May 23, 2012

I felt a chill when I read it shortly before posting

Check this one out. Another chill. Read it all if you have time and not just my excerpt.



INTERSECTIONALITY IS NOT OPTIONAL

Flavia Dzodan, one of my favourite ladies ever, wrote an excellent piece a few months ago about the role of intersectionality in feminism, the critical importance of acknowledging that oppression rarely occurs upon a single axis. Many of the points she raised in that piece resonated with why I left feminism, because it felt like a movement that was no longer safe and productive for me, but intersectionality is not just something feminism needs, which is why it is something I still care about, even though I don’t identify with the movement. Intersectionality should be a part of all anti-oppression work, because it is core to discussing, and combating, oppression.

These systems are all connected. There are connections between racism and ableism, for example. These things interact with and play off each other. Identities cannot be neatly segmented into little pieces that can be individually addressed, because they interlock with each other. People, living beings, cannot be chopped apart for a movement. And movements that refuse to acknowledge their own complicity with oppression will continue the same acts of oppression, will repeat the same crimes committed by those who went before.

Some of the roots of feminism lie, deeply, in ableism, classism, and racism. Access to birth control, a major cause for the early feminist movement, a cause women fought very, very hard for, was closely tied with eugenics. You cannot talk about the history of the reproductive rights movement without addressing eugenics, without acknowledging the role that racist and ableist rhetoric played in early conversations about reproductive rights. Arguments for birth control included the firm conviction that it would rid the world of poor people, people of colour, and cripples, that it would reduce reproduction by ‘animals’ and the ‘feebleminded.’ These arguments laid the groundwork for experiments on these communities, like women in Puerto Rico who suffered for the sake of the Pill, and disabled women who were sterilised in institutions.

This is history. It’s fact. This information is readily available. And it plays directly into ongoing issues in conversations about reproductive rights, like the idea of the ‘justified abortion’ for a ‘severely disabled’ fetus, like the fact that many conversations about the growing global population include ‘population control’ as a buzzword, a buzzword with serious racial implications, like the fact that numerous states still run programs that sponsor sterilisation for low income women. This isn’t history; these are things that are happening right now.

...

http://meloukhia.net/2011/12/intersectionality_is_not_optional.html

May 23, 2012

This made me very sad: "WHY I’M LEAVING FEMINISM"

It made me sad because, well you all know just as well why.


WHY I’M LEAVING FEMINISM

8 March, 2011 – 10:08 am
By s.e. smith
Posted in social justice, Tagged ableism, classism, oppression, racism, social justice, transphobia


I spent a long time refusing to identify as a feminist. I repeated the arguments I’d absorbed from the culture around me about what feminism was, a movement gone ‘too far’ led by a crew of hysterical hairy-legged harridans. But I still believed that women didn’t have equality, that we needed to fight for the rights of all members of society to have an equal and fair chance, and I started finding out what feminists thought feminism was all about and I started calling myself one too. After all, who wouldn’t want to be part of a movement that thinks, on a fundamental level, that women are people?

As I entered the feminist movement, I started finding out more about what the mainstream elements of feminism were really about. A movement led by people from a very specific demographic, primarily concerned with the interests of that demographic. A movement that can and would do anything to advance itself, even over the backs of other women. A movement that does so routinely, casually, and evidently without any regrets. An academic industrial complex, as Jessica Yee puts it.

One of the rotating taglines on this site used to read ‘(everything) is a feminist issue’ because I used to believe that, and I thought other feminists did too. ‘This is not our fight,’ they tell me, when I try to integrate class, race, gender, disability, religion, national origins, environmental degradation, into the feminist movement. ‘Your issues,’ they tell me, ‘are not important right now but we will get to them eventually.’ The feminists who want to work in solidarity with us are too few in number, are unable to push back against the tide.

The feminist movement does not believe I am a human being. It dehumanises me. It uses my body and my lived experiences for its own ends and throws me away when it’s done. I am something disposable; I am the sacrificial planking on the hull of the feminist movement. It took me a long time to learn that I was being left out for the sea worms to eat, not actually playing an integral role in the movement, to learn that, fundamentally, many people believed that ‘my issues’ were not feminist.

