brownfemipower’s Final Post

brownfemipower’s final post

I’ll admit to completely selfish relief at being able to read one last thing by brownfemipower. Here is a portion of a very powerful post:

1. there are clear racialized reasons why women of color are never and will never be the sought after by big companies, named as the leader of feminist movements, asked for interviews etc

2. that white feminists bear a responsibility (that they are NOT accepting and in fact are actively rejecting) to negotiate power and create spaces (while working alongside or a step behind marginalized communities) in which power is de-centralized

3. As a result I do NOT consider myself to be a part of any fucking “feminist movement” because to me, feminism requires diversity (We have a responsibility (especially in the undergraduate years) to demonstrate to ALL students, no matter what their identity is, how to interact with the critical thinking of people who think differently than they do. To bring this a step further, however, feminist academics who are actively aware of how power plays out in very negative ways in the classroom, have a very specific responsibility to those students who have little to no power. The very basis of feminist scholarship/academic training is to dismantle and/or redistribute the power structure within a classroom and the academy. Women’s studies is nothing more than an articulation of this demand–women WILL be studied. Men will NOT be the focus of all academic work. Thus, women’s studies professors (and all other ethnic studies, disability studies etc depts) have built the commitment to diversity within a classroom into their very existence–so I feel no qualms at all about insisting that women’s studies professors (and instructors, lecturers, adjuncts etc) are *required* to show diversity within the classroom through the texts that they teach.)

And even though I wrote this whole post about those three points–the only thing people heard was “She thinks she’s Freud and she wants money/power/recognition.”

No, actually, I know I’m brownfemipower and I want to end violence against women. And I wanted to do that with all the women who keep insisting to me that we are all in this together and we have common problems that we have to work against and we’re all sisters, and there is such thing as a commonality of experience between us all—as I said in my original post—I thought feminism was important because it brought women together (I had thought at one time that feminism was about justice for women. I had thought it was about centering the needs of women, and creating action in the name of, by and for women. I had thought that feminism has its problems but it’s worth fighting for, worth sacrificing and sweating and crying and breaking down for.)

But how can it have “brought us together” when my implicit goal in feminist centered media justice is to write erased communities into existence—and the result of the work of the ’sister’ down the street is the erasure of the same communities I’m working to write into existence? (And no, I do NOT accept that I or any other fucking Latina out there should just be “grateful” that our work is being talked about while we remain hidden in the shadows. Even now, as a person who explicitly rejects feminism, I KNOW that Latinas have the right to demand that the work we do not be hidden in some dark silent space that nobody talks about and everybody avoids even as everybody else eats all the fruit that we pick. Yes, even Latina writers have the right to fucking unionize and come into the light.)

There is no “feminist movement” because the work being done is not just conflicting with the work of other “sisters”—it’s directly negating it.

For me, this shit has all been about community. I did not expressly state this in my original post. I was angry enough at the time that I really didn’t flesh out my ideas fully. Having since had the time to think things through more carefully and surf around several of the blogs that are talking about this—part of what I was trying to say was that feminists have a choice in deciding what community they belong to. And they are implicitly choosing to stay away from and otherwise distance themselves from communities that make them uncomfortable or worried for any reason. This has consequences for the communities that they refuse to work with. Most importantly, it has consequences because WOMEN belong to those communities that they refuse to work with.

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brownfemipower, blank page

brownfemipower has taken her blog down.

I know it’s not her job or responsibility to educate me about my privilege or about the racism and sexism that women of color face. It’s not her responsibility to educate me about the problems with white feminism. At the same time, I have learned so much from her blog. And in concert with the class I took last semester – Race in Latin America and the Caribbean, taught by Winnifred Brown Glaude (hands down, best professor I have ever had) I’ve at least begun to build a framework where I can begin to understand these issues better. I have a very long way to go, but I credit these two women with helping me to even begin to comprehend these issues on a deeper level.

brownfemipower’s posts routinely blew me away and it’s hard to describe the loss. I know it’s nothing compared to those who had built a relationship with her over the years she had blogged. I won’t be taking any of the links to her in my own posts down in the selfish hope that she may reinstate her blog and resume posting, though the chances look slim to none.

