queerbychoice | Why Is Feminism Broken?

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: silence

Why Is Feminism Broken?

Why do people calling themselves "feminists" all seem to be so binarily divided into one or the other of two opposite belief systems, with every "feminist" community on LiveJournal or almost anywhere being overwhelmingly dominated by one or the other and almost noplace at all where anybody meets in the middle and has productive discussions with the other side?

The two belief systems can be roughly described as "pro-tolerance" versus "pro-critique." The "pro-tolerance" side, which controls the vast majority of discourse all throughout LiveJournal and the Internet, believes, roughly speaking (with some exaggeration), that:

It is wrong to criticize anyone else's sexual tastes or other feelings of any kind or to suggest in even the most timid fashion that they might want to try to change their tastes, even if their tastes are for violent rape fantasies and these tastes mean that they tend to be attracted to people who remind them of violent rapists, and who then actually turn out to be violent rapists, which then upsets them because, you know, being violently raped does tend to upset people no matter if they have been having fantasies about it incessantly or not). It is not possible for criticism to be motivated by concern for another person's happiness and well-being. Criticism is always motivated by hatred.

It is impossible for anybody to change their sexual tastes anyway. All sexual tastes are completely inborn and whoever you were attracted to when you were twelve, you will still be feeling attracted to exactly the same kinds of people - personalities, bodies, and all - when you are seventy-five. (And let's all conveniently forget the fact that most of us were exclusively or predominantly attracted to twelve-year-olds when we were twelve.)

It is also impossible to change any other feelings of any kind. If a woman feels miserable about not weighing 65 pounds or having size HHH breasts, advising her to get anti-anorexia and self-image counseling is pointless and will accomplish nothing; instead, she should be given immediate liposuction and breast implants.

Obtaining consent to do something automatically makes the action in question absolutely healthy and beyond the slightest reproach. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever unhealthy about a person chewing off all their own limbs and eating them. Not only should a person be legally allowed to do this, but anyone who tries to talk them out of it or suggests that they should get counseling to try to learn to stop finding such a thing pleasurable is obviously narrow-minded and prejudiced. The same goes for a person who chews off all their lover's limbs and eats them instead, as long as the lover signed a consent form before their writing hand was chewed off.

Consent is a simple yes or no question. If a person said yes, they consented. The circumstances in which they said yes are irrelevant. If the person was paid to say yes, if the person was starving to death and had no other means of obtaining food than that payment, if the person had been raised all their life to believe that they belonged to a class of people that was inherently inferior to the class of people to which the person chewing off their limbs belonged, every bit as inferior as an ant is inferior to a human, all of this is irrelevant. In fact, anyone who suggests that the consent of, say, a five-year-old to having their limbs chewed off by an adult should not be considered every bit as fully free and meaningful and valid a consent as the consent of a rich white man with high self-esteem who has been treated extremely well all his life, is insulting the intelligence of five-year-olds.

If a person did not give any kind of consent at all, not even coerced consent, so the person was very clearly raped, and if pictures were taken of that act of rape, then that person has every right to demand that the rapist be thrown in jail, but does not have the right to stop the pictures from being published all over the world without their consent. That would be censorship. Pictures can't rape anybody.

Obviously the above is an exaggeration; I'm trying to portray the archetypal extremes here, and real human beings usually do not adhere 100% to the archetypal extremes. (In particular, it is very common to make an exception saying that the consent of children is not a valid form of consent while still maintaining that no adult, no matter how similar their individual circumstances and views of themself may be to a child's, can ever possibly be even the slightest bit less able to give fully as free and meaningful and valid a consent as every other adult.) But there are a very large number of people for whom the majority of their beliefs tend considerably in the directions of most of the above.