My ‘issues’ being things like the rape of people in institutions, the fact that the average transgender person can expect to live for 23 years, forcible institutionalisation of people whom society doesn’t want to look at, ridiculously high domestic violence and sexual assault rates for transgender people and people with disabilities. The widening pay gap between white women and women of colour, the fact that the median net worth for Black women is $5. The fact that fat patients die without treatment due to fat hatred in the medical community. The fact that industrial pollution disproportionately impacts communities of colour, that class mobility is at an all time low, that the rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer, that protections for worker safety are steadily being eroded, that unions are under attack in the United States.

...

http://meloukhia.net/2011/03/why_im_leaving_feminism.html



A little bit about the author

My focus as an essayist, journalist, and activist is on social issues, with credits in publications like The Guardian, Bitch Magazine, AlterNet, Jezebel, Longshot Magazine, Global Comment, xoJane, Truthout, and Reproductive Health Reality Check. A cofounder of FWD/Forward: Feminists with disabilities for a way forward, I continue to contribute to feminist discussion at Tiger Beatdown and am a member of the Guardian Comment Network. Additionally, I maintain a personal website, this ain’t livin’, with regular posts on a spectrum of topics from Chinese-American history to environmental justice.

I'd really like to invite her here. What do you think?

Her website is my new favorite. It's rich and profound.

May 22, 2012

Did anyone make it to this or know more about it? Women Occupying Wall Street

Women Occupying Wall Street: Well, a Meet-Up on the West Village



The Women’s Caucus of Occupy Wall Street is hosting its first big gathering tonight in Washington Square Park (in NYC’s Greenwich Village). Here‘s the announcement:

The First Feminist General Assembly is Thursday, May 17 at 6:30 in Washington Square Park.

Yes, it’s a meeting—but not just any meeting. The invitation list ranges from SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Center to the Sex Workers Outreach Project, from the Granny Peace Brigade to Hollaback, a group of 20-somethings using cell phone cameras to broadcast the faces of street harassers. The conversation will be personal as well as political.

It’s as if the Suffragists were getting together with the Sixties reproductive rights activists. And feminist drummers. And men (OWS’s Men’s Circle) doing the childcare.

Gender justice is crucial to economic justice, say the organizers. No society is truly democratic without sexual and gender-identity freedom. The Recession and government cutbacks are hurting women and kids most. And all over the world economic and social progress depend on individuals’ control over their own reproductive lives and on freedom from gendered violence. Feminism opposes domination, by anyone of anyone.

More info here and on Facebook.

-Bridget Crawford

http://www.feministlawprofessors.com/2012/05/women-occupying-wall-street-meet-west-village/
http://occupywallst.org/article/today-women-occupying-wall-street-reclaim-feminism/

There are some large, very nice pictures on the facebook link.


Here's an article

The article points out that this wasn't the first feminist GA in Occupy history (activists in LA, DC and elsewhere have had women or feminist-centered GAs) it was the first in New York.


Their twitter is @WOWSNYC

May 22, 2012

Soujourner Truth was the original Third Wave Feminist

(cross-posted from Meta

I posted this as part of a Meta discussion about the 2nd and 3rd wave because I don't see the waves as chronological phases. I see them as having always overlapped and that even at the beginning of the Suffragette movement, there were plenty of 3rd Wavers and Lipstick Feminists.

It's been posted in the Feminist Group and the Feminist and Diversity Group. Now that I've joined this group, please forgive me for crossposting this a 4th time if you've already seen it. And please forgive me that it's a little clumsy and not tailored for this group. It came up in Meta after all.

If you need a quick rundown on the three feminist waves,

"The wave terminology is shorthand for different eras with different focuses" (Gormy Cuss)

1st wave feminism: voting rights, property rights, birth control (that existed at the time - condoms or sponges and, just as important, education about sexuality and how to prevent conception.)
2nd wave feminism: sexual freedom, legislative work to change sexist law, integration into the workplace, equal funding, integration into the political arena
3rd wave feminism: sexual freedom, inclusion of gendered females, diversity, inclusion of women of color and women from other cultures - plus the issues surrounding both 1st and 2nd wave feminism.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/124096792#post231)

I see her that way because in gender and race issues throughout the history of Feminism the relationship between feminists and civil rights activists, progressive movements was very uneasy and non-Whites felt that the main Feminist groups tolerated the most insidious kinds of chauvinism, patriarchy and bigotry.

