Conversion
May. 2nd, 2008 11:47 amI think I might be a feminist after all.
I've probably been headed in this direction for a while now. My sporadic habit of delving into feminist writing seems to have developed into an ongoing interest, and I've been finding myself more and more taking feminist lines in discussions I've been involved in. At the same time, I've been getting increasingly angry about sexual violence in various forms. I am not completely sure that feminism is the optimal way to address this problem, but there's not much else available in the way of movements organized around the issue, and it's important enough that I feel I have to do something. I can't just dismiss it as somebody else's issue when so many women's lives are constrained by the fear of rape, and when that fear has proved justified for so many of my friends.
There are undoubtedly some people who define themselves as feminists who are not at all nice or even rational people, but I've become increasingly aware of feminists I strongly admire. (Not just people I admire who happen to be feminists, but people I admire because of the way they live as feminists specfically.) It's never a good idea to judge an ideology by its worst adherents! Several people on my flist have influenced me in this direction, but![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redbird in particular has inspired me. Partly, in fact, by not being terribly evangelistic about feminism, but just being an example of someone who is compassionate and thoughtful and makes sensible and enlightening comments from a feminist perspective.
The immediate cause for making this decision now is to do with the discussion around and reaction to the incredibly stupid Open Source Boob thingy. I found myself following links and reading posts about it almost compulsively, and some of it was really amazing and insightful, but some of it was incredibly, crushingly depressing. I'm not going to talk about it much because really absolutely everything original that could possibly said has already been chewed over about five hundred times. But the point is I was feeling more and more strongly that I want to be on the side of the people who are making insightful and compassionate analyses all over the place, and not on the side of the people who keep coming out with crass and depressing comments.
( further wibbling )
Recanting a long-held opinion is a bit painful, isn't it? Last time I went through a process like this was in my early teens, when I realized that caring about the long term environmental effects of my lifestyle was actually morally important, and not just some stupid trendy bandwagon. It's a big part of my self-image that I am capable of changing my mind if I'm convinced by better evidence or arguments, and that allows me to overcome the cognitive dissonance and just general embarrassment of admitting, actually, I was wrong.
I've probably been headed in this direction for a while now. My sporadic habit of delving into feminist writing seems to have developed into an ongoing interest, and I've been finding myself more and more taking feminist lines in discussions I've been involved in. At the same time, I've been getting increasingly angry about sexual violence in various forms. I am not completely sure that feminism is the optimal way to address this problem, but there's not much else available in the way of movements organized around the issue, and it's important enough that I feel I have to do something. I can't just dismiss it as somebody else's issue when so many women's lives are constrained by the fear of rape, and when that fear has proved justified for so many of my friends.
There are undoubtedly some people who define themselves as feminists who are not at all nice or even rational people, but I've become increasingly aware of feminists I strongly admire. (Not just people I admire who happen to be feminists, but people I admire because of the way they live as feminists specfically.) It's never a good idea to judge an ideology by its worst adherents! Several people on my flist have influenced me in this direction, but
redbird in particular has inspired me. Partly, in fact, by not being terribly evangelistic about feminism, but just being an example of someone who is compassionate and thoughtful and makes sensible and enlightening comments from a feminist perspective.The immediate cause for making this decision now is to do with the discussion around and reaction to the incredibly stupid Open Source Boob thingy. I found myself following links and reading posts about it almost compulsively, and some of it was really amazing and insightful, but some of it was incredibly, crushingly depressing. I'm not going to talk about it much because really absolutely everything original that could possibly said has already been chewed over about five hundred times. But the point is I was feeling more and more strongly that I want to be on the side of the people who are making insightful and compassionate analyses all over the place, and not on the side of the people who keep coming out with crass and depressing comments.
( further wibbling )
Recanting a long-held opinion is a bit painful, isn't it? Last time I went through a process like this was in my early teens, when I realized that caring about the long term environmental effects of my lifestyle was actually morally important, and not just some stupid trendy bandwagon. It's a big part of my self-image that I am capable of changing my mind if I'm convinced by better evidence or arguments, and that allows me to overcome the cognitive dissonance and just general embarrassment of admitting, actually, I was wrong.
