Really good essay:
The Feminist Case for Obama
Election aside, I think that this is going to be the year in which a lot of feminists (3rd wave?) finally decided they wanted nothing to do with the second wave feminists of Gloria Steinem and Linda Hirshman's ilk. The so-called feminists who say if you don't vote for Hillary Clinton, you're being disloyal to feminism. Those who say feminism is about having abundant choices, but if you choose "wrong" by becoming a stay-at-home mother or voting for Barack Obama, then you're not really a feminist.
Here's what's going to happen ... keep telling us who isn't really a feminist. Keep expanding that circle. But don't be surprised when we shrug our shoulders and say, Okay. Fine. I'm not a feminist. I don't want that label anymore. The label you wear.
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3 comments:
It really is an interesting phenomenon in the greater movement.
I will say that anyone teling me how to vote seems to offend me whether it's from a second wave feminist telling me to vote for Clinton or a third wave feminist telling me to vote for Obama.
I am in a class where the professor keeps sending out articles about "feminism" by feminists who pretty much say, "Hey, women! This is your chance to vote for a woman and finally we can band together for our own..." and that sort of thing. It is depressing. And it sucks because it is this undergraduate class with lots of women who are in their early years of feminist-dom and quite easily influenced by the versions of feminism they receive in class. And they are receiving a sort of old school version that feminism is, when it comes down to it, sticking with your woman-tribe. Or something like that (I actually read something like that in one of these articles.) Grant it, HRC is taking a lot of unfair, horrible sexism, but to me that doesn't translate into a reason to vote for her. If you think she is great, great. But don't vote for her just because you want to stand up for women. There are way better ways to do that. Ugg. Ugg. Ugg. Thanks for posting.
I got into a serious argument on feministing.com about this very same thing and I have say some third-wavers like myself got what I was saying, although some automatically assumed that because I was a man I was part of the Patriarchy and somehow an oppressor.
*yawn*
Moving on, now.
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