There is a post at Feministe that gathers a number of posts together to explain what happened. From what I’ve read concerning the matter it is the one that has been the most constructive in trying to look at the larger issue. A short explanation rather lacking in eloquence – that when white women are given an opportunity to speak “for” women of color, they have a tendency to appropriate WOC work as their own and do not give credit where it is due. It erases people and their experiences, and it allows for this structure that privileges certain voices over others – that it is news when a white person says it, nothing important when a person of color (who has been working on the issue for years) says it – to continue.

It makes me cringe that mainstream feminism often regards the issues that women of color face as “special interest” and only worthy of coverage “when there’s time” or if they can get a “marketable” white woman to cover it. Sounds rather familiar, in that it is the same bullshit way that patriarchy devalues the issues women face as a whole.

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Some More on Radical Feminism and bell hooks

Awhile back I had promised a post that would make an effort to define radical feminism. I like to think that I can define things, and neatly fit them into some kind of comprehensible box. I will usually set out to do this and my project goes awry just from the sheer fact that things aren’t so cut and dry, neat or easy to get to the bottom of.

The one thing I do know is that “radical” means to get to the root. I would say that in my short lived experience with radical feminism, it is very much about both the cultural and institutional ways that misogyny is maintained. Radical feminism is not about reforming the system we live in, it is about creating a new one altogether.

Am I a radical feminist? Still don’t know. I think so, but I’m not sure. At the very least, I ascribe to the above paragraph. But otherwise, the need to know is becoming less important in comparison to just familiarizing myself with various authors and theories. In Ain’t I a Woman, bell hooks ties up her book with some of the reasons why feminism has failed. I think that what she has to say is really powerful. Though I’d been reading bits and pieces of things that addressed issues like this, reading this passage was really a light bulb moment for me. Specifically, that we are vying for power in a system that works by the very virtue of the fact that certain segments of society have little to no power.

Although the contemporary feminist movement was essentially motivated by the sincere desire of women to eliminate sexist oppression, it takes place within a framework of a larger, more powerful cultural system that encourages women and men to place the fulfillment of individual aspirations above their desire for collective change. Given this framework, it is not surprising that feminism has been undermined by the narcissism, greed, and individual opportunism of its leading exponents. A feminist ideology that mouths radical rhetoric about resistance and revolution while actively seeking to establish itself within the capitalist patriarchal system is essentially corrupt. While the contemporary feminist movement has successfully stimulated an awareness of the impact of sexist discrimination on the social status of women in the U.S., it has done little to eliminate sexist oppression. Teaching women how to defend themselves against male rapists is not the same as working to change society so that men will not rape. Establishing houses for battered women does not change the psyches of the men who batter them, nor does it change the culture that promotes and condones their brutality. Attacking heterosexuality does little to strengthen the self-concept of the masses of women who desire to be with men. Denouncing housework as menial labor does not restore to the woman houseworker the pride and dignity in her labor she is stripped of by patriarchal devaluation. Demanding an end to institutionalized sexism does not ensure an end to sexist oppression.

The rhetoric of feminism with its emphasis on resistance, rebellion, and revolution created and illusion of militancy and radicalism that masked the fact that feminism was in no way a challenge or a threat to capitalist patriarchy.

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Discouraged

In my effort to resurrect the blog and post regularly, I have been a lot less prolific than I had originally anticipated. At the moment I have 12 drafts, all at different stages of completion. Except lately I’ve been discouraged, and not in the “my writing makes me so insecure” way.

I’ve been making an effort to read more women of color, particularly WOC perspectives on feminism. I am in “shutup and listen” mode at the moment. I’m trying to learn, but I feel like the little progress I’m making is dwarfed by my overall ignorance. For instance, I came across a post at Brownfemipower in which she says:

White feminists insistence on positioning women of color as helpless victims or as invisible has very real world implications that result in violence both here and abroad.

And horrified thoughts of “Is that what I did in my last blog entry???”

I know I have this problem where I feel like I deserve a pat on the back for trying to work out my racism or trying to become aware of certain issues. Yeah, this is something I need to get rid of, I don’t really think men who treat women like human beings deserve pats on the back or anything. I know I’m not an incredible paragon of feminist perfection, but I think I’m pretty good at being aware of the things women face around the world. I have learned where one of my major blind spots is, becoming increasingly aware over the past few months that mainstream feminism works from a very narrow perspective – that of a white middle to upper class one.

So I guess the trouble lies in the issues that I thought I was pretty good about being aware of, and then realizing that maybe I’m still not approaching this in a proper way. It makes me feel paralyzed. Even in areas where I think I am “progressive” or aware, I may be displaying glaring ignorance.

As well, today I began to wonder about the idea of being quiet and listening. I understand the importance of this. I’m just not sure when I’ll be ready or if it is even appropriate to engage the things I read in a critical fashion. For instance, the first book I chose to read by a woman of color on feminism was Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks (review forthcoming). BFP makes the point that often white feminists don’t go past bell hooks and Audre Lorde when there is a whole body of work that both builds on and critiques their theories.

So I guess I’m trying to figure out how I am going to be able to pick out and discern theories that have truth to them versus theories that don’t. Or by looking to approach things in the future in that manner, am I going about it in the absolute wrong way? Is it a matter that I can’t and shouldn’t try to engage theories in a critical manner that have been built on experiences I will never have?

And yeah… maybe I’m just making this all about me now. Perhaps I am just asking the wrong questions. I have no clue.

BTW – here is the post I was referring to at BFP (replace x with h)

xttp://brownfemipower.com/?p=1059

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Rebuttal to Jason: Why We Need Feminism

As far as feminism, I really haven’t looked much into the topic. Hence, your allusions to specific ideas are lost on me because of my lack of background. However, many of the arguments I’ve heard for feminism appear to be the search for a skapegoat on which to cast the blame for problems. I can understand and sometimes agree with arguments I’ve heard, but this isn’t a one directional issue. In fact, it’s surprising that there isn’t a loud masculanist movement considering many of the unfair expectations and biases against men. I myself wouldn’t subscribe to any such group, but it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to consider its existance.

Consider education. Before feminist movements, males had the large share of educational attention, and had higher scores on average than women. The feminist movement has swung the pendulum in the complete opposite direction, where women are outpacing their male components in academia (at least in early education through high school).Don’t misunderstand the purpose of the statement; the fact that women are performing better in school is an excellent and laudable fact. I’m simply pointing out that there is always injustice and there are always biases, and you must be very careful about which fights you pick.

As you said in your entry, there are so many things wrong with the world, feminism does seem like a narrow focused issue. It’s a real issue (as is, perhaps to a lesser extent, “masculanism”), but is it as bold as the pursuit of more impactful issues such as the World Bank and its impositions on 3rd world countries? Or modern colonialism? Environmental impact and sustainability? Poverty and starvation? Worldwide disease?

I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to deal with my rebuttal, but I decided that making a post would be nice, as I would like to make you do some work. I’m adding some supplementary posts to what I had to say originally, as there are people who have said things better than I ever will.

First, I’ll address that there is a “masculinist” movement, otherwise known as the MRAs – Men’s Rights Advocates. The idea that we need an MRA movement is pretty much on par with the idea that we need white supremacists. (Please note that I am not equating the two groups, so much as explaining their existence.) While feminists aim to right a VERY REAL power imbalance going on between men and women, the former groups are looking to hold on to their power and the perceived injustices they suffer when this power imbalance is corrected. When you lose the privilege (<— link) you have of belonging to a certain group you are going to have to give things up to right the wrongs that other people suffer on account of that privilege. MRAs demonstrate a severe lack of critical thinking skills, and it’s difficult for me to do anything besides pity them.

We live in a patriarchy. (<— link) This is a cultural construct in which men dominate. Under patriarchy things flow disproportionately in yes, one direction. We live in an incredibly misogynist (and racist) culture. To be honest, although the feminist movement has done a lot I think it’s significantly stalled and undergoing an incredible backlash and assault. I don’t agree with you that feminism has moved the pendulum to the complete opposite direction in anything at all, actually. If you are talking education, just a few years ago we had the president of Harvard questioning women’s biological capacity to do well in math and science. Imagine that, in 2007. And yet many people still espouse views about women’s ability to do things BASED ON the fact that we’re women. You’re incredibly lucky that you’ve never had to deal with that because of your sex, something innate.

I actually found an excellent article awhile back on the hand wringing that has accompanied the “crisis” our boys are currently facing. He also addresses what feminists have to say about men and the ways they are hurt under patriarchy.

A War Against Boys? by Michael Kimmel

I will expand a bit on the way that issues of poverty and globalization effect women. Most of the sweatshops that have proliferated in the third world employ women because they are seen as easier to control. As a consequence, they suffer countless abuses (<— link) and are paid less than their male counterparts would be. Typical patriarchal ideology in which “women’s” work and time are devalued.

A particularly horrific example of what women deal with in the face of increasing globalization is what is happening in Juarez and other towns along the Mexican border. Many corporations moved their factories, otherwise known as maquiladoras down there to take advantage of cheap labor and an exploitable work force. Women, many of them in their teens (The younger they are, the more pliable!) have moved there for work. This has created a perfect environment in which 450 women have been found brutally mutilated, raped, and murdered over the past 15 years. Hundreds more are missing and it still continues today. There has been no justice for these women or their families. Often the police will write off their murders or disappearance to the fault of their own “behavior” much of which is fabricated. (As if a woman deserves that fate because she was out late partying, or was a prostitute.) These attitudes are also prevalent in the US.

More Than 450 Women Have Been Murdered in Cuidad Juarez and 600 are missing. All since 1992

At Your Service: Latin Women in the Global Information Network by Coco Fusco – This is an incredible essay that touches on so many things – corporate co-optation, racial hierarchies, Juarez, misogyny masquerading as art. I saw Ms. Fusco speak. She is simply incredible.

A Small Post at Brownfemipower about the plight of women farm workers.

US: Dyncorp Disgrace – Men from a U.S. corporation enslaving and raping women overseas.

Johann Hari: Why Do We Ignore the Abuse of Women?

And here I’ll sidle into territory where I’ll probably hear from most people “wow Erin, you’ve really lost it this time.” When it comes to the abuse and degradation of women, there are no “bad apples.” This is all part of a continuum. Instances like Juarez are at the extreme end of the continuum, (Dyncorp and BFP’s post, not so much) granted, but they are part of a larger system and pattern. When I see this, it is the result of cultural constructs that categorize women as “other.” It is the result of ideas that brand us as commodities, always sexually available, that we are not full human beings. It is the result of the culturally sanctioned devaluation of women. These ideas are manifesting themselves fully in a place where breaking the law comes with no consequences. Further, though white women have been lucky to at least get their issues out there, women of color are pretty much nonexistent in the greater scheme of things. (Scratch that – women of color are visible when people feel the need to tell them to “stop breeding”, and when they’re generally being connected to harmful stereotypes!)

To me, there are VERY FEW isolated incidents. Perhaps that is my greatest weakness. My love for studying culture and making connections has made it very difficult for me to let the “little” things go. I can not walk past a group of men who are laughing at how wasted a woman got the other night, hear “dude, you should have taken advantage of her” and see this as merely a classless group of guys. I can’t see men belittling and degrading other men by likening them to women – by using words like “pussy”, and not see that as part of a much bigger system that routinely belittles and degrades women in BIG ways, ways that hurt. It continually amazes and disgusts me how misogyny is built into our language and the way we express things. I can’t write off the way that things classified as women’s interests are routinely regarded as frivolous and off limits to men, while it’s perfectly ok for women to take up “men’s” interests that will never have the same stigma. These are the “little” ways that reinforce the structures and thought processes that our lives are built around everyday.

I had a whole laundry list of additional issues, both globally and in the US… but I think I’ll leave you with this post, which will give you just a sampling of some more of the crazy shit that women have to deal with. As well, I like what she has to say about anti-feminists and MRAs!

Thanksgiving, Life and Death, and Anti-Feminism at Reclusive Leftist

And hey, she covers global issues as well:

The U.N. reports that most of the 800 million illiterate adults in the world are women; most of the 100 million children not in school are girls. Women earn three-quarters of what men do and their unpaid labor would, if calculated, equal trillions of dollars. Women hold only 17% of the parliamentary seats in the world, but they constitute 70% of the people living in poverty.

For reference, I am throwing in my response comment to you, since it was meant to go in my rebuttal. As well, I’d like you to think about it.

A big problem is the idea that women are “special interest.” We’re not. We’re roughly half the world’s population. This is part of patriarchal ideology – that issues that effect men are important issues, while issues that effect women are peripheral, “special” and generally ignored. This springs from the pervasive idea that man is default and woman is “other” and part of the reason a person can honestly ponder the idea that standing up for women’s rights is not “bold” enough, not “impactful” enough, or that it’s “too narrow.” What makes standing up for a woman, a human being, and the issues she faces in particular, any damn less urgent than standing up for the environment or poverty? Apologies if I seem combative here, but that idea just really frustrates me. As well, as a side note, if we’re speaking of poverty I can probably make a very good case that it’s women who bear the brunt of the negative effects of poverty worldwide.

And a post that touches somewhat on the issue: Stan Goff: [Prison] Rape

What I’m most interested in at the moment is intersectionality. In short, making connections between these oppressions – of women, people of color, gays, lesbians, transgendered, (Ok, if I wasn’t already a newb in matters of race, I’m a TOTAL newb when it comes to LGBT stuff.) of class matters, of poverty. Etc. etc…. I really want to focus on things where I deal with and try to uproot it all.

I feel like I haven’t properly addressed some of the points you brought up, such as scapegoating etc. But honestly, every time I think of the concept that feminism is merely “scapegoating” my brain implodes. Perhaps I didn’t truly answer your comment either. I feel as though I explained the little things and big things, but didn’t quite connect the two with middle ground. And the argument that things aren’t “one-directional issues”, again, bit of a brain implosion there.

Feminism FAQ 101: What’s wrong with saying that things happen to men too?

I’ll leave you with that, as I’ve proof read and been editing/adding to this thing for about 8 days (it is 6 pages in word) and though I don’t feel like I accomplished my goal, I’m thoroughly sick of this post!!!

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Leadup to “What is Radical Feminism?”

All right… so about a year ago I found that strangely enough, I was bored on the internet. Riffling through my mind as to where I might go that would be new and interesting, I recalled and settled on the site Alternet, an alternative news service. There on the front page was a row of columnists, one of whom was Mad Melancholic Feminista, providing a blog post on the Greek System and its detrimental effects on women. Not only did I really enjoy her post, but her blog served as a gateway to the feminist world of blogging. I’ve been reading and “traveling” through it, mostly as an incredibly shy lurker ever since. To this day I muse how that line of thought and those few clicks has set me on an incredible path.

As I’ve said before, I’ve always considered myself a feminist. My interests are constantly waxing and waning and I am sad to say that consistency is not my strong point. Before stumbling into the feminist blogosphere, I had gravitated towards being one of those people who says “I’m not a feminist, I’m a humanist.” Though I never articulated it in this manner, I had come to believe that focusing on feminism was such a narrow thing to do when there are so many other ills in the world. As you can see, I am in the waxing stage and I’ve realized that I was being rather foolish in that line of thought.

And though I did a ton of reading in high school on feminism, it really only scratched the surface. Hell, at the time I never even knew there were different schools of feminist thought. And despite reading Twisty’s and many other feminist blogs for the past year and loving every word of it, (growling in rage not mutally exclusive) I only actually became more than dimly aware of the schools of thought a few months ago. Someone ought to give me an award for fine tuned perception.

The breakdown was in my sociology textbook and I seemed to fall into the category of radical feminist. Except the sociology text’s definition seemed rather simplistic, which led me to ask “Is this really what radical feminism is about?” and “Am I a radical feminist?” I also found myself identifying heavily with Marxist feminism, but didn’t see why the two couldn’t be integrated. The explanation on Multicultural/Black feminism and its argument that radical feminism doesn’t have answers to the problems of women of color really piqued my curiosity. I’d like to think that radical feminism does answer them, and my instinct is to say that it does. Of course, that’s probably incredibly presumptuous and ignorant on my part and I’m probably another one of those white feminists that women of color rightfully take issue with. (I hope to rectify that and deepen my understanding further.)

So really…. in the end, I’m very much a novice on the deeper issues of feminism, as well as racism and homophobia. And I suppose that’s in part what this blog is about. Trying to weather the awkward phase (or am I fooling myself to think we ever get past this..?) by creating an out loud dialog with myself while yeah, BIG MOTIVE IN ALL MY BLOGS – polishing my writing skillz, as they make me horribly insecure. (Which means that consequently I rarely make an effort to connect with the communities that discuss these issues.)

And I use a lot of parentheses.

It annoys me.

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