The opposite archetypal extreme within feminism, which I am calling "pro-critique," has declined in popularity since the 1970s and is now clearly in the minority, but does still exist and also dominates the discourse in certain of the LiveJournal "feminist" communities. It promotes the idea that, roughly speaking (with some exaggeration):

Everyone can and should learn to be at least predominantly homosexual, because the two genders are accorded different statuses in society and this makes sexual relationships between them inherently unequal and exploitative. (This inequality can possibly be counterbalanced if it's a relationship between a poor black man from a third-world country and a rich white woman from a first-world country, but otherwise not, and anyway I don't hear the possibility of counterbalancing inequalities like this get mentioned very often.)

It is inherently exploitative for white men to have interracial relationships.

It is inherently exploitative to have sexual relationships with people more than, say, 10% of your age older or younger than you (so if you're twenty you're only allowed to have relationships with people within two years of your age, and if you're 100 you're only allowed to have relationships with people within ten years of your age). A 60-year-old who dates a 45-year-old should be convicted of statutory rape.

Bestiality is inherently always rape, since animals have lower status and cannot communicate their consent clearly. (Never mind the fact that most mammals do communicate an awful lot of emotions to humans quite successfully and that many species would have no trouble killing or severely injuring any human who attempted to do anything to them they didn't like. Also never mind the fact that dogs sometimes hump humans' legs, thereby exhibiting obvious consent to the humping since they initiated it themselves.)

BDSM is domestic violence and sexual abuse and should be punishable by the same laws.

Consent never justifies anything, although lack of consent certainly makes anything unacceptable. To be considered healthy or acceptable, an act must be consensual, egalitarian, painless, and inflict no injuries.

Transsexuals, like anorexics and women who want size HHH breasts, should be cured of their body-hatred via counseling. The amount of time and effort it takes for people to overcome their body hatred via counseling is never ever more painful than plastic surgery. Or at least not enough more painful to make up for the loss of the satisfaction of having overcome one's dysphoria the politically correct way, by addressing the actual feelings themselves instead of the body that is hated.

Piercing and any other form of body modification that involves pain is self-injury and the people who do it should receive counseling accordingly.

Anyone who was paid to perform a sexual act was inherently exploited, no matter whether they are a millionaire and would have done it for free just as willingly.

Anyone who buys pictures of anyone performing a sexual act for money, no matter whether they are a millionaire and would have done it for free just as willingly, is guilty of exploiting the people in the pictures. For this reason, all professional pornography must be banned.

Again this is an exaggeration, and most people in the "pro-critique" group are actually slightly to the center of the archetypal extreme I outlined, just as most people in the "pro-tolerance" group are slightly to the center of their archetypal extreme. (And probably everyone on both sides will get mad at me for having caricatured their side, and will mistakenly imagine my portrayal of the other side to not be every bit as much of a caricature.) But there don't seem to be many people at all who are halfway between the two, or even one-third in one direction and two-thirds in the other direction. Everybody seems to have a fairly strong leaning, considerably more in one direction than the other, and productive discourse between the two groups simply does not happen. If a "feminist" from one group enters a "feminist" community dominated by the other group, they will be shouted down until they learn to shut up. The "pro-tolerance" crowd considers the "pro-critique" crowd to be a bizarre minority of hateful bigots who've taken feminism to such an extreme as to become a parody of it, and the "pro-critique" crowd considers the "pro-tolerance" crowd to be not feminists at all but just standard mainstream patriarchy as usual, individuals out for themselves and whatever makes them personally feel good in the shortest amount of time, with no regard for the broader political implications or effects on society as a whole.

I get really upset by the attitude of "No one should ever criticize anybody's feelings or tastes! Criticism is inherently hateful and uncaring! Nobody has any control over their feelings or tastes!" because I do think it's very necessary to critique feelings and tastes. However, critiquing is only really useful if it involves spirited multi-sided debate and argument among and different points of view all offering their criticisms to try to help others find greater happiness. Instead, the "critiquing" that actually happens all too often tends to be absolutely single-sided throwing of long-ago-unanimously-decided opinions in other people's faces more to assert one's own superiority than to actually offer ideas as a concerned friend. The opinions expressed in the critiques also tend to be the most extreme ones possible, because anyone less extreme tends to find it too unpleasant to hang around in the communities where it's obvious that if they spoke their mind they would be considered sick, violent, a tool of the patriarchy or a rapist, just because they did something like dated a member of the opposite sex or someone more than a few years different in age from them.

