Opinion on feminism?

[Jacobtm]

Rick Santorum has brought feminism back into the national discussion.

There hasn't really been much talk about feminism per-se this cycle, and Santorum (to my knowledge) hasn't specifically talked about feminism much.

But of course he does talk about traditional family values all the time, and attacks things like abortion and contraception, which of course is an attack on feminism.

Until now, Republicans have done a good job of not specifically saying ''Feminism is bad'' while still attacking it bit by bit, thinly shrouding their attacks in alternative explanations.

So what do you lot think about feminism? Will anyone openly agree with Santorum (or his wife) that feminism is bad and women ought to stay at home, care for the children, and be proud of it, or does that issue actually put Santorum as being too much of a throwback, even for Republicans?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This thread ought to be fun.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

"Feminism" has been used in so many different ways. Does the term even mean anything anymore?

[Oakvale]

Kind of a... broad question.

[Jacobtm]

Indeed it is a broad question.

Yet for someone like Santorum, the issue is clear:

He believes that women should not use contraception, they should not get abortions, they should marry, they should have kids, they should take care of those kids, and that they should be proud of their roles as stay-at-home-moms.

He sees the family as the basis of American society, and sees all the changes that Feminism has brought as undoing the family, thus undoing American society.

To him, Feminism is a cause of the downfall of America.

And he sees it as being tied up in all the immoral stuff that he thinks is unraveling America. Socialism, Atheism, Feminism, to him they're all different faces of the same beast that is destroying traditional American Family Values, and thus destroying America.

In debates, he frequently answers questions about China or Iran or the Economy by talking about traditional family values. That isn't a normal case of a politician staying on their talking points, it is his genuine belief that traditional family values are at the core of America's greatness, and that by destroying traditional family values, feminism is bringing America down.

[dead0man]

Feminism, at the heart of it, is a great thing.  Equal rights, suffrage, domestic abuse issues, allowing women to be, act and feel like regular humans and not second class citizens.....all great things that women deserve and it kind of sucks that it took us as long as it did to figure that out.  Now, there are certain aspects of feminism and certain feminists that are just stupid and wrong, but it's certainly not fair to blame the entire movement because of how some of the people act and the stupid sh**t they say.

Santorum is wrong on the issue (as he is with most issues).

[RI]

I think it's hard to define feminism without it either becoming a strawman or a vague "women are good" sentiment that's hard to argue with. Also, I don't know exactly what Santorum's wife wrote in the book, but I'm not sure they said that women "ought" to only become stay-at-home moms and that it's wrong for them to ever go get a job. I'm pretty sure defining their position as such is also a strawman. From what I've gathered, and I suppose I could be wrong on this, their point was to say that women shouldn't be demeaned by society if they do choose to be stay-at-home moms.

Personally, I'm of that latter line of thinking. To me, feminism should be about giving women the freedom to make their own choices and not be forced by any societal more into making a particular choice about having a career, staying at home, or some combination of the both, and that they should be proud of and accepted for their decision whatever it is. I don't think feminism is really about abortion at all, or at least it shouldn't be, though in my opinion (and I've heard this argued effectively before) abortion is antifeminist in nature. That's the belief of my girlfriend, for example.

Sometimes I think that some "feminists" think that their priority should be destroying the old gender roles completely in order to "free" women, but I think doing so would only be as binding as that which they sought to eliminate. I don't think these are the majority of feminists though.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I'm for women defining their own "role" in society, rather than having men defining that.

[Jacobtm]

I don't think feminism is really about abortion at all, or at least it shouldn't be, though in my opinion (and I've heard this argued effectively before) abortion is antifeminist in nature.

Well, to me feminism has always been about empowering women. Basically if something empowers women, I think feminists are in favor of it.

Abortion definitely empowers women, it puts them in the driver's seat. For a majority-male government to make abortion illegal, is to paternalistically make a decision for women, which is something feminists certainly don't like.

Women who are free to decide their reproductive fate are more free to live their lives as they want. Some people, like Santorum, would prefer women not to have such choices.

Some empowered women will of course never choose to have an abortion. But it's the right to choose that is so important for feminism, to be self-empowered and not have men (like Santorum) taking decisions for them.

[Redalgo]

I have a very favorable opinion of liberal feminism provided it is being championed to promote greater social equality between the sexes instead of to espouse hatred toward men or create a new dominant-subordinate relationship betwixt the sexes. Socialist feminism seems paranoid to me in the sense that it attributes sex inequality to capitalist manipulation of the proletariat, and radical feminism almost certainly overestimates the extent to which male-female relations can be used to explain social conflict and justify revolutionary changes in culture.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

My beliefs about what feminism means to me mostly involve various efforts at the dissolution of at the very least a society whose power structures operate around gender (and I do think that gendered discourse infects power structures whether or not they actually have to do with sex per se), if not the dissolution outright of gender and sexuality as originary concepts of identification (in fact, I would rather see sexuality dissolved than gender; I'd be fine with gender as an originary concept as long as it had nothing to do with social power or biological sex). Accordingly, I think liberal feminism is half-assed at best and actively working against what I believe in as a queer Christo-feminist with radical-feminist sympathies at worst. I don't think that the practical effect of the project of liberal feminism is to create greater social equality at all, because it takes as granted and in some cases even exaggerates the ideas behind the power structures it purports to criticize. In the form of things like 'Slutwalk' or 'feminist porn', it's redolent of an if-you-can't-beat-them... mentality which I think is really unhelpful.

[nclib]

As you can tell by my signature, I'm certainly a strong supporter of feminism. Even if we set aside the abortion issue, feminism is simply about equality for women and women not being seen as appendages (for lack of a better word) to men.

I do see traditional gender roles as undesirable and anti-feminist. Some may say that they believe in equality but still prefer traditional gender roles, which I believe is antithetical since such roles are based on assumptions on gender that were not equal and are not appropriate in an egalitarian society.

I find it quite disturbing that plenty of people who believe in women's equality but dislike an active  movement to achieve it.

[John Dibble]

I'm for equality of the sexes under the law where it is possible and pragmatic to do so. Oddly in pretty much all of the few cases I can think of where there would be good reason for an inequality it tends to favor women - for instance if we had to have a draft we should be drafting only men, or in terms of abortions the woman should have the final say since she's the one who has to go through the whole birthing process, etc. But in terms of things like voting, owning property, holding political office, child custody, and all that I'd say that equality under the law is both possible and preferable.

That said, I don't like the word feminism to describe this concept - the word only reflects the feminine sex only, and it would have different connotations in a female dominated society. I prefer the term "equality of the sexes", for lack of a specific word.

[freepcrusher]

i was wondering nclib, are you a women yourself? I could never really tell. Sorry if I'm sounding mean.

[Redalgo]

I find it quite disturbing that plenty of people who believe in women's equality but dislike an active  movement to achieve it.

My best guess would be that more people say that they support women's equality out of political correctness or without thinking about what it implies than actually believe women and men should be equals. Likewise with racism, well over 90% of Americans express support for racial equality but that is certainly not anywhere near the rate at which people support active measures to achieve that equality. Incidentally, I agree completely that traditional gender roles are anti-feminist. I would also describe them as anti-LGBT rights and threatening to individual freedom.

[nclib]

i was wondering nclib, are you a women yourself? I could never really tell. Sorry if I'm sounding mean.

No, I'm male. No offense taken. I don't see feminism as being anti-male, and I don't consider male feminists any more contradictory than whites active for blacks' civil rights, pro-immigrant natives, etc.

[Beet]

Serious divisions between radical feminism and the rest of feminism over sexuality and sexualization (as Nathan hinted at).

Serious problems dealing with intersectional oppressions given that the heart of the movement consists of straight, cis, upper middle class white female writers & academics.

Treats the oppression of women outside the West (where it's much harsher, to say the least) as peripheral, partly due to fear of stepping on cultural toes but mostly due to a combination of ignorance and indifference.

All in all, a mess.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Define "feminism"

[The Mikado]

Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and John Stuart Mill's On the Subjugation of Women are two of my favorite philosophical texts.

It's sad that more recent feminist authors (Judith Butler) can't write in a comprehensible style.

EDIT: Oh, I'm also a big fan of Joan Wallach Scott (despite having some issues with her).

[courts]

Largely negative. They remind me of the Religious Right in a lot of ways, actually. Not surprising given how many in the anti porn "liberation" movement openly allied with them.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and John Stuart Mill's On the Subjugation of Women are two of my favorite philosophical texts.

It's sad that more recent feminist authors (Judith Butler) can't write in a comprehensible style.

EDIT: Oh, I'm also a big fan of Joan Wallach Scott (despite having some issues with her).

I have immense issues with The Second Sex, and I like Judith Butler's ideas when I can get through her prose, but you're right that that's a feat.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Largely negative. They remind me of the Religious Right in a lot of ways, actually. Not surprising given how many in the anti porn "liberation" movement openly allied with them.

Third wave feminists tend not to be like this. I agree with the second wave though. Up until relatively recently (basically the 90s) it wasn't uncommon for second-wave feminists to be anti-LGBT as well, many of them attacked and criticized all gay males as being misogynists, some of them argued that gay marriage demeaned women because it allowed for women-less marriages and many also engaged in the scapegoating gay men for AIDS thing.

So I have a positive opinion of first and third-wave feminism and a generally negative one of second-wave.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I have a positive opinion of first-wave, somewhat negative of second-wave, quite negative of third-wave, and very positive of some particular strands that don't really fit into the 'wave' model and which generally stand against the excesses of second and third waves (I like Ariel Levy a lot, also Saba Mahmood and Hiratsuka Raicho). BRTD articulated a lot of my problems with second-wave feminism. My problems with third-wave feminism should, I hope, be apparent.

The 'wave' way of dividing it is asinine in any case.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, this thread is about as ridiculous as could have been expected.

[Free Palestine]

My beliefs about what feminism means to me mostly involve various efforts at the dissolution of at the very least a society whose power structures operate around gender (and I do think that gendered discourse infects power structures whether or not they actually have to do with sex per se), if not the dissolution outright of gender and sexuality as originary concepts of identification (in fact, I would rather see sexuality dissolved than gender; I'd be fine with gender as an originary concept as long as it had nothing to do with social power or biological sex). Accordingly, I think liberal feminism is half-assed at best and actively working against what I believe in as a queer Christo-feminist with radical-feminist sympathies at worst. I don't think that the practical effect of the project of liberal feminism is to create greater social equality at all, because it takes as granted and in some cases even exaggerates the ideas behind the power structures it purports to criticize. In the form of things like 'Slutwalk' or 'feminist porn', it's redolent of an if-you-can't-beat-them... mentality which I think is really unhelpful.

I...think...I agree with this...somewhat, as a queer-commie radical feminist.