadly, but I am hoping to learn a lot over this next month.

So, the books I am reading, in order, are:

The Feminine Mystique , by Betty Friedan.

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center , by Bell Hooks

Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters , by Jessica Valenti (hi!)

and Feminist Philosophy and Science Fiction: Utopias and Dystopias , which is a collection of short stories edited by Judith A. Little

So I know there are a lot of books out there, and it is impossible to cover modern feminist theory in its entirety in one month or with four books, but these are the ones I have settled on.  I tried to get a mix of stuff, and I am reading The Feminine Mystique because I think it is enormously important and everyone should probably read it.  The next two are obvious, Bell Hooks is awesome and I am really excited to read Jessica's book.  The last choice I am kind of regretting now, it is not really modern and some of these stories look pretty bad, but I have committed to it and getting some fiction in there probably isn't a bad idea. 

Thought I'd post this since many seemed offended by Levitt's original post:

"For those of you who were offended by the post, the goal wasn’t to dehumanize anyone, but rather to a) show how not all economic analysis you read is correct, and b) get people thinking."

I'm a regular reader of both Freakonomics and Feministing, and personally I fall into the camp that does not believe Levitt's original post was derogatory: it was merely stating examples of a rare economic phenomenon. I can, however, appreciate the fact that many considered the little "contest" to be tacky.

Via.

I don't have much time to write this, so forgive me if it appears hasty.

I just recently joined facebook, and one of my "friends" posted a link to her new "awesome, funny, edgy" blog. It's one of those write-a-funny-yet-insensitive-caption to a photo type things. I almost threw up.

In one photo, I think there is an implication of a woman who had been raped (but in a funny way, of course). The picture that REALLY made me disgusted was one that showed a sad 5-7 year old looking sad, with the caption reading something terribly disgusting about her getting molested by her uncle (again, this is meant to be funny.)

I don't care thet the people laughing along with this are supposedely my friends, I had to speak up.

If you want to see what I'm talking about, go here.

And if you are able to leave a comment on the actual note that appears on Facebook, Go Here.

Part of me regrets making this shit "famous" but I think more people need to speak up against this sort of NOT FUNNY bullshit.

I've been noticing this a lot lately- grown men in relationships being praised like little children when they do something to "help" around their own houses or take care of errand/task that needs to be done between both partners.

I can see this with some older men, who may have been raised that women "take care" of things and maybe moved straight from their mother's house to their wife's. But the guys I'm noticing it with now are in their early 30s. They've lived on their own for many years and are successful at work and education. But their partners praise them for successfully going to the grocery store or calling the plumber or folding towels. I'm pretty sure they had to do all those things when they lived on their own!

I don't know where this comes from. Maybe TV and commercials and things like that where women always play the role of the mother to their husbands/boyfriends, asking them to do chores, rewarding them or punishing them, seeing them as children, etc (I'm sure you've seen commercials where women will say something like, "with three kids and a husband, my house gets pretty dirty). Maybe both parties in the relationship like to emphasize gender stereotypes and roles because it makes it all seem more "relationshipy"? It seems that when a couple moves in together or gets married, the women suddenly become much more "parental" overnight, while the men seem to regress. What do you all think about this?

Sometimes the facts of women's history speak for themselves. Did you know that the United Arab Emirates only granted women the right to vote in 2006? Or that South Africa did not include black women in their right to vote in 1930, waiting until 1994, only 14 years ago, to grant black women suffrage? Did you know that many women's suffrage rights all over the world are tied to both their age and their probable marriage to a man? In Bolivia, if you are an 18 year old woman you can only vote if you are married; otherwise, you must wait until you are 21. Moreover, most countries only provide limited suffrage, or voting rights with restrictions, and some of those restrictions are gender-related: in Brunei, women cannot vote in national elections, only township or local village elections. Did you know that most countries did not grant women suffrage until the last century (the 20th)? Did you know that the U.S.A. only granted women suffrage in 1920 but that black women's (and all black people's) voting rights were impeded through violence, election place restrictions, and arcane rules well after the 1965 Voting Rights Act (42 U.S.C. § 1973–1973aa-6) passed? Among the most prevalent restrictions were the requirement to pass a literary test. Did you know that one of the countries that the U.S.A. still relies on for the unfortunately basic resource of oil, Saudi Arabia, still denies all women the right to vote until this very day? Sometimes the facts of women's history speak for themselves.

I wasn't sure if I could post this, but I guess the worst that could happen is it gets ignored.

