On Being The Feminist Killjoy Among Your Friends
I didn’t know anything about being “politically correct” when I was a teenager. My friends and I called things “retarded”, we called girls we didn’t like “sluts” and “whores”. I don’t want to pull the it’s how I was raised card, but I just truly didn’t know any better. Between the name calling and body shaming that were constants in my house, and the teenage boys I surrounded myself with, the line of decency was quite blurred. I don’t think I even knew what a feminist was other than hearing them being bashed on television, talking about “those unattractive, man-hating, non-shaving, angry feminists.” Those constant stereotypes that lead women into saying “well I’m not a feminist, but…” just to be sure they weren’t going to be grouped together with those feminists. Those comments that make you think, “well I’m definitely not one of those…”
(Source: everythingispouringin)
(Source: soilwitch)
1. Recognizing and addressing wage discrimination 2. Significantly increased funding for the Violence against Women Act 3. Reproductive freedom including reversing the global gag rule that once prohibited international organizations from receiving aid 4. Access to birth control 5. Improved affordability and access to health care for women under the Affordable Care Act 6. Increased opportunities to women who own businesses 7. Creation of the White House Council on Women and Girls
Seven Reasons Why Obama Is the Obvious Choice for Women
Everyone should see this.
This fucking exactly. The problem is that you have women discriminating against women as well, slut-shaming and telling them they should be sexless or cover up and that is not the answer. The answer is to CONTROL YOUR OWN BODY AND THE WAY YOU CHOOSE TO SHOW IT. I grew up listening to hip-hop music and in the music videos, you’d always see the woman on display, as an object, as decoration, as something the man bought to show off his prestige and monetary value. Remember when the “Moulin Rouge” song came out with Maya, Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim and Pink? They were strutting around in lingerie but that video was empowering because they were in control of themselves, they were doing it for themselves. We need more of that. We need more women action heroes in movies as actual stars and not just there to support the men and create sexual tension. Women need to stop worrying about what other women are wearing, what implants they have, and who they’re fucking.
When Hillary was running for president, all I heard was “look at her makeup, how can we take her seriously because she takes care of herself and cares what she looks like, look at her skirt, omfg, she’s showing her legs and wearing heels” meanwhile, no one says a damn thing about what the men are wearing. Fuck this misogynistic bullshit. Fuck people caring about women’s weight and what they look like but not saying a damn thing about men’s weight and what they look like. Leave out tits alone. Whether I’m an A-cup or a triple F-cup, it’s not your fucking business, they are mine, not yours.
Women’s magazines always talk about ‘how to please your man’ but not how to please yourself. Talk about some shit that he should do for you in the bedroom. Stop with the lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks bullshit. The media teaches little girls and little boys that women’s bodies are public property, that they exist to please men and you better fix that shit. No. Incorrect.
14 year old girls should not feel like they need makeup, especially not in school, especially when 14 year old boys could be kicked out of school for wearing makeup. Fuck this noise. We need to make a change. The war on women is real and congress is fully supporting it, fucking with birth control and abortion but not saying one fucking word about viagara. No.
There is a war on and we need to fight back and this revolution is a cultural one so it needs to rise up from everywhere, including the media, especially the media. Let them hear you roar.
(Source: peacefullpeach)
Drew Sheneman (04/18/2012)
2012: Year of the Women VOTER
After all of the sick, twisted bills the GOP has offered up in the past two years (heck, make it ten years.) and theirkowtowing to the corrupt Vatican on birth control, you’d have to be truly self-hating to vote GOP if you’re a woman.
Stay At Home - 20 Apr 2012
I have never seen this much regression within or outside of an election season. This is not simply a war on women and our rights. One sexist asshat throws their idea out there, and because the masses either don’t pay attention, or are in agreement with them, that idea becomes law. Others encouraged by this have been emboldened to say what women may or may not do with our bodies and our lives.
Thankfully more of us are paying attention now, but it speaks volumes that there are many women, even those in positions to do something, who support this bullshit. It’s a scary time to be a woman in this country as our politicians rewind the clock and attempt to undo all the work we’ve done so far.
Seems about right.
Why there's no reason to fear feminism
More sensible stuff from the Guardian:
The focus of this year’s Nobel peace prize on women’s rights around the world comes hot on the heels of the publication of the World Bank’s 2012 world development report (WDR), which focused on the importance of gender equality for development. Women’s rights have never been so high on the agenda of the development sector, and this is the culmination of many years of lobbying and struggle by persistent advocates.
That women’s rights are at the heart of political debate worldwide is an undoubted political and intellectual triumph. But, as with most victories won by social and political movements, the taste of success is accompanied by the threat of co-option.