I don't know what to do about this because I really don't want to ask the extremists of either point of view to shut up. I value extremism and I'm not neatly in the middle all safe and moderate myself - rather, I'm a haphazard mix of some extremist parts and some moderate other parts. I'm pretty extreme about opposing censorship of pornography, but also pretty extreme about thinking everyone should be just as attracted to the same gender as to the opposite one. I do not believe that all bestiality is always rape, and I have a problem with assuming that just because one member of a relationship is white, male, and 60 years old and the other is black, female, and 20 years old, there's absolutely no possible way they could ever have an healthy, fulfilling, and egalitarian relationship (though I would certainly acknowledge the odds are against it). On the other hand, I cannot stand when women try to tell me that the fact that it really turns them on to watch violent rape porn videos makes it healthy for them to be turned on by this.

So I want the extremists of both ends to go right on speaking their minds, because on some issues I'm one of them myself. But I also wish there were a lot more moderates in evidence, a lot more blending and people in the middle and discourse somewhere between the extremes than I've seen. I wish there were a community anywhere on LiveJournal that called itself feminist and didn't appear to be owned overwhelmingly by one group or the other. I just wish that the two sides would, you know, actually talk to each other once in a while. Without either side trying to kill the other.

Actually I suppose they did, really, because this entry was provoked by having seen an unusually nonviolent LiveJournal confrontation between the two sides - specifically, in this case, a masochist feminist and an anti-BDSM feminist, who actually kind of got along and seemed to care about each other despite continuing to disagree. I just wish I saw people who disagree seem to really care about each other more often. And really I need to work on that myself, because my strong impulse when disagreeing with anybody about anything is to want to just avoid being in their presence at all.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

It seems like the same reason most sides of any issue can't seem to discuss anything civily. People have a great deal invested in their ideology and often can't risk believing that an opposing or conflicting worldview is valid, because of the hard work they've put into defending theirs. On the extreme, your defense has to be airtight and able to withstand any attacks, which often means that you can't allow for exceptions or what may look like an inconsistency. People get defensive about the things they care about the most.

For the most part I think that as long as people are not harming others or doing irreprocable damage to themselves, they ought to be let alone to allow them to learn what is or is not healthy for them, because some people learnonly with experience and exhausting every possibility. But I do think that some severely self/destructive behavior ought to merit an intervention, as long as it's coming from a standpoint that states clearly, "I care about you and I think you're making bad choices because of the following..." and not "I find you disturbing and your behaviour is wrong because..." Language choice is so important, because even if one does care a lot and intends no malice, coming across as judgemental, condesending or intellectually horrified is not only hurtful, but will usually cause the other person you mean to help to resist any effort you're making.

I see that a lot of feminist discussion is dominated more by the group-identity drive than an exchange of ideas; a lot of discussion of sex and sexual preference is the same. So yes, an "in defence of my community" style of discourse similar to other identity-based communities seems the norm. Cliche to call it tribalism, but still.

I highly suspect those people who lean more than slightly towards center or who are all over the map (and therefore can't really think of their brand of feminism as being a concrete identity marker) tend to stay out of feminist discussion communities altogether. It doesn't mean they're not there ... just that they can't stomach being assigned an "in" or "out" status and dealt with accordingly.

I think I have a world-class knack for making absolutely the wrong language choice. :p

*sponges your forehead*

You are very perceptive. ;-)

Maybe you should come up with a compromise... like, "I care about you, but you're stupid!" ;)

LOL, my existing efforts already seem to achieve very much that effect. Even when that totally isn't what I'm going for.

I think a lot of the reason moderation is difficult is because the divide is seen as stemming from a fundamental value difference (which to me reminds me of the difference between, say, libertarians and communists- yeah, both people want a better government, but that's where the similarity ends). Feminists, especially vocal, intelligent ones, like theory and consistency - if they notice themselves being more libertarian at some points and more protectionistic at others, they start worrying that they're just "reacting" and not thinking.

I almost certainly fall into the more libertarian feminist category, almost extremely so. But when I get deeper I end up just being both at different levels. I think that it's absolutely, entirely wrong to intervene in the habits of an entire group of people, be it heterosexuals or BDSM practitioners or transsexuals or what, mainly because you're presuming to understand their reasons and experiences for wanting what they want and doing what they do. I have very little respect, for example, for people who have not experienced a BDSM fetish but still presumes to pass judgment on it, or someone who never was heterosexual before they decided heterosexuality was just inherently exploitative. I don't even think that actually having such experiences makes you a real authority on the matter because of course every experience is different.

But I do think that if you know an individual you can suggest to them that they're not doing what's good for them. And one should always critique one's own desires. I'm also much more attuned to the possibility of coersion than many libertarian feminists but far less so than most protectionist feminists. I mean, I can easily imagine family situations being coercive without their being overtly so. But I don't believe you can attribute coersion to "society" as a whole, for example. I have to believe that there's the possibility for autonomy even in a sexist society, because I feel myself to be autonomous and would consider it an attack if someone implied that I couldn't make decisions for myself, especially if they'd never met me.

I've known for a very long time that you fall into a substantially more libertarian feminist camp than me. ;-)

It's because I know too many actual Libertarians!

i have decided to steer as clear of feminist livejournal communities as possible. they are either too gendered, or too self-righteous. i was run out of them left and right.

once, i told somebody that i appreciate, support, and respect her for her diversity, with respect to being differently-abled, and i was run out of the place for being patronizing and treating her as if she needed my support (apparently you are obligated to support the differently-abled, but you can't say so, or you're patronizing them).

once, i was run out of a community for being a "troll" - i said that bi-gendered inclusiveness was still extraordinarily gendered and exclusive, only slightly less so than patriarchal stuff. apparently, that counts as trolling.

and my favorite, i said that affirmative action, while pragmatic, was not a solution to the differences in opportunity afforded to people on the basis of priviledge (or lack thereof). apparently, this is just me being racist and jealous of black people who are smarter than me. oh, and of course, they also accused (accused?) me of being a man trying to exploit the pro-diversity system.

by "not a solution" i mean "not a permanent, completely, all-inclusive solution"

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I agree with everything said here:

I'm pretty extreme about opposing censorship of pornography, but also pretty extreme about thinking everyone should be just as attracted to the same gender as to the opposite one. I do not believe that all bestiality is always rape, and I have a problem with assuming that just because one member of a relationship is white, male, and 60 years old and the other is black, female, and 20 years old, there's absolutely no possible way they could ever have an healthy, fulfilling, and egalitarian relationship. On the other hand, I cannot stand when women try to tell me that the fact that it really turns them on to watch violent rape porn videos makes it healthy for them to be turned on by this.

There are so many women on my friends list, and women I've known in general, who need to be beaten up or at least demeaned and humiliated by men in order to be satisfied by sex/relationships. To them, it's just a harmless kink, but it really upsets me. I never say anything, because more than anything else I think people are entitled to make their own decisions, but... I really wish I could find a way to gently make them question their need for this, and what it does to their psyche in the long run, and what possible damage it might be doing to the men in their lives. *sigh*

Anyway, I'm afraid I can't run off and start a happy feminist community with you, becaue I hold a couple of opinions (which I deem "feminist") which I imagine you would find so offensive that I'm afraid to even mention them.

I value extremism and I'm not neatly in the middle all safe and moderate myself - rather, I'm a haphazard mix of some extremist parts and some moderate other parts.

Like most feminists. Don't try setting yourself up to be unique and different and special.

The problem with feminist communities is a different one... but you know, you could always try setting one up yourself according to your own values. ;-)

If it helps, I'm into BDSM and don't consider it particularly healthy... but then again I also don't want anyone to tell me not to do it. I think that when you're a mostly healthy person it's ok to indulge in a little unhealthiness now and then.

