The F-Word; No labels please
Negative connotations associated with the word feminist aren't new.
Back in 1913, author Rebecca West said: "People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or prostitute."
When Luhmann was growing up in 1978, a golden time for second wave feminists, it was a "cool thing to be involved with." Feminists were thought of as interesting women.
Luhmann has noticed this generation is not keen to take on labels. Labels cut two ways: They give us a sense of identity, but at the same time they constrict, she said.
Personally, Luhmann doesn't think it's necessary to take on the label of feminist so long as the person is willing do the work and take on the values
These excerpts were taken from a three-part series on teens and feminism featurede in the Sudbury Star:
- Part One, April 5: Teens reaction to the f-word. What is it? Where women are in terms of equality?
- Part Two, April 12: No label please. University/college women talk about why the label of feminist is a difficult one to embrace, but also the gender issues that are important to them. A women's study professor and sociologist wade in on whether labels like feminist are needed.
- Part Three, today: Third Wavers at work in arts and culture. We profile a young author on blogs and her new book and explore why feminism is still needed.
4 comments:
Can you blame people for not wanting to be labelled feminists?
Beginning in the 1970's, feminism began embracing Marxism and post modernism. It set aside classic liberal ideals of free speech in favour of speech codes. Equality of opportunity was abondoned as obsolete, if not outright fascist, in favour of equality of results. Feminists began dictating to women how they must live their lives, denigrating those who chose to be stay-at-home moms. Even heterosexuality was at times denounced. Many old time feminists were drummed out of the movement.
Eh...I'm not convinced, Rabbit. Maybe *some* feminists in the far-off 70s set aside free speech and denounced heterosexuality, but that's a pretty sweeping condemnation of an entire ideology, and I don't think it well explains why some women today hesitate to call themselves feminist some 30 years later.
It would take a pretty simplistic analysis for someone to abandon the cause simply because a few radicals made some noise. I think people are smarter than that, and can see the larger picture. Not everyone fighting for civil rights was a Black Panther, after all, and nobody would say "I'm all for racism, given that some of its adversaries use violence."
In short, hell yeah I can blame people for not wanting to be labelled feminist!
I'm not suggesting all feminists became extreme, but many did, and worse very few feminists condemned it. And those who did were often denounced as "anti-feminist".
It does not take many radicals, claiming for example that Mathemetica Principia is a rape manual, to give a movement a bad name. How many overt KKK members would it take to give conservatives a bad name? Not many, I would say.
Oops. Principia Mathematica would be the preferred form.
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