Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 8:54 pm Post subject: Dicker, pgs 103-118
It seems like the Third Wave of Feminism was about much more than fighting for equality amongst women and men. LGBTQ and abortion activists certainly were (and continue to be) active in this wave.
I'm used to learning about history that happened a long time ago. In middle school, USO, and past history classes, I have been taught about events in history that have been recorded a long time ago. I found it really remarkable to read about history in the United States from 20-30 years ago. It was strange to think about how much progress our country has made and also to think about how much more work we have to do.
It seemed, (at least from the previous pages in the Dicker), that the dissent methods that were used during the Third Wave were more intense and life-threatening than those used in the previous two waves. "By the 1990s antiabortion activists ratched up their violence and even resorted to murder: Dr. David Gunn, an abortion provider in Florida, was shot in 1993; Gunn's successor, Dr. John Britton, and his volunteer escort, James Barrett, were killed the following year, as were staff members at two Massachusetts abortion clinics" (Dicker, 106).
Obviously, millions of people have been murdered before the 90's, but these more violent consequences seemed to be more common in the third wave than the other two. maybe that's just my opinion.
I thought it was really fascinating to read that the "media declared that women were no longer interested in feminism" (Dicker, 107). Maybe this was a way of turning women and men who were still fighting for equal gender opportunities away. If the rest of the country had "given up on the issue," the media would trick those still struggling to give up, too.
My question: (I think we touched upon this before but after doing this reading,):
What is the difference between feminism and womanism?
And another question is:
On page 108, Paula Kamen's interviewees came up with a list of words that they thought of when they heard the word "feminist." What would your list look like? Would it differ from a list of words you associate with the word "womanism"?
Like Heather, I found it much more interesting and thought-provoking to read about things that occurred just shortly before my own birth. But anyway, I'm pretty sure third wave feminism is my favorite wave...
Third wave feminists were presented with an even larger "monster" to fight- now there existed people and organizations that were fighting directly against them and working to prevent any progress the feminism movement could make, as well as eliminate the accomplishments it already had made. People were now interested in promoting family values defined as "the traditional patriarchal family headed by a breadwinning father and nurtured by a domestic mother- exactly what feminists for so long fought against. It became harder and harder for feminists to make progress, as the number of people against them increased; the feminism movement in way was dying, and many women became less involved- "the media declared that women were no longer interested in feminism." (Dicker, 187)
Regardless, some women did not give up and continued to fight. The feminism movement expanded its targets, combining with other causes, and introducing new goals. To answer Heather's question, I think this is when the term "womanist" came about. Women began fighting for not just women's rights, but also became more focused on fighting for the rights of homosexuals, and people of color (a feminist is someone who was more just focused on the rights of women).
I liked this wave, because it is when focus was taken off of white women specifically, and other issues just as, and more important were addressed. The movement gained the support of and interested so many different people and just sort of completely "blew up".
My question: Do you think the focusing on the rights of homosexuals and women of color as well, will prove to ultimately strengthen or hurt the movement?
To respond to Asha's question: Do you think the focusing on the rights of homosexuals and women of color as well, will prove to ultimately strengthen or hurt the movement?
I think that it can really only strengthen the movement, because I feel that out of all the movements the third wave had/has the most potential to include and incorporate Women of Color (finally!!) like never before. I also feel that it really speaks to how we've been discussing that you can't separate the different parts of your identity, for instance a black lesbian woman is not all of those things separately but all of them at once. I feel like the Third Wave is the one that most embraces that all these intersections of oppression affect women at the same time. In addition, I feel like the women's movement has more allies by alienating less other groups.
This reading was super interesting. I was SOOOOO angry when Cosmo claimed that straight women had a really minimal risk of getting HIV even if their male partner was already infected. like WTF COSMO YOU PROBABLY GAVE WOMEN AIDS. ughhhhh I mean I never thought of Cosmo as promoting women (quite the opposite) but that was just sooooo annoying and harmful to women)
MY QUESTION: What do you think Elle Magazine meant when they said "All those ideals that were once held as absolute truths-sexual liberation, the women's movement, true equality-have been debunked or debased"?(pg.108)
[I truly didn't understand what they were trying to say..could anyone else figure that out? Are they saying the women's movement itself didn't exist?]
I'm not really clear on that part either Olivia... My best guess would be that it was awkwardly integrated by Dicker into this paragraph, and originally was saying that the need to fight for these things has gone away. It seems like a silly thing to say though... Debunked means to 'expose the falseness of (a myth, idea, or belief).' You can't really prove historical FACTS and EVENTS as false. So I guess I'm saying I don't really understand it either. Sorry.