Besides I think it's important to note that it's not like the kink implies a serious, pervasive personality trait. I for example am downright domineering in everyday conversations. I was raised by really dominating parents so I had to develop the capability to be really damn stubborn and aggressive if I wanted to get my way at all. Right now I'm seriously considering becoming a trial lawyer because I'm just that damn confrontational and argumentative. Radical feminists would probably complain that I'm too man-identified.

So my being a sub is sort of less in the tradition of a submissive woman who wants a real man to put her in her place, and more of a high-powered businessman who wants a woman to spank him (and how come, in both those gendered situations, some feminists insist that the woman is being oppressed by the patriarchy, and the man is doing the oppressing? I don't feel like my genitalia necessarily determine my oppressedness in every sexual situation...). I'm sure some women are far more submissive in both sexual and nonsexual situations, but I guess the point of what I'm saying is that you always have to see kinks in context.

hmmm. plenty of food for thought here.

You mention that for you, BDSM is like the "high-powered businessman who wants a woman to spank him". I'm wondering, do you need a man to be your dom, a woman, or does the gender/sex of the dom not matter to you?

If you do prefer a man, I have a hard time understanding how it isn't about "wanting a real man to put you in your place" or whatever. For women who require male doms, clearly gender is an important element... I'm sure there is still a feminist argument for the practice, but I'd love to hear it, because I can't think of one.

In general, my feelings about BDSM are very complicated. It's hard for me to separate my political view of it from my visceral aversion to the idea, and I know that isn't fair.

I think that when you're a mostly healthy person it's ok to indulge in a little unhealthiness now and then.

I think that's probably the most articulate thing I've ever heard on the topic of BDSM / general sexual kink.

No, I don't really have a gender requirement. Except that when I was straight, I of course always fantasized about men (because of course "one doesn't have sex with women!"), and that's a habit that I haven't entirely eradicated.

However when I was little I already enacted bondage fantasies with my dolls and such, and didn't associate the fantasies with sex (although I did experience sexual arousal I just didn't label it as such yet). Then, I really paid no attention to the gender, appearance, or even species of the two (or more) characters in question (I distinctly remember enacting scenarios with little plastic creepy-crawlies). I guess I could say I always identified with the "sub" character, but it was more complex than that, especially since often which one was the "sub" was not entirely clear. It was sort of power itself that interested me, especially bizarre, extreme, and/or convoluted forms of it. I was like a mini-Foucault ;).

there's also probably a difference between wanting a male who's a dom and wanting a "male dom". The former might just mean that you're exclusively attracted to males, and also a sub, which is probably not as bad as conflating gender with sexual dominance.

Also it's not like I absolutely need BDSM all the time. I have normal sex most of the time. And my relationship with my (male but not really gendered) partner is far more complicated than simply dom/sub - we both like being subs, so we oblige each other every once in a while. And if any one of us dominates the other outside of the bedroom, it's usually me, not because I want to, but because I'm just way, way more assertive than he is and have a hard time toning myself down.

Personally I think though that any intimate dom/sub relationship that extends outside the bedroom is really, REALLY unhealthy, not because I can't see the appeal on some level, but because it can erode your ability to deal with the rest of the world and basically sabotages the sub's ability to freely consent. I remember reading about a "lifestyle slave" (

deliaday) who killed her husband, then claimed self-defense and, from what I can tell, won her case. She'd been posting online about how much she loved being a slave so everyone was shocked that this "empowered kinkster" could have snapped. But how can you possibly know how much she loved slavery when she openly admitted that her husband forced her to post that stuff online (she said she didn't want to, she considered it humiliating), and that every time she made the least resistance he actively tortured her, and they had no "safe words" whatsoever??? I think most likely she was very unhappy with the arrangement for a long time (perhaps all along) and of course she could not tell anyone for fear of abuse. It's an extreme situation but when there are lots of coercive dynamics in a relationship, even one far more mild than that, it's hard to stay even remotely healthy. That kind of thing horrifies me because to me, sane, uncoerced consent is the absolute most important difference between kink and rape.

