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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Fun with Feministing comments

Oh how fun it is...to read Feministing's comments section. But I will say this thread about Jessica Valenti's new book Full Frontal Feminism is actually quite interesting and while I generally don't read huge comment threads since they tend to descend into madness, this one was good for a laugh, posted by "Ranter:"

I have not as of yet read your book, and I only discovered you and your site yesterday, but the first thought that comes to mind is that you are not married (to either a woman or a man) or have children, so it is hard to take you as a serious feminist, because you are still capable of being a irresponsible, child like, care free spirited if you so choose. A woman without a spouse or family obligations cannot be safely as reckless as you present yourself to the world. You are described as a one-woman show, and a woman with no attachments can hardly exclaim that she is an example that most women can follow. Could you really expose you frontal side if you had children that would suffer the consequences of your actions? Could you go about not caring about you weight or looks if you wanted to keep a man from straying? Could you really expect to keep a high paying job in corporate America if you refused to adhere to the often-painful social normals that few women dare to revoke? How can you live so flamboyantly while most women suffer horrible self-consciousness issues, and then call yourself a feminist? Unless you suffer like the average woman does, then you cannot behave as if you are a woman's woman much less a feminist.
First off I must admit that I am a straight man, but I am a feminist in that I think woman are superior to men, particularly in the field of decision making, rational thinking, budget handling, and in forming balanced planning to solve problems. But feminism cannot be flaunted until the structures in place that oppress women are torn down, and they will not be torn down by women who do not understand what it is to be a mother or wife, or what it means to have to do horrible things to themselves in order to survive. I see potential in you Jessica, but fighting with sophomoric antics and trivializing the suffering of those who cannot yet overcome the oppression they face, is not the place to start.


See also: Laura Barcella's Alternet interview with Valenti

Rebecca Traister's Salon interview with Valenti

An interesting thread from the latter that's worth following in the interview (and more from me on the topic of bare boobs very soon):

I want to delve into the tricky relationship between sex and feminism. You write a chapter called "Feminists Do It Better (and Other Sex Tips)." Can you talk about some of the conflicts surrounding so-called sex-positive feminism and its detractors?

There are conflicts [within feminism about how to talk about sex] because we're still all trying to process it, and to do so through a feminist lens. I'm still trying to process it. All I know is that the way [critics are] talking about it does not seem helpful to me; it's more about blaming young women and finger-wagging than it is about talking to them or listening to them and taking them seriously. Young women have enough people calling them stupid whores without feminists doing it too.

Do you think critics like Maureen Dowd or Ariel Levy, who have argued that an embrace of sex positivity has led young women to further objectify themselves through stripper-sex-worker-Girls-Gone-Wild excess, all in the name of purported sexual empowerment, are calling women stupid whores?

I don't think that's what they mean to say, but I think that's the message that gets across. If you tell someone that they're buying into sexism if they flash their boobs at Mardi Gras, you're telling them they're stupid and that people are making fun of them and that they're making bad decisions. That means they're getting it from all sides.

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