Heh, thanks. Every now and then I think of doing a sticky post at the top of my journal with links to rants, since that's what people seem to come here most often for (gee, I have no idea why). Then I realize that the sticky post by this point would probably be a dissertation length in and of itself, and I decide it can wait.
Radical feminists annoy me so much. It's like "You, off my side, you're making my side look bad."
I think the key (for me) is whether or not someone is arguing feminism -- that is, "men and women are equal" -- or whether they're arguing reversal. The latter being more of the "you put us down for X number of generations, and now it's our turn to be on top". That's not equal, that's just a reverse of the existing. That's just rebuilding the master's house with the master's tools, to cop the famous phrase from Audre Lorde. Part of my dislike, too, is that such reversal expects (if not engenders for some) a sense of guilt, that those of the oppressor-class must now compensate doubly for past offenses.
I get the arguments, I do, but that doesn't mean I care to live knowing that some folks are stomping on others and other folks around me are acting out of guilt. I don't want to get my job or my respect or my rights because it's retribution for my mother not getting any of that; I want to get all that because I earned it myself.
Most of the time I don't even think of radical feminists as "radical" so much as "reversal" -- and to tell the truth, I have met very very few in my life, and those few were usually while in academia. The ivory tower seems to encourage, sometimes, that kind of non-pragmatic hyper-version of reality, regardless of field. I guess I just consider myself a pragmatic feminist. Okay, and a very snarky one, but only on alternate tuesdays.
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Date: 13 Sep 2008 05:26 pm (UTC)Radical feminists annoy me so much. It's like "You, off my side, you're making my side look bad."
I think the key (for me) is whether or not someone is arguing feminism -- that is, "men and women are equal" -- or whether they're arguing reversal. The latter being more of the "you put us down for X number of generations, and now it's our turn to be on top". That's not equal, that's just a reverse of the existing. That's just rebuilding the master's house with the master's tools, to cop the famous phrase from Audre Lorde. Part of my dislike, too, is that such reversal expects (if not engenders for some) a sense of guilt, that those of the oppressor-class must now compensate doubly for past offenses.
I get the arguments, I do, but that doesn't mean I care to live knowing that some folks are stomping on others and other folks around me are acting out of guilt. I don't want to get my job or my respect or my rights because it's retribution for my mother not getting any of that; I want to get all that because I earned it myself.
Most of the time I don't even think of radical feminists as "radical" so much as "reversal" -- and to tell the truth, I have met very very few in my life, and those few were usually while in academia. The ivory tower seems to encourage, sometimes, that kind of non-pragmatic hyper-version of reality, regardless of field. I guess I just consider myself a pragmatic feminist. Okay, and a very snarky one, but only on alternate tuesdays.