I found the list of associations with the word feminist (on page 108) that Heather brought up really interesting. These associations are still very alive today... When someone asked me what book I was reading and I responded a book about feminism they said "uh oh... don't take what it says too seriously. It's probably mostly lies." I know for a fact this person isn't sexist at all, but the connotations with the word 'feminism,' or 'feminist,' produced that negative reaction.
Did people understand the connection between the environment and feminism discussed on pages 114 to 115? That seemed like a bit of a stretch to me...
Hey everybody...so I would have been second to post after Heather, but my computer deleted my posts twice, so I'm just going to sum up what my earlier post would have said and add my responses to what people have said since. Steph...right on with the confusion about ecofeminism...it just didn't "jive" for me. I guess there's some connection between women and the earth (Mother Earth, Mother Nature, reproductive roles, etc.) but the connection just doesn't seem strong enough to support an entire political movement.
Heather's question: To me, womanism is more universal and spiritual than feminism, and less tangible than feminism, which has a more concrete agenda of accomplishments. I realize that this is a far cry from Alice Walker's definition of feminism.
Heather's other question: My list of things I associate with feminism is: makeup, magazines, chivalry, abortion, media, suffrage, appearance, stereotypes, gender, housewife...the end. So, this list is really pop-culture based, which I find interesting because my list must have some bearing on how I define feminism.
So what I found most interesting about this reading was the part about sex wars on pgs. 106-107. The film Snuff which..."eroticized the torture and dismemberment of women" was a horrifying nod to what Heather said about the women's movement becoming increasingly more violent. In addition, I think that the women's movement has also grown more and more sexualized. When you think about it, suffragists weren't exactly protesting against Miss America, now were they? Apart from not knowing that pornography was a feminist issue in the third wave, I just found it to be an interesting dilemma. One group said "pornography is the theory: rape is the practice." Do you think this is true? Unfortunately, I think it's hard to know. While porn can certainly encourage sexual violence, it also has the potential to prevent: after all, if the purpose of porn is to satisfy human desires, than couldn't it serve as a risk-free outlet for vicariously experiencing violent/dangerous sex? But, again, we find another contradiction: in order for porn to exist, people have to actually engage in a type of sex that demeans or endangers women and that enforces gender stereotypes. While I may not like porn as an individual, how can I outlaw porn/prevent ppl from watching it? You can't just make a blanket statement saying that all men who watch porn become rapists, you know? Anyway, the end result is that I am unsure of my feelings about how feminism responded to porn in pop culture.
My question: Why are women consistently more sexualized than men by the popular media? Does it have to do with women's roles as mother's/wives, their connection to reproduction? Is it because men control the media? Is their another reason?
Like the others before me, I found it interesting to read about the third wave, because it gave me a different perspective when I realized that these events happened close to/during our lifetimes. Finally, the quote about abortion-related murders that Heather put in her post also struck me, because it said that two of the murders happened right here in Mass, and in 1994, no less! It was mind-boggling to me to think that, when we were all one or two, there was still violence happened related to abortion. This just showed me that change is precarious...my always take things for granted, when in reality, the peace that we know and expect has been relatively short-lived.
Answering Olivia's question: I don't really know what that comment by Elle magazine means, but here's my guess. I think it means that feminism is a thing of the past, and by now all women realize that feminism was a pointless outburst of angry women over something that didn't really matter. They're kind of saying that, recently, it has come to light that feminism is a myth. I think.
I never knew that the issue of abortion became so dangerous, that just wasn’t discussed or at least it was just overlooked by me. Doctors got murdered because they were performing illegal abortions for women who wanted/needed one/whatever the case was just depressing.
Another thing that really interesting was about Susan, and why she though feminism didn’t exist anymore. Why did she think that? I wish the book went into more details on what she thought. I really liked the part about what people normally thought of when they heard the word feminist. It says on page 108 that when hear of the word feminist they think of, “bra-burning, hairy-legged, amazon, castrating, militant-almost-anti-feminine, communist, Marxist, separatist, female skinheads, female supremacists, he-woman type, bunch-a-lesbians.”
But to answer Hannah’s question I think that women are more sexualizes than men because of their roles in society. It was like society used the media to show women what they should look like and their place in society. I think using women gets a point out there, like when the Guerilla Girls used a woman wearing a gorilla mask for their poster. Message just is clear.
Question: How did the Women’s Movement and Gay Movement work together? I always wondered that….
