[the princess of the paupers.] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lookslikelove) wrote2007-01-22 11:04 am
lookslikelove) wrote2007-01-22 11:04 am
[you snooze you lose]
Weird how you can go to bed so funky and wake up so...not. Meh. Now I am going to post about that thing which I have been wanting to do for ages, but just haven't gotten around to.
Until now.
Feminism.
So I don't know if I mentioned it, but this term, one of the courses I am taking this term is a tiny (5 people, yeah) course on feminism and well, I want to know what you, my flist, thinks of it. Opinions, connotations, ideas. Feminism: define it for me. In as few or as many words as you want. There is no right or wrong answer.
In the last class we talked about whether or not feminism can be strictly applied to those who are sexed as women or if it is something that is gendered female. For those who don't know the difference, sex is the physical difference between a man and a woman and gender is psychological. Now, in this discussion one girl, the sort who prides herself on being the type of open minded liberal thinker, went off on how feminism should be exclusionary, keeping out men (a strictly sexed notion), because women are weaker and have been physically oppressed for so long and can give birth and mother and nurture, etc. etc.
Now, I personally have an issue with this, as I don't believe that things are as simple as this. That's taking a very western perspective on the world (which says "rape is wrong", which while I do believe this to be true, I recognise that it is NOT a cultural universal), and that it shuts out those individuals who are transgendered and even possibly can go so far as exclude those women who can't give birth, who are somehow incapable. I feel as if it's not so black and white and by putting such labels on things, we get ourselves into trouble, which is where conflicts arise. But this could be me, standing on one side of an issue and her on another.
Let's look at an example. My brother, has this tendency to occasionally call himself a feminist, because well, he sees the value of women and their impact on the world, and because he lives with me and our mum and he knows that our aunts are lesbians and our grandmother is one as well and that he has just as many girls that are friends as boys and he wants to support them. He's seventeen. So, doesn't he deserve that right, even though he's not a woman?
Oh well.
So I want opinions. Tell me. Let's discuss. I'm interested. :)
Until now.
Feminism.
So I don't know if I mentioned it, but this term, one of the courses I am taking this term is a tiny (5 people, yeah) course on feminism and well, I want to know what you, my flist, thinks of it. Opinions, connotations, ideas. Feminism: define it for me. In as few or as many words as you want. There is no right or wrong answer.
In the last class we talked about whether or not feminism can be strictly applied to those who are sexed as women or if it is something that is gendered female. For those who don't know the difference, sex is the physical difference between a man and a woman and gender is psychological. Now, in this discussion one girl, the sort who prides herself on being the type of open minded liberal thinker, went off on how feminism should be exclusionary, keeping out men (a strictly sexed notion), because women are weaker and have been physically oppressed for so long and can give birth and mother and nurture, etc. etc.
Now, I personally have an issue with this, as I don't believe that things are as simple as this. That's taking a very western perspective on the world (which says "rape is wrong", which while I do believe this to be true, I recognise that it is NOT a cultural universal), and that it shuts out those individuals who are transgendered and even possibly can go so far as exclude those women who can't give birth, who are somehow incapable. I feel as if it's not so black and white and by putting such labels on things, we get ourselves into trouble, which is where conflicts arise. But this could be me, standing on one side of an issue and her on another.
Let's look at an example. My brother, has this tendency to occasionally call himself a feminist, because well, he sees the value of women and their impact on the world, and because he lives with me and our mum and he knows that our aunts are lesbians and our grandmother is one as well and that he has just as many girls that are friends as boys and he wants to support them. He's seventeen. So, doesn't he deserve that right, even though he's not a woman?
Oh well.
So I want opinions. Tell me. Let's discuss. I'm interested. :)