I have been thinking a lot about this post that I read recently.

I've tried writing a whole bunch of different thoughts and questions and reactions to it that I considered posting here or asking about, but I can never really make anything clear enough in a reasonable space.

One main problem I have is understanding some of the things she says regarding the ability of people to empathize. 

She says "I don’t want to hear about the ways that you identify with me, because you cannot . I don’t want to hear your comparisons of my life to yours, because they are not the same ."  The fact that they aren't the same seems trivially true, but besides the point.  It seems to be that we must be able to identify with one another, or any discussion of "equality" becomes impossible. We don't doubt one another's ability to empathize with humiliation, or pain, or joy, or any other basic emotion. Why would we doubt the ability to empathize with a specific kind of treatment?

That isn't to suggest perfect unity of minds. Of course the experience isn't the same as trying to empathize. But if there were no way to compare experiences, the idea of privilege disappears. How could anyone claim another group's life to be easier if it is impossible to have any understanding of their experiences?

I think there's a difference between telling a member of a different group "You don't really understand" when it is obvious they don't really empathize with the nuances of a particular feeling, and saying "You can't possibly begin to understand anything at all, so don't even try." The first claim really can't and shouldn't be argued with. The second seems questionable at best, and potentially dangerous.

I'm very interested in everyone's thoughts about what I was discussing, and any other aspect of the article that interests you.

Sooner or later the people in my life are going to club me over the head or tape my mouth shut so I stop talking about Twilight . But my commentary is not the giggling and fan sighing usually associated with Twilight - it’s in the form of frustrated outbursts every time I pass a massive Twilight billboard or walk by a tottering stack of Breaking Dawn.

I have read so much commentary and criticism, but have yet to add my two cents, and I think, if nothing else, this will be therapeutic for me. My criticism comes from two stand points. I hold a B.A. in English, and consider myself a writer. Currently, I am working on a YA fantasy novel (40K in and rising!). I have read a helluva lot of literature, was the editor of my college paper, and have hosted many a slam poetry night. So you might say I have a passion for language.   Add that to my feminism and you have just birthed Stephanie Meyer’s worst enemy.  

 A week or so ago I was stuck at a Borders Book Store near my school for a few hours, and, being the enthusiastic teen feminist I am, I spent a good deal of time viewing the Gender Studies section. I of course thumbed through a copy of Backlash and several books on the social views of virginity (Going to a Catholic School and being a young woman, I have a particular interest in the anti-woman ideal that is the Virgin/Whore complex, and have talked about it a lot on my blog). But one book that caught my eye in particular was called “Hating Women : America's Hostile Campaign Against the Fairer Sex ” By Rabbi Schmuley Boteach.

I skimmed through the summary and it seemed to be basically a commentary about the growing misogyny in Western Culture, particularly in pop culture. Now, I had recently read both of Jessica Valenti’s books and seen the third installment of the Killing Us Softly documentary series, so of course I was interested in reading more on the modern cultural view of women. Reading about it from the perspective of not only a man, but a prominent religious figure like Rabbi Boteach, seemed like an interesting opportunity. Now, I’m not going to claim I read the whole book, because I didn’t. I didn’t have the money on hand to buy it and I didn’t want to rip the store, publisher, or author off by reading it without paying for it. I did, however, pour over it for about an hour or so, reading large passages from the chapters and trying to get as clear a view of the book’s contents as I could. There was, of course, a lot of commentary in the book regarding the awful stereotypes presented of women in the popular media, how men are being groomed to view women, and the over-sexualization of young women in popular media and culture that I heartily agreed with, but there were passages of the book that annoyed me greatly, as a feminist and as a humanist in general. Not only was it his criticism of the feminist movement for concentrating too much on being like men and leaving behind their “natural feminine virtues” (I’m not taking this word for word), or his belief that women were respected more prior to the twentieth century (though that really got to me, but it’s a point to pick apart for another blog), but it was also his stressing of how men and women are not equal, but that women are superior beings.

Like many of you, I started a personal anonymous blog to bitch without consequence. And rather than locking it all away in a secret diary, I think hearing other people's opinions could be a good thing.

And I really need some help. I've been in a relationship with a wonderful man for over a year, but I am in the battle for the alpha female position in his life. It's not his mom, it's not one of his female friends--it's his sister.

I've posted the long version (part 1 & 2) on Grump Girl, but for those of you with short attention spans (like me), here are the basics: