More Tantrums from the “It’s my right to own an SUV” set.

Today a coworker alerted me to the latest development of Bush and the Christian Right’s bid to declare official ownership of my reproductive organs. Apparently they are considering a ruling that will classify birth control as abortion, making it more difficult to get.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is poised to put in place new barriers to accessing common forms of contraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs by labeling them “abortion.” These proposed regulations set to be released next week will allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it.

…

These rules pose a serious threat to providers and uninsured and low-income Americans seeking care. They could prevent providers of federally-funded family planning services, like Medicaid and Title X, from guaranteeing their patients access to the full range of comprehensive family planning services. They’ll also build significant barriers to counseling, education, contraception and preventive health services for those who need it most: low-income and uninsured women and men.

I know it’s a general difficulty to grasp, but please consider that I’m a human being and not a walking fetus incubator. Another more technical post about it here - HHS Moves to Define Contraception as Abortion.

I’ve been encountering more of the “It’s my right to own an SUV” set lately when I listen to Sean Hannity’s show on the way home from work. They were lambasting Obama today because he was suggesting that - get this - people should take responsibility for the maintenance of their cars so they use less gas. Wait, what? Taking responsibility for something?? These people don’t seem to get the idea of responsibility unless they’re shoving it down someone else’s throat. (But then, apparently birth control isn’t good enough. Apologies for missing the patriarchal purity ball, but I’m not interested in abstinence.)

I love the continuous strain that runs through the show of how they (The radical environmentalists and radical left - don’t you know radical is a compliment?) are “taking away our freedoms.” They want to stop you from driving your SUVs! The environmental extremists won’t let us drill in ANWR!!! They’re stopping us from developing nuclear power!!!!! Speaking of ANWR, I found a lovely post the other day on the subject of drilling in ANWR.

Apparently their take on freedom is “I’m a well off white person and they’re not letting me consume as much as I want.” What it takes to maintain this standard of living and carry out these things is apparently inconsequential. That the planned storage site for nuclear waste is Yucca Mountain, Navajo ancestral lands? To be concerned about that would mean you’d have to think of someone other than yourself, and furthermore, people of color. Would also mean you’d have to stop being discriminatory towards Native American religious beliefs, but that’s not something we hear about in the news - especially with a “war on Christmas” to fight. ANWR Drilling would mean possibly destroying the Gwinich’in tribe’s way of life, as it is dependent upon the caribou and their migration patterns. According to the previous link, 229 tribes oppose ANWR drilling. (Shit, now I’m really being a hippy treehugger, huh?)

The Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay (This had been a prison for Haitians with AIDs before its infamy - can be read about in Paul Farmer’s book Pathologies of Power.), and Abu Ghraib on the other hand, do not factor into these people’s definition of freedom. At least some of you can sleep better at night thinking that narrowing civil liberties and torturing/raping people will actually protect one’s way of life (As always, others rot for it and bear the brunt of it - but maybe not for long at this rate.) from terrorism. And while we can’t seem to get our dander up over the violation of these living people’s rights and freedoms we’ll count every (white) fetus that has been aborted (murdered!), whether through the procedure itself or goddess forbid - an egg does not get implanted on the uterine lining because of BIRTH CONTROL! (1. There is NO scientific proof of that. and 2. THAT’S THE POINT.)

Squawking about personal responsibility is just fine when you’re trying to force abstinence on women, scoffing at those who can’t get by on their Wal Mart minimum wage or demonizing immigrants. But when it comes to your damn SUV, your American right (freedom!) to guzzle gas, and a fine cocktail of ignorance and manifest destiny, step aside.

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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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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.

Posted in Feminism | 2 Comments »

Ani DiFranco and Gail Ann Dorsey

Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel there’s a fire just waiting for fuel - Fuel

Every time I say something they find hard to hear they chalk it up to my anger and never to their own fear - Not a Pretty Girl

Get your subliminal decree and your false security, be all that you can be, be all that you can be - Decree

I saw Ani DiFranco and her guest act Gail Ann Dorsey a few Thursays ago at the iMac theater.

I discovered Ani during high school years with my circle of feminist friends and we were unable to get enough. Here was someone speaking to us in a way we understood. At a time when it felt like very few were, this was really ground shaking. Finally we had found a strong, amazing woman putting the things we were feeling in to words. We certainly weren’t getting anything like that from our high school environment.

And I’ll admit that I prefer people with bands backing them… I love listening to all the little accents that a band adds to the music. So while I’ve always loved Ani and her message, I’ll admit that sometimes I can get bored with her studio CDs when it’s just her and a guitar. So, on to the performance….

I think that Gail Ann Dorsey must have the voice that is made to accompany an acoustic guitar. I was so occupied by it that I was actually disappointed to find that her most recent CD was recorded with a band. She was great. Also disappointed to find that her song “Not a Genuis” (About feeling like everyone around you is coming up with all the good ideas and you’re not.) doesn’t seem to be recorded. In addition to her solo career, Dorsey has been a bassist for David Bowie and many other people for something like twenty years.

And then Ani came on and she is just so incredibly vibrant. Her energy is just amazing. I think out of anyone I have ever seen live, her performance is one that simply can not be duplicated in any way, shape, or form in a recording. She also has a band touring with her and it added such a nuanced sound. Allison Miller was on drums, Todd Sickafoose on upright bass and David Torkanowsky on percussion. (I was calling him a “xylophonist” all night. Oops!) I don’t know how to describe it, except that they were weaving these sounds that were just so three dimensional and deep.

Did I mention our seats were front row and center? I felt like…. in being there for her performance, she peeled back all these layers…. all the layers of depression and anger and sadness, the frustration at what goes on in the world. I felt like I was me, without all the grime and the feeling of being worn down and tired of all the absolute SHIT that goes on. And that wow, the world is a beautiful place and maybe it can really change. Overall, going to the concert helped. A lot.

The three songs that most reflected her sound, (no Allison Miller on drums /cry) and the ones that are my favorite so far off the CD I got are:
Decree
Half Assed
Alla This

They are from her Boston Live “Official bootleg” CD

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Ain’t I a Woman: black women and feminism by bell hooks

This entry has been edited to death over the past few weeks, so I figure at this point I’m going to just post it and be damned.

I’ve been making an effort to broaden my reading in terms of feminism, and I’m trying to introduce a steady stream of works by women of color. I started with Ain’t I a Woman: black women and feminism by bell hooks. I feel like the book has planted a seed. Some of the things she wrote about have given me pause to stop and think, but it has been difficult to absorb it all. I think I’m going to have to go back and reread some parts to really do it justice.

I’m sad to say that because I didn’t jot things down during the moments of saying “that’s so incredible!!!” this review may be a little dry. I am having trouble remembering some of the specific things that really clicked for me, so this is basically just summarizing some of what she addresses. (And I’ve learned from my mistake as I’ve been jotting things down every time I read something amazing in my current book.)

The book discusses the the black “matriarch,” that black women are strong, domineering, and in control of their families. The idea is that this supposed position that they hold emasculates black men and makes the traditional nuclear family structure impossible in the black community. This seems to be a pretty common assertion in the media and I had embraced unquestioningly, having never stopped to think about the truth of the matter or just how racist and misogynist it is. hooks debunks the idea of the matriarch and demonstrates how white patriarchal concepts of masculinity are projected onto black men. At the same time, I was really kind of floored at the way perceptions can take root when you don’t have a clue. While rationally I can see what she is saying, I kept thinking but it’s true!!! I think she also did a great job of tying in how black women were treated and conceptualized during slavery and how those attitudes have persisted.

hooks also points out the drastic ways that black women’s experiences have differed from white women’s. For instance, while white feminists were working to liberate women and felt the key to this was integration into the workforce, they were neglecting the fact that black women had been working outside the home for decades. Through this, she illustrates that the feminist movement did not take women of color into account at all, but rather only built on and considered the experiences of white middle to upper class women.

She writes of the racism of the white suffragists and the misogyny of the male leaders of the civil rights movement. Reading some of those things was pretty cringe inducing. Not only did the suffragists express racist ideas, but also they actively kept women of color feminists from participating in the movement. Hell, I don’t remember if she speculated or if this was fact but the white suffragists didn’t want the vote for all women, they were just miffed that black men, former slaves got it before them (by law, anyway). And while they were reacting to the idea that their place in the hierarchy was upset, black men in the civil rights movement were trying to push black women into white patriarchy’s ideal of woman-hood in an effort to claim some semblance of power.

I really like the way she discusses language - that when scholars are talking of “women” and “blacks” they are typically talking about white women and black men. So when people like, say, Betty Friedan spoke of “women” in the Feminine Mystique she was speaking for all women when only white women were facing the problems she describes. This writes out women of color who did not have those experiences and allows us to ignore the issues they face. From what I gather, this has been one of the major failures of the feminist movement.

It seems to me that this is one of the more basic books on women of color and feminism, in that it makes a good entry point. Despite that, it does make things considerably more complex and I know that I’d probably benefit from both rereading it and reading related texts.

Posted in Books | 1 Comment »

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!!!

Posted in Feminism, Misogyny | 3 Comments »

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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