You know my bias, but I often see pro-critique feminists very timidly approach the subject of violent or unequal sexual behavior because people really would rather hear that they should do whatever they want then that their behaviors may be socially motivated and there may be something safer and healthier out there.

I don't really have any opinion on besitality, but I don't have any motivation for making it socially acceptable. It sort of annoys me when 'sex radicals' imply that we need to make any consensual sexual behavior socially acceptable and the world will be a better place when we do.

Also, I sort of feel that BDSM supporters and practioners often make it into something it's not. Ultimately it is motivated by the desire to hurt someone in connection with sexual gratification, and not all of us have experienced this desire in the context of 'safe words' and clear boundaries and such. I know a lot of women have done things they really would rather not do because they are afraid of not being constantly pleasing and obliging. Because of this, I think it is essential that there are some boundaries for what is healthy sex that takes consent into consideration but also does not see it as the end to all means.

This is deeply personal topic for me, as when I was 17 I engaged in mild SM (biting, scratching, some bondage) with a 21 year old (and I do believe that this is a clear power imbalance) that progressed to verbal abuse during sex without him asking or caring how I felt about it at all. I also have had some of my closest friends engage in degrading sexual behavior because they felt obligated to try anything that their boyfriends desired.

Yes, I agree with your observations. Especially the claiming of one's community's 'rights' (it is a pet peeve of mine is how loosely this word is used, and not just by feminists) as a defense.

I think anyone who knows you well enough for you to care about them probably understands you enough to get the sentiment behind it. For everyone else, I guess, you could forget them, or pause before every statement and think, "Hmm, how would I say this if I imagined this person were made out of glass?"

Actually, I've already got

abolishgender. ;-)

Oh, you are a friend of Joanna! Welcome!

I definitely believe that some 17 year olds with some 21 year olds would have a clear power imbalance, just not that this would apply to absolutely every single instance on earth of such a pairing.

About this:

"I don't really have any opinion on bestiality, but I don't have any motivation for making it socially acceptable. It sort of annoys me when 'sex radicals' imply that we need to make any consensual sexual behavior socially acceptable and the world will be a better place when we do."

I think it is very important because if we start refusing to accept sexual behaviors with no basis other than "I have no motivation for accepting it," that makes the complete list of things we do not accept less coherent and reasoned, eliminates a broader section of people who are made uncomfortable with us because we are not approving of their behaviors, and puts the people who do listen to us through unnecessary guilt over things there is no need for them to feel guilty for.

Oh, I never even bother trying to say anything complicated and potentially offensive to people if I don't care very very much about them and feel extremely close to them. They still don't really get the sentiment behind it though, at least not until I spend six months trying desperately to clarify. I really am bad at expressing myself in situations with very sensitive feelings. I'm not really good with the concept of extremely sensitive emotions or understanding exactly what anyone else is feeling or will feel.

People not on my mailing list have reason to be afraid of expressing opinions to me that I would find offensive, but you don't. You've pretty massively offended me before already, on the topic of consent, and I doubt you could top the previous occasions. I'll just deal with being offended.

It's a pretty big age difference at that point in most people's lives. I think a lot of what happened had to do with my sexual inexperience as compared to his.

What I mean when I say I don't want to put effort into making bestiality socially acceptable is that I think there's far greater and more urgent changes that needs to happen with the way sex takes place in this society. It doesn't really have much to do with me not accepting it personally.

Trust me, I could so offend you more.

By the way, I know you have your little rule about the mailing list, but if you really want me off your friends list, just tell me and I'll exit. I'd rather stay, but I have no desire to inflict great pain on you by my presence.

I definitely think sexual experience makes a huge difference in the ability of a relationship to be egalitarian.

