Looking for a few good women...
There is a new brand of feminism out there. If you believe that the government is only in power to fuck things up, so much so that you think that date rape is not a crime that can be fairly prosecuted, you might be an ifeminist. If you think the Violence Against Women Act is unconstitutional and that it's great family fun to train your 6-year-old daughter to kill with a rifle, you might be an ifeminist. If you think that the existance of women's studies programs is evidence that universities should not receive public funding, you might be an ifeminist, or Individualist Feminist.
Athough they're really just a troop of libertarians masquerading as feminists, the ifeminists' increasing presence on the web makes me squirm. These days, feminism has enough trouble with the apathy of the under-thirty crowd and the political disconnect that the mass media has created even amongst self-avowed feminists - pseudo-feminist movements only exacerbate these problems in our tired, thirsty movement.
Ask a woman today if she's a feminist and there's a good chance she will view your question as an accusation. Feminism has lost its course. Political action is rare and stigmatized. Any action is seen as radical. There is a lack of cohesion among young, culture-influenced feminist women who grew up in a more gender-equal era than our mothers could have imagined. The result is something in the zeitgeist that was articulated is this irreverent cover story in 1998:
The politics aren't there anymore. We have the outragous notion that "W is for Women." Wearing a "girls Rock!" t-shirt is considered a feminist action. Becoming a knitter is a form of self-affirmation and signals a self-conscious return to the feminine arts, and this, too, is seen as taking action. The members of NOW are all frizzy-haired old ladies and the grrl zines are disappearing faster than Google can remove them from their search engine.
I am tired of this. If you know of any organizations that are working right now to further feminism - ways that involve 20- and 30-something women and include more than weekly reading circles of Bust Magazine(even though I *heart* Bust Magazine) - email me. Better than that, email me and then plan to join up yourself. I'll need the company.
Athough they're really just a troop of libertarians masquerading as feminists, the ifeminists' increasing presence on the web makes me squirm. These days, feminism has enough trouble with the apathy of the under-thirty crowd and the political disconnect that the mass media has created even amongst self-avowed feminists - pseudo-feminist movements only exacerbate these problems in our tired, thirsty movement.
Ask a woman today if she's a feminist and there's a good chance she will view your question as an accusation. Feminism has lost its course. Political action is rare and stigmatized. Any action is seen as radical. There is a lack of cohesion among young, culture-influenced feminist women who grew up in a more gender-equal era than our mothers could have imagined. The result is something in the zeitgeist that was articulated is this irreverent cover story in 1998:
The politics aren't there anymore. We have the outragous notion that "W is for Women." Wearing a "girls Rock!" t-shirt is considered a feminist action. Becoming a knitter is a form of self-affirmation and signals a self-conscious return to the feminine arts, and this, too, is seen as taking action. The members of NOW are all frizzy-haired old ladies and the grrl zines are disappearing faster than Google can remove them from their search engine.
I am tired of this. If you know of any organizations that are working right now to further feminism - ways that involve 20- and 30-something women and include more than weekly reading circles of Bust Magazine(even though I *heart* Bust Magazine) - email me. Better than that, email me and then plan to join up yourself. I'll need the company.
posted by Jackie at 5:22 PM
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