Helen I’m going to have to dodge your question. I really have no idea how the two groups worked together. I would like to go back to the question Hannah posed. It said “Why are women consistently more sexualized than men by the popular media? Does it have to do with women's roles as mother's/wives, their connection to reproduction? Is it because men control the media? Is there another reason?” I think the second to last part of that question went in the direction of answering it. It seemed like the media was run by mostly men making it more likely to be aimed at men. There were many instances where feminist groups fought this. Like previously talked about the Gorilla girls started out fight just this concept. The idea that women were solely being portrayed in a sexual nature in art and the media was their main focus.
I also thought it was interesting how the 3rd wave mimicked a lot of the growth of the previous two feminist waves. The reading talked about how feminist split up into many small groups in 3rd wave feminism making each of the issues they were addressing seem minute. This is what happened in each of the last waves directly before a large encompassing group formed like NOW or NWSA. I’m not sure if this is just a maturing process that has to happen in order for feminist supporters to become organized or if it is just allowing history to repeat itself. Do you guys have any thoughts on this?
The whole concept of EMILY also made me interested. Now that women were entering and taking part in higher paying jobs the could support the candidates that they liked by donating money. I just thought this was interesting, but don’t have much to say about it.
The part that talked about how younger girls (I took this to mean girls in college or late years of high school) thought of femininity and how they reacted to the word struck me as odd. I know that the word has gotten a kind of negative meaning, but I was still surprised at what the girls associated with it. I thought it was good how the reading segwayed into feminism actually not being over and the idea that black women were keeping it going through literature.
The whole concept of the Hyde Amendment struck me as not accomplishing anything. Even if the argument was made that there should not be any abortions the Amendment still didn’t sole anything. All it did was make it so poorer women couldn’t get abortions. It just struck me as being aggressive and juvenile.
I didn’t really understand the part about the New Right. How did they get their word out?
Well, I think we touched on it in class, both groups had things in common, or at least a level of sympathy for one another. The lack of rights given to both groups, the oppression both gay men, and women were feeling was very similar. It's hard to compare levels of oppression, well impossible, but many groups experiencing similar feelings of oppression, from the same oppressor, join together with the common goal of equality. Gay men were supportive of women's rights in many areas, with the understanding of the oppression women were feeling.
Dicker writes about liberal feminists, so what was the other type of femenist? non liberal?
In response to Laurel's question: What other kind of feminists besides "liberal" are there?
I'm pretty sure it was Olivia Mac today in class, (May have been someone else..sorry) who posed the question, "Could Schaffley be considered a feminist by dint of the fact she genuinely believed her arguments were what was best for women?"
Theres really no way to paint Shaffleys (HORRIBLE) opinions as in any way liberal. They are highly conservative and reflective of most male arguments. For the most part, I think the Dicker has made it very clear that feminism (for all the discrepancies in definitions among individuals/groups) is based around the idea that men and women should be equal. I interpret Shaffley's arguments that, if you had to ask her if men were better, equal, or beneath women, she would say beneath. Afterall, she goes through great lengths to illustrate how high up women are on a pedestal as well as how WOMEN were chosen to birth babies, not men. So in that sense, for women who think they are SUPERIOR to men, it could be argued as extreme feminism. Which, when paired with Shaffleys other opinions, is fascinating to believe the idea of an extreme femenist conservative.
Although that whole argument is probably a moot point only because of what the popular association with the term "feminist" is, I think Shaffley would consider being called one the equivalent of being slapped in the face.
in terms of the gay movement/feminist movement,
I would have to agree with Laurel. Plus the lesbian separatist movement was a huge part of feminism- the woman I interviewed said that if you said you were a feminist in the seventies, people would assume you were a lesbian.
But we read about that a bunch too- remember the radicalesbians?
HERES A PERFECT QUOTE TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION:
"women's liberation and gay liberation were both 'struggling towards a common goal' of not being defined by sex or sexual orientation."
pg. 94
That seems vaguely reminiscent of the more radical definition of feminism that involves breaking down all existing labels and hierarchies.
Q:
What do people think of the Guerilla Girls? How successful a medium is art in the world of activism?
I was really interested in the concept (not a reality, but a notion recieved by the public) of women no longer being interested in the feminist movement during the 1990's. I found this really interesting because of the way in which it was worded in the dicker. "[N]ot one woman I spoke to believes that women recieve equal pay for equal or comparable work, but it does not occur to most of them to use the power of the feminist movement to improve their position" (Dicker, 107-108).
The wording of this quote would insinuate that there was a lack of interest amongst women in America to change their roles, when in reality it wasn't a lack of interest, but possibly a lack of knowledge. The same way that programs on abortion were becoming scarce amongst the cirriculum of obstetritionists and gynecologists and the knowledge of abortion in America as a whole began to deterriorate, womens involvement and knowledge of the feminist movement began to disappear as well. OK, that's all for now
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