I made the rule myself; I wouldn't have made it if it were painful. I think it is an excellent arrangement because if I were free to just remove people who say anything that offends me, I would soon get hopelessly out of practice coexisting with 99.99999% of the human species. So it's much better to have a fair number of people like you around to keep me in practice for tolerating major differences of opinion, while also enabling me to skew the balance toward a larger number of people who do agree with me.

So you're serving a useful, important and valued purpose by being here! It's just a different purpose than some. ;-)

I'm a pretty staunch libertarian. If someone wants to sell their body to make money and can do it well, they are a good businessperson, not exploited.

Talk of 'exploitation' has become overblown in academic circles that generate no jobs, accumulate no wealth and provide no tangible opportunities for lower class citizens to work their way up. These people, through their discourse, exploit a system that allows them to survive from their economic and educational (class) privlige.

If they want to help society, they should start a business and employ people, rather than try to become the new morality.

All I see is ideologies that try to restrict freedom. What goes on behind closed doors goes on behind closed doors, and is no one else's business, unless there is injury or harm taking place. If adults want to hurt each other and agree to do so, I see no problem with their decision. To assert otherwise shows an incedibly strong insecurity complex and inability to trust adult human beings.

Actually, I've already got abolishgender. ;-)

And have you succeeded? ;-D

It's not too bad. It certainly never strikes me as being dominated by either of the groups I summarized, but then I also don't usually think of it as being exactly feminist community at all, just because it's a more evenly mixed-gender group than the communities that explicitly call themselves feminist. It was modeled after

antigender, which attracted a haphazard mix of feminists and genderqueer people but didn't seem to know for what purpose exactly it had brought the groups together, and so the nonfeminist genderqueer people tended to clash with the nongenderqueer feminist people.

abolishgender attempts to attract only the people who are both feminist and genderqueer and scare the others off. It succeds well enough that I don't find myself immensely frustrated with it.

I think (she says, ageistly) that a lot of the problem with feminist communities on livejournal is the preponderence of teenage feminists.

God knows I think of what I was like in the five years or so after I discovered feminism (13, give or take a year) and I do not rejoice in what I was like then.

I'm just grateful I didn't have a livejournal.

Nope . . . teenageness is responsible for a lot on LiveJournal, but not this. The people who annoy me in this particular manner seem at least as likely to be in their late 20s or older as to be teenagers.

Yes, but maybe they're still in their barely-discovered feminism phase?

Or maybe not.

I think it's more the opposite - they're more in their "I've been around feminism long enough to know exactly where I stand and I've been standing there for the past 20 years and I have no interest whatsoever in tolerating any further speech by people who refuse to accept my immense authority" phase.

Maybe when they're 65 they'll mellow out a little and decide that life is more complicated than dogma, but 35 clearly isn't old enough to help at all.

There's a discussion that relates to this here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/bravecows/17696.html?thread=257312#t257312).

I guess I'll settle for that. ;)

If I eliminated all the people from my friends list with whom I don't see eye-to-eye, I'd be down to zero. I don't think I've ever met or even heard of a human being who shared my worldview on _everything_. I think it's pretty impressive that you've managed to find so many people who agree with you.

Where are you getting this idea that all the feminists on LJ belong to one of those two extremes? I read through your list of the first extreme and was so sickened that I couldn't make it through the second list. Seriously, I have never met anyone who fully fit the first definition. And I doubt that even the crazy bitches fit the second list of stereotypes.

They don't fit it perfectly, but they do seem to gather around near those extremes without quite reaching them.

"Actually I suppose they did, really, because this entry was provoked by having seen an unusually nonviolent LiveJournal confrontation between the two sides - specifically, in this case, a masochist feminist and an anti-BDSM feminist, who actually kind of got along and seemed to care about each other despite continuing to disagree."

Gayle, can you tell me where I can find this discussion? I would be interested in reading it, since I'm still sorting out my own feelings on this stuff. Thanks a lot.

- outsider, who still reads your journal religiously :)

P.S. I wasn't able to find the book I wanted to send you, so I've ordered it...it'll take some time, but I will definitely make sure you get it.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Why Is Feminism Broken?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: btw....unrelated comment

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject