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RE: Dropping F-Bombs: I've Become a *gasp* Feminist!
I was raised in the sex attitudes of the 50s and 60s and transformed my attitudes in the 70s. However, I withdrew my support for "feminism" recently because they are about attacking white men. When it comes to Islam and how Muslims treat women, feminists whistle a different tune: "Oh, it's Muslim culture." When feminists go after the overwhelming bulk of misogyny, I will reconsider supporting feminism.
I can understand how certain squeaky wheels might come to be seen as somehow speaking for all feminists, but it's not like feminists are one-size-fits-all. I've never personally been invited to vote on a platform or anything, lol. To me, feminism is about being aware that there are certain disadvantages to being a woman that are not inherent in womanhood, but are societally imposed or mistakenly held to be inherent. It's about recognizing those things and peacefully working to alter those mistaken ideas when possible. As a mom to a daughter and two sons I feel very strongly the need for balance: to address within society the places my daughter might be slighted without an overcorrection that will mean my sons are slighted instead.
As for requiring feminists to go after the overwhelming bulk of misogyny... I'm not sure how that would work. Do you mean every person who calls themselves a feminist must be fighting all misogyny all the time? I admit I am much more focused on my own family and their experiences for now, but I also know Gillian Anderson is active in and supportive of groups several feminist groups that help women and children in Arab countries to be freed from their domestic situations if they so desire.
As for attacking white men, I'm married to a white man myself and I've only ever attacked him in a good way ;) as I'm sure @lrancap will agree 😂
I read your article about the rape culture and I know there are places this is a big problem and I certainly don't condone it. If it comes up I'm 100% against it as would be any feminist I know personally. I think what I'm trying to say is that the "rules" for being a feminist shouldn't be defined by people that have already decided they hate feminism. And what @nayzer is doing here (bravely imo considering the tone of most articles in the feminism topic) is say, "You can be a feminist and call yourself a feminist without being a man-hating bitch." Not for the benefit of man-hating bitches, but for the benefit of those of us who feel like admitting to being a feminist automatically taints us AS man-hating bitches.
To be clear, I think women in general have been held down for millennia in Western Civilization , but things are changing. Great! My real focus is on Islam. In case you haven't noticed, Islam is coming to the U.S. It has already hit Europe and with it comes Islamic law (sharia) and mysogyny. Have you noticed an increase in women on the street wearing hijabs lately? It is not a fashion statement. It is a political statement that says: "I support sharia and the subjugation of women and live my life according to sharia." Islam is many steps backward for our non-Muslim society in general and for women in particular. This must be stopped.
BTW, thanks for your real and candid discourse. I'm not afraid to deal with serious issues on Steemit and appreciate cogent commentary.
As a newcomer I have to say the level of courtesy shown even when people disagree here is astounding and I appreciate that we can disagree agreeably, thank you for that.
I understand your focus being on Islam, but for me I live in rural PA and truly haven't seen any increase in hijab wearing (or any hijab wearing around here at all). That's not to say it isn't happening elsewhere, but I've kind of pulled back from focusing on big political issues these past few years. My children are 10, 15, and 17, and my main focus has been on what I can do best for them within our small, local world. That may change when they are self-sufficient, but for now I am aiming at raising kids who share my respect of liberty and peaceful, voluntary interactions.
I believe that a generation of children raised with respect and the ability to think critically about the world around them will be the best inoculation against injustice whether it comes in the form of something as mundane as a sexist school principal telling the female student body their clothing choices are responsible for the males' falling test scores or as blatantly horrific as gang rape to punish a woman for "promiscuity." It just so happens that in my corner of the world, the more mundane is what affects me personally, so that's what I choose to focus on for now and I want to be able to say that is feminist enough to be a feminist ;)
At this point I'm basically writing a whole new post so I'll take my leave but I hope you don't mind if I tag you when I post because your thoughtful comments have actually helped me clarify some things in my own mind. Thank you and best of luck!
Thank you and perhaps we'll butt heads again sometime;) I'm not afraid of animated discourse and if you see untruth in my posts, please feel free to point out the errors in my way of thinking. Have fun!
