It definitely felt 'privileged'. At least she acknowledged that, and at least she's speaking from her own experience rather than that of all women, so I can appreciate that even if I don't feel that she's speaking for me at all.
I don't feel they contribute to discussions on feminism in almost any case
I have to agree, and I wish I didn't. But that rings true to me, too. I come across quite a few intelligent and educated men who either don't think feminism is relevant to them, or have really obsolete views on it.
I'd rather just play with women, trans* folk, etc. And comments like "we should make this space more friendly for men" make me want to cry or scream or just leave.
Absolutely. Since when has feminism become an 'uncomfortable' word? Why should we refer to some women as 'inadvertent' feminists? That whole argument makes little sense to me.
Though I do agree that men are also oppressed by the way gender goes these days.
There's the crux of it, really - at least for me. I believe there's a huge discrepancy between seeing feminism as 'man-hating' (how I wish Emma hadn't used that term) and recognising that 'women' aren't just some homogenous category. There are women with different skin colours and women with different sexualities and women with all kinds of backgrounds, many of whom don't have access to privileged spaces. And I think that people of all genders start off being conditioned to act and think a certain way in their own individual spaces, and that there's no one solution can fit everyone's situation. I don't even know if there are any actual solutions, but I guess I appreciate some people's efforts to change the way things are, even if I think that change is mostly ideological and will have no immediate practical effect.
"first of all create a space just for women (or whatever group) without people from empowered groups and lets try to figure out our experience, what we have to say"
I couldn't agree more with that. Speaking for myself, queer women are definitely the group that I feel most comfortable interacting with. And queer men too, to an extent. But people who identify as 100% straight male - not so much. And sometimes it can be exhausting to interact with straight women too, especially the ones who don't know I'm queer, or worse, know and choose to ignore it. (Fannish spaces are good that way - most of the straight people here aren't homophobic.)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-09-24 09:31 pm (UTC)I don't feel they contribute to discussions on feminism in almost any case
I have to agree, and I wish I didn't. But that rings true to me, too. I come across quite a few intelligent and educated men who either don't think feminism is relevant to them, or have really obsolete views on it.
I'd rather just play with women, trans* folk, etc. And comments like "we should make this space more friendly for men" make me want to cry or scream or just leave.
Absolutely. Since when has feminism become an 'uncomfortable' word? Why should we refer to some women as 'inadvertent' feminists? That whole argument makes little sense to me.
Though I do agree that men are also oppressed by the way gender goes these days.
There's the crux of it, really - at least for me. I believe there's a huge discrepancy between seeing feminism as 'man-hating' (how I wish Emma hadn't used that term) and recognising that 'women' aren't just some homogenous category. There are women with different skin colours and women with different sexualities and women with all kinds of backgrounds, many of whom don't have access to privileged spaces. And I think that people of all genders start off being conditioned to act and think a certain way in their own individual spaces, and that there's no one solution can fit everyone's situation. I don't even know if there are any actual solutions, but I guess I appreciate some people's efforts to change the way things are, even if I think that change is mostly ideological and will have no immediate practical effect.
"first of all create a space just for women (or whatever group) without people from empowered groups and lets try to figure out our experience, what we have to say"
I couldn't agree more with that. Speaking for myself, queer women are definitely the group that I feel most comfortable interacting with. And queer men too, to an extent. But people who identify as 100% straight male - not so much. And sometimes it can be exhausting to interact with straight women too, especially the ones who don't know I'm queer, or worse, know and choose to ignore it. (Fannish spaces are good that way - most of the straight people here aren't homophobic.)