‘Feminism is not an extreme term,’ says Penny Wong

[sheshe2]

Wong took direct aim at the minister assisting the prime minister on women’s issues, Senator Michaelia Cash, who said she rejected the label feminist. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters/Corb

Penny Wong has appealed to conservatives and progressives to “own” the “f-word” – feminist – in the name of women’s freedom of choice and because equality of opportunity has not been achieved.

Wong took direct aim at Senator Michaelia Cash, the minister assisting the prime minister Tony Abbott on women’s issues, and who recently rejected the feminist label because, while she believed in gender equality, she considered feminism to be “a set of ideologies from many decades ago”.

“Rejecting the term ‘feminist’ is a political decision,” Wong said, in the Sydney lecture to commemorate the achievements of suffragette and feminist Jessie Street.

“It diminishes one of the most important social movements of the modern era. It’s a manoeuvre many on the political right engage in to delegitimise the values of feminism, to undermine policies aimed at achieving gender equality and to turn back the gains of the past.

“Feminism is not an extreme term – it is a mainstream movement that has transformed modern Australia for the better.

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/11/feminism-is-not-an-extreme-term-says-penny-wong?CMP=twt_gu

[chervilant]

1. I think it's a cycle...

The more the patriarchy (power over) is threatened, the more we feminists are attacked.