"So, too, our histories with feminism. It is because white women inherently kept gatekeeping the right to determine the forms and agenda of feminist movement building that Alice Walker felt so compelled to create womanism, that Barbara Smith and the members of Combahee had to articulate what Black feminism looked like, that Fran Beale and the members of the TWWA had to articulate what a third world feminism looked like, that Gloria Anzaldua had to articulate what a Chicana feminism looked like."

http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/i-saw-the-sign-but-did-we-really-need-a-sign-slutwalk-and-racism/

Suggested reading for anyone interested in this

1. Michelle Wallace: "Anger in Isolation: A Black Feminist's Search for Sisterhood,"
2. Margaret Simons: "Racism and Feminism: A Schism in the Sisterhood"
3. "Vol. 9.1 - A History of Black Feminism in the U.S." http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v9/9.01/6blackf.html
4. Audre Lorde: "I am your sister"
5. Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke: "Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches"
6. Anything by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Silke Roth, Bell Hooks and Kimberly Springer who wrote about the racism within the predominately White Feminist movement

and it's still going on, to this day. The transphobia, so viciously expressed by some Feminists, stems from the same roots. So does the demand that you only have allegiance to Feminism and no other -isms.

This is just one current example and write up about the racism still prevalent: "White Privilege Diary Series #1 - White Feminist Privilege in Organizations"

Back to Soujourner. I read her short speech "Ain't I A Woman" as a slap in the face to the racists, especially the racist male and female supporters of Feminism who didn't want her to speak, even to the more kind-hearted but privileged ones who wanted to keep race issues out of the picture.

She was accused of being a man and bared her breasts to prove she wasn't, saying "Ain't I A Woman". Shortly afterwards she gave her famous speech off the top of her head.

The incident at Inez Milholland's grave was another ugly show, among many. It looks to me like the third wave, fighting for inclusiveness and equal rights for everyone, was there from the beginning and gained strength as people's attitudes evolved.


Here's an amazing book on the subject



http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250792.Ain_t_I_a_Woman

May 22, 2012

Soujourner Truth, the original Third Waver

(cross-posted from Meta

I posted this as part of a Meta discussion about the 2nd and 3rd wave because I don't see the waves as chronological phases. I see them as having always overlapped and that even at the beginning of the Suffragette movement, there were plenty of 3rd Wavers and Lipstick Feminists.)

I see her that way because in gender and race issues throughout the history of Feminism the relationship between feminists and civil rights activists, progressive movements was very uneasy and non-Whites felt that the main Feminist groups tolerated the most insidious kinds of chauvinism, patriarchy and bigotry.

"So, too, our histories with feminism. It is because white women inherently kept gatekeeping the right to determine the forms and agenda of feminist movement building that Alice Walker felt so compelled to create womanism, that Barbara Smith and the members of Combahee had to articulate what Black feminism looked like, that Fran Beale and the members of the TWWA had to articulate what a third world feminism looked like, that Gloria Anzaldua had to articulate what a Chicana feminism looked like."

http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/i-saw-the-sign-but-did-we-really-need-a-sign-slutwalk-and-racism/


Suggested reading for anyone interested in this

1. Michelle Wallace: "Anger in Isolation: A Black Feminist's Search for Sisterhood,"
2. Margaret Simons: "Racism and Feminism: A Schism in the Sisterhood"
3. "Vol. 9.1 - A History of Black Feminism in the U.S." http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v9/9.01/6blackf.html
4. Audre Lorde: "I am your sister"
5. Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke: "Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches"
6. Anything by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Silke Roth, Bell Hooks and Kimberly Springer who wrote about the racism within the predominately White Feminist movement

and it's still going on, to this day. The transphobia, so viciously expressed by some Feminists, stems from the same roots. So does the demand that you only have allegiance to Feminism and no other -isms.

This is just one current example and write up about the racism still prevalent: "White Privilege Diary Series #1 - White Feminist Privilege in Organizations"

Back to Soujourner. I read her short speech "Ain't I A Woman" as a slap in the face to the racists, especially the racist male and female supporters of Feminism who didn't want her to speak, even to the more kind-hearted but privileged ones who wanted to keep race issues out of the picture.

She was accused of being a man and bared her breasts to prove she wasn't, saying "Ain't I A Woman". Shortly afterwards she gave her famous speech off the top of her head.

The incident at Inez Milholland's grave was another ugly show, among many. It looks to me like the third wave was there from the beginning and gained strength as people's attitudes evolved.


Here's an amazing book on the subject



http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250792.Ain_t_I_a_Woman

May 22, 2012

Trans* rights in the United States. See a problem here? A shocking chart

Can't we even guarantee BASIC human rights? In 2012?


Editting to thank William because it looks like we'll get there! http://www.democraticunderground.com/113713732

May 22, 2012

Soujourner Truth was the original Third Waver

(cross-posted from Meta

I posted this as part of a Meta discussion about the 2nd and 3rd wave because I don't see the waves as chronological phases. I see them as having always overlapped and that even at the beginning of the Suffragette movement, there were plenty of 3rd Wavers and Lipstick Feminists.)

I see her that way because in gender and race issues throughout the history of Feminism the relationship between feminists and civil rights activists, progressive movements was very uneasy and non-Whites felt that the main Feminist groups tolerated the most insidious kinds of chauvinism, patriarchy and bigotry.

"So, too, our histories with feminism. It is because white women inherently kept gatekeeping the right to determine the forms and agenda of feminist movement building that Alice Walker felt so compelled to create womanism, that Barbara Smith and the members of Combahee had to articulate what Black feminism looked like, that Fran Beale and the members of the TWWA had to articulate what a third world feminism looked like, that Gloria Anzaldua had to articulate what a Chicana feminism looked like."

http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/i-saw-the-sign-but-did-we-really-need-a-sign-slutwalk-and-racism/


Suggested reading for anyone interested in this

1. Michelle Wallace: "Anger in Isolation: A Black Feminist's Search for Sisterhood,"
2. Margaret Simons: "Racism and Feminism: A Schism in the Sisterhood"
3. "Vol. 9.1 - A History of Black Feminism in the U.S." http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v9/9.01/6blackf.html
4. Audre Lorde: "I am your sister"
5. Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke: "Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches"
6. Anything by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Silke Roth, Bell Hooks and Kimberly Springer who wrote about the racism within the predominately White Feminist movement

and it's still going on, to this day. The transphobia, so viciously expressed by some Feminists, stems from the same roots. So does the demand that you only have allegiance to Feminism and no other -isms.

This is just one current example and write up about the racism still prevalent: "White Privilege Diary Series #1 - White Feminist Privilege in Organizations"

Back to Soujourner. I read her short speech "Ain't I A Woman" as a slap in the face to the racists, especially the racist male and female supporters of Feminism who didn't want her to speak, even to the more kind-hearted but privileged ones who wanted to keep race issues out of the picture.

She was accused of being a man and bared her breasts to prove she wasn't, saying "Ain't I A Woman". Shortly afterwards she gave her famous speech off the top of her head.

The incident at Inez Milholland's grave was another ugly show, among many. It looks to me like the third wave was there from the beginning and gained strength as people's attitudes evolved.


Here's an amazing book on the subject



http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250792.Ain_t_I_a_Woman

May 22, 2012

I see her that way because in gender and race issues throughout the history of Feminism

the relationship between feminists and civil rights activists, progressive movements was very uneasy and non-Whites felt that the main Feminist groups tolerated the most insidious kinds of chauvinism, patriarchy and bigotry.

"So, too, our histories with feminism. It is because white women inherently kept gatekeeping the right to determine the forms and agenda of feminist movement building that Alice Walker felt so compelled to create womanism, that Barbara Smith and the members of Combahee had to articulate what Black feminism looked like, that Fran Beale and the members of the TWWA had to articulate what a third world feminism looked like, that Gloria Anzaldua had to articulate what a Chicana feminism looked like."

http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/i-saw-the-sign-but-did-we-really-need-a-sign-slutwalk-and-racism/


Suggested reading for anyone interested in this

1. Michelle Wallace: "Anger in Isolation: A Black Feminist's Search for Sisterhood,"
2. Margaret Simons: "Racism and Feminism: A Schism in the Sisterhood"
3. "Vol. 9.1 - A History of Black Feminism in the U.S." http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v9/9.01/6blackf.html
4. Audre Lorde: "I am your sister"
5. Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke: "Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches"
6. Anything by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Silke Roth, Bell Hooks and Kimberly Springer who wrote about the racism within the predominately White Feminist movement

and it's still going on, to this day. The transphobia, so viciously expressed by some here, stems from the same roots. So does the demand that you only have allegiance to Feminism and no other -isms.

