Saturday, January 19

Feminine-ism replaces feminism??

Great article by Jess McCabe at F-word deconstructing Harriet Rubin's article in the San Francisco Chronicle where Harriet talks about feminism in the past tense writing: "Feminism was a conflicted demand for power. "


What Rubin's article reminds Jess of most is this recent post by Jeff at Shakesville, on the difference between so-called equity feminists and gender feminists..... as Jeff points out very well, this is an anti-feminist construct.


The gender/equity construct was created by Christina Hoff Sommers in her seminal anti-feminist trope, Who Stole Feminism? Sommers claims that she herself is an equity feminist; that is, she believes in equal rights and equal opportunity for women under the law. But she does not believe in addressing or changing gender roles; that falls under the rubric of gender feminism.

......there is a difference between equality under the law and actual equality. Take race, for a contrasting example. While one can argue about certain points of law and the way the law is enforced, from a strictly statutory standpoint the law is pretty color-blind, especially when contrasted with how it was written in, say, 1957.

But only a benighted fool would claim that therefore, racism has been eliminated, and those working to change society's opinions on race are doing something wrong. Indeed, it's well-understood that society still functions in an unequal manner, and that we all need to do more work to eliminate racism.

The conclusion? "Feminine-ism isn't enough. Only feminism will do."

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