Thanks for replying. It's not been my experience that feminists defend the oppression and abuse of anyone based on that person's culture or religion. In regards to feminism and Islam, the reluctance I've witnessed from self-proclaimed feminists is to condemn the wearing of hijabs, burkas, niqabs, chadors, or what have you as inherently oppressive, and that seems to stem primarily from many Muslim women's insistence that they wear these garments as a willing and enthusiastic expression of their faith. Since a basic tenet of feminism is that individual women should have control over how they present themselves, I don't see a conflict there. I must also respectfully disagree that rapes in Sweden, or even just rapes committed by Muslim men make up the "overwhelming bulk of misogyny." It's so much more than that.
Thanks for your discourse, I like to get down on and debating ideas. For me, it is a way of getting at the truth of the matter rather than just winning the argument. It is one way I learn in life.
For the sake of argument, you stated:
This contradicts the subsequent statement where you show how feminists (albeit self-proclaimed) defend repressive Muslim female clothing on religious grounds:
It is important to recognize that Islam is not merely just another religious faith. It is an excellent plan to conquer the planet by any means possible. They almost succeeded centuries ago, but were defeated.
According to Islam, the penalty for leaving Islam is death. This is hardly a situation conducive to freely putting down your hijab. Furthermore, honor killings are another misogynistic Islamic tradition. We had one recently here in Phoenix. A young girl was wearing makeup and dressing like a teenager and her father killed her. This is not just an isolated incident. We recently had Islamists murder and suicide bomb a stadeum full of young women in Manchester because of their decadent Western ways. FYI bombings by Islamists and throwing acid in the faces of women are happening all day long.
In summary, I don't care about people's silly religious superstitions. That is not something worth talking about. What I do care about is political Islam's on-going conquest of Western Civilization and I am willing to fight for MY freedom.
I think I may need to clarify what I mean when I say the feminists I've had experience with are reluctant to identify Muslim women's garments as oppressive. It might seem rather petty given the abundance of more immediately threatening issues, but for many feminists, a major sticking point is the right for a woman to wear what she pleases, whether that means covering themselves from head-to-toe or running around buck naked. And the feminists that feel that way find themselves struggling to reconcile that value belief with the idea that women could willingly participate in a religious system that dictates their dress.
So what I'm trying to say--maybe a little inarticulately--is that they're not defending restrictive dress on religious grounds but rather defending religious women's right to participate in what outsiders view as oppressive. They find themselves in a position in which to do otherwise would be tantamount to demanding that a modest woman walk around in a miniskirt and tube-top, which is equally oppressive, just in the other direction.
For the record, I do worry that a number of the Muslim women who vocally support their religious garments are doing so under duress (because, as you say, dissent could very well mean death), but that topic is so far outside my wheelhouse that I can't adequately and responsibly address it without first doing an abundance of research.
"they're not defending restrictive dress on religious grounds but rather defending religious women's right to participate in what outsiders view as oppressive"
Exactly! As a Christian woman who usually chooses to dress modestly, enjoys cooking and cleaning, and regularly says things like, "Honey, I didn't get married so I could kill the spider," I believe that feminism needs to be respectful of all women's choices that don't cause harm to others. I find it just as anti-woman if a feminist tells me I'm less of a woman for choosing family over career, as I do when a Pastor tells women in the congregation they need to be guardians of men's virtue by covering up their tempting shoulders.
I was raised near the beach, where much of my free time was spent in daisy dukes and bikini tops (when I could rock that look, lol) and when I moved to the south, my female landlord was scandalized by my wearing a tank top. I imagine if I had been raised in a culture that considered a tank top to be a sexual overture to every man within eyesight of me, I might feel really uncomfortable wearing tank tops, however oppressive that might seem to a person raised on the beach in NJ. And if I had been raised in a culture that considered showing my hair to be similarly sexual in nature, I might not feel comfortable forgoing the hijab no matter how oppressive it seems to someone raised in East Texas where you can bear your hair but not your upper thighs without fear of castigation.
So I agree that certain sects of Islam retain the ugly tribalistic degradation of women as a major aspect of their culture and that is wrong, obviously. But to tell a woman who was raised that way that she must westernize her dress because the way she was raised is wrong, seems to simply be a revictimization of an already victimized woman.