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51 posts tagged feminism
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Try to feel grateful for the feminist fatigue. A lot of people do this work out of sheer survival - the ability to notice your exhaustion and anger and sadness means you have space in your day and in your head, a privilege not afforded to many. So shift your thinking, consider how lucky we are to be having this conversation.
…Spend energy wisely. You already know that your activist energy - be it physical, mental or emotional - is a precious resource. Don’t waste it by talking to brick walls, this will frustrate you and change nothing. Consider doing your work in terms of specific goals. Maybe you can’t take down the patriarchy, but you can change a school policy on sexual assault, get a local pharmacy to carry Plan B, or help a friend. Feminist work is a lot more manageable in small pieces - it allows you ‘wins’ that energize, and chips away at broader structures.
Create something. A blog, a tweet, a zine, a tshirt, a march - have something tangible to scrawl your energy across.
”“I want to be a fucking feminist and wear a fucking Peter Pan collar. So fucking what?”
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Being liked is overrated. Wanting to be liked means tempering your thoughts as to not offend. Wanting to be liked means not arguing vociferously with a female peer - something that could improve and add to your ideas - for fear that they’ll be insulted or that they won’t want to be friends. Wanting to be liked means agonizing over every negative comment in an online thread, even if they’re coming from people you don’t care about and don’t think much of.
Wanting to be liked means being a supporting character in your own life, using the cues of the actors around you to determine your next line rather than your own script. It means that your self-worth will always be tied to what someone else thinks about you, forever out of your control.
And truly, living in a constant state of self-deprecation is no way to be. Humbleness does not protect you from sexism - it just makes the slights harder to see.
”“The successes that dominate the mainstream narrative on feminism largely center on the most privileged of American women, even when the consequences affect the most marginalized. And while symbolic successes are important, it’s more crucial that feminist actions make a difference in real women’s lives.”
“On election day, the backlash against GOP extremism along with smart organizing by feminists culminated not only in women being the majority of the electorate but also in an 18 percent gender gap—the largest in reported history.”
Except white women still overwhelmingly voted for Romney alongside white men. The “gender gap” was more accurately a race gap. So why is the narrative being pushed that women as a whole beat out those terrible white men? This was a victory of minorities over whites. From the link:
While the overall gender gap played a significant role in ensuring Obama’s reelection, it didn’t have very much to do with white women, who remain one of the bulwarks of the Republican Party.
That image that’s been going around showing how the election would have turned out if only white men had voted? It would have looked the same if it included white women. Check the exit polls. The majority of white women and men voted for Romney, the majority of PoC regardless of gender voted for Obama. Stop stealing the credit, white feminism.
I agree. Hence, from the article: “Despite the well-reported gender gap, it turns out that white women as a whole voted for Romney. It was women of color who brought it home for Democrats and President Obama.”