This is just one current example and write up about the racism still prevalent: "White Privilege Diary Series #1 - White Feminist Privilege in Organizations"

Back to Soujourner. I read her short speech "Ain't I A Woman" as a slap in the face to the racists, especially the racist male and female supporters of Feminism who didn't want her to speak, even to the more kind-hearted but privileged ones who wanted to keep race issues out of the picture.

She was accused of being a man and bared her breasts to prove she wasn't, saying "Ain't I A Woman". Shortly afterwards she gave her famous speech off the top of her head.

The incident at Inez Milholland's grave was another ugly show, among many. It looks to me like the third wave was there from the beginning and gained strength as people's attitudes evolved.


Here's an amazing book on the subject



http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250792.Ain_t_I_a_Woman


I don't mean to sound so pedantic and apologize because you know about these things already. You just got me on a roll. Steal away sister. Steal it with all my love.

May 22, 2012

You watched it?

I'm so delighted! Sunera Thobani cuts to the heart of the matter.

I'd go back to school just to listen to her

Here's another very good one

For the rest of your post, *what you said*. I'm in total agreement.

This doesn't neatly fit in this post but I'm throwing it in since I have it up on my screen right now while listening to Dr. Janet Conway’s lecture, “Is the Global Justice Movement Colonial? A Troubling Tale of Indigenous Peoples at the World Social Forum” on youtube.

“Are we better off working separately from all Western-based movements?” asked Waziyatawin, one of three UVic professors who were on stage with Conway to respond to her lecture, prior to the floor being opened for questions. “Show me a Western culture that has lived on a land base for thousands of years without destroying it and I might believe that that culture would have something positive to say about offering an anti-colonial model. I have yet to see that. I think that is indicative of the hubris of Western peoples to believe that the cultures that created imperialism, colonialism, globalization will also provide the direction for a world-wide anti-globalization movement.”

http://www.martlet.ca/martlet/article/colonization-knowledge-power-impedes-social-justic/

May 22, 2012

I'm sure some people will find a way

but in the long run, they don't matter. What matters is sisters like you standing up and making it clear a small but very loud contingent speaks only for themselves, not for the general sisterhood.

The Feminist movement is on focusing power/empowerment of women worldwide and on issues like poverty, racism, colonization, and the rights of indigenous peoples, children and animals. Top Feminists are focusing on critical race Feminism right now and developing a vocabulary that's relevant to our time, and global creating solid alliances so we can continue the fight globally but not at DU. At DU all the energy is sucked into focusing on imaginary word lists and witchhunts while racism and colonization, the worst exploiters of our sisters, are alive and well.

I'm convinced Feminism is key to a successful hegemonic global social justice movement that can fight the deeply entrenched structural barriers that prevent women around the world from full participation in society. It's reassuring to see that so many people understand that and are focusing on the same fight, even those who don't call themselves Feminists.

For anyone who doesn't know, the critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. Feminists have been at the forefront of that movement since it started in the mid 70s. The movement takes its inspiration from fighters like Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Power and Chicano movements of the sixties and early seventies. You can read more about it here http://www.odec.umd.edu/CD/RACE/CRT.PDF

This is long but for anyone interested in an important issue in 21st century Feminism, it's worth the time. The word list doesn't come up a single time.

Sunera Thobani is assistant professor at the Centre for Research in Women’s Studies and Gender Relations at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on globalization, nation-building, citizenship, migration and race and gender relations.
Dr. Thobani was the first woman of colour to serve as president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), Canada’s largest feminist organization. Her tenure there was committed to making the politics of anti-racism central to the woman’s movement.

I thank you again for your fabulous posts.