What does it mean when staunch conservatives express themselves so comfortably in the language of women’s rights and gender equality? Might the radical nature of the movement be watered down to mean something more politically palatable but less transformative in its objectives?
One word, in particular, is conspicuous in its absence: feminism. The word is anathema to conservative or middle-of-the-road politicians in most countries, who see in it a radical and perhaps exaggerated voice.
But even some of the most ardent campaigners for women’s rights sometimes view parts of the feminist movement with mistrust, thinking that it represents an agenda for women who are not like them, either in their own country or in the richer western world.
Feminism is misunderstood if it is seen as an imposition of values. The best in the feminist movement have been the historic motors of change, precisely because they do not say what the solutions are, but ask the right questions and empower women to answer them, in whatever particular context they find themselves.
Thus, feminism takes the debate well beyond legal and economic rights, into cultural norms and the transformation of values and attitudes. The WDR recognises that attitudes are slowest to change, noting: “Gender differences are particularly persistent when rooted in deeply entrenched gender roles and social norms.”
Feminism is a tool for everyone. The objective should be to help transform societies so that women can decide what role to play, including traditional ones if they choose.
Unfortunately, there is little doubt that the overt certainty with which profound shifts in community or societal norms were promoted in many parts of the world as part of an overall “development” package, has been counter-productive in the long term. While the principles of equality and empowerment at the heart of feminism are non-negotiable, the ways they play out in different contexts are complex and hard to predict.
The arrogance of some westerners in the recent era has been comparable with that of classic western “civilisers”, certain that they know what is best for less developed societies, imposing solutions worked out for a different time and place. Women in developing countries who disagree are sometimes assumed to be living in a kind of mental slavery, unenlightened by modern understandings.
This is a dangerous place to inhabit intellectually. In fact, it is these women themselves who are the experts on their own situations, and who need to chart the path of their emancipation.
There is no problem with holding views passionately. The problem arises when you have the power to impose them, either because you hold the purse strings or because you wield influence in some other way, including just being educated and articulate. The imposition of western norms on less powerful communities has led to deep mistrust of the movement in some quarters and will take some time to reverse. An Indian woman whom I was speaking to last month complained that “feminists do not listen” and pointed me in the direction of this article on Arundhati Roy for an insight into some of her concerns about “western feminism”.
The certainty that has typified feminist struggle in the west, and has been one of the reasons for its great successes, does not often work cross-culturally. Certainty can only arise indigenously – and there are plenty of national feminist organisations across the world that are leading the fight in their own countries, in their own way (see the debate about the Gisele Bündchen adverts in Brazil, for example). In the international sphere, certainty must be replaced with humility about what the answers are and, crucially, a profound openness to learning from other cultures.
The consequences for society of shifts in the roles of men and women tend to be profound and lasting, with progress accompanied by new challenges to be overcome. Such changes are therefore neither to be imposed nor entered into lightly.
The feminist critique is radical in the best sense of the word, as it gets to the root of the issue and thus implies that transformation rather than tinkering is needed. At its best, it is also responsive and caring, rather than hectoring and exaggerated, as it is sometimes portrayed.
So the movement for women’s rights and gender equality should reassert feminism boldly as its theoretical underpinning. But it should also take a step back and reassess the terrain, in particular the fact that for some women the word has attained negative associations. Feminists need to humbly reassert principles of equality of opportunity, without suggesting we know what responses particular societies should adopt.
Feminist activists should avoid appearing exclusive, and set out to accompany poor communities on a journey whose destination may be unknown, but whose principles of equality and empowerment are solid. “Embedding a way of thinking, or being, matters more than achieving a specific set of policy proposals,” one feminist academic told me, “and is much more powerful in the long term.”
Sat, 6/25, "Protest Boston Area Crisis Pregnancy Center: Anti-Choice, Right-Wing Misinformation Clinic"
Saturday, June 25 · 12:00pm - 4:00pm
Daybreak Pregnancy Resource Center
101 Tremont St
Boston, Massachusetts
Organized by the Radical Alliance for Gender Equality (RAGE)Crisis pregnancy centers are usually run by religious organizations with a staunch opposition to both abortion and contraception. Additionally, many are opposed to single women becoming mothers and tend to use their resources to coerce women into signing adoption papers.
Some CPCs have enjoyed federal funding since 2000 to support “abstinence-only” programs in public schools, and anti-abortion lawmakers continue to push for more federal funding of these centers. Many states still have state-subsidized funding for CPCs, in particular from the “Choose Life” license plate project that funnels money from state Departments of Transportation directly into CPCs and their affiliates. While many CPCs boast a total lack of government funding, a closer look reveals many receive funds from foundations that are, in fact, directly funded by government agencies.
- via CPCwatch.org
