Posted by Sedruce at 8:17pm May 20 '07Where do you think the line is between a woman who's working for genuinely equal rights for women, and a woman who's working for BETTER rights for women?
The hotel floor bit P_G posted about got me thinking on this a little.
I avoid labeling myself as a feminist because the connotation these days is pretty bad. I want women to have equal rights, yes, but I think feminism has been warped beyond that.
In my sophomore year, I took an introduction to social work class. We had a take home short answer essay final with multiple questions. One of the questions was about whether or not women are currently being discriminated against and whether or not it's something that should still be worked towards. I wish I kept my handed-back copy (I threw it out in disgust), but I essentially said that women currently have very near equal rights in my eyes, and included a disclaimer that I have managed to lead a privileged life, so perhaps I just don't see the sexism. I said that as a woman, one of the only things I feel I can't do that a man can is walk alone at night or in seedy areas and feel safe (which isn't just a male/female issue, I know some men who similarly don't feel safe, but for the sake of argument I ignored those men, and those women who do feel safe). My teacher didn't write much at all on my answers to everything, but the sexism question was surrounded by notes scrawled in righteous red ink. She basically told me that people like me are the biggest part of the problem right now, because women like me who think we're on equal ground are bringing ALL of us down. I'm not looking at what we could have and stuff like that. I feel that we have no right to be above men, and I don't feel we are below them except for the fact that we are physically weaker and physically more vulnerable. Somehow, the fact that I feel uncomfortable walking at night is a sexism problem. I disagree, it's a logistics problem. Sexism is about people's attitudes, but my discomfort with walking at night is not because I feel like the world is out to get me because I am a woman, it's because logistically speaking, criminals target women because we're weaker and more likely to give in to them without a fight (whether it's giving in to getting mugged or raped or whatever).
What do you think? Are we beyond the stage of needing feminism? Are feminists no better than feminazis? Is not being able to walk alone at night a sexism thing?
The hotel floor bit P_G posted about got me thinking on this a little.
I avoid labeling myself as a feminist because the connotation these days is pretty bad. I want women to have equal rights, yes, but I think feminism has been warped beyond that.
In my sophomore year, I took an introduction to social work class. We had a take home short answer essay final with multiple questions. One of the questions was about whether or not women are currently being discriminated against and whether or not it's something that should still be worked towards. I wish I kept my handed-back copy (I threw it out in disgust), but I essentially said that women currently have very near equal rights in my eyes, and included a disclaimer that I have managed to lead a privileged life, so perhaps I just don't see the sexism. I said that as a woman, one of the only things I feel I can't do that a man can is walk alone at night or in seedy areas and feel safe (which isn't just a male/female issue, I know some men who similarly don't feel safe, but for the sake of argument I ignored those men, and those women who do feel safe). My teacher didn't write much at all on my answers to everything, but the sexism question was surrounded by notes scrawled in righteous red ink. She basically told me that people like me are the biggest part of the problem right now, because women like me who think we're on equal ground are bringing ALL of us down. I'm not looking at what we could have and stuff like that. I feel that we have no right to be above men, and I don't feel we are below them except for the fact that we are physically weaker and physically more vulnerable. Somehow, the fact that I feel uncomfortable walking at night is a sexism problem. I disagree, it's a logistics problem. Sexism is about people's attitudes, but my discomfort with walking at night is not because I feel like the world is out to get me because I am a woman, it's because logistically speaking, criminals target women because we're weaker and more likely to give in to them without a fight (whether it's giving in to getting mugged or raped or whatever).
What do you think? Are we beyond the stage of needing feminism? Are feminists no better than feminazis? Is not being able to walk alone at night a sexism thing?
Feminist or feminazi? - Sedruce