Comments on: In which I betray my gender for common sense http://blog.meaplet.com/2008/06/06/in-which-i-betray-my-gender-for-common-sense/ Just another WordPress site Sun, 12 Jun 2011 23:46:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Marjorie http://blog.meaplet.com/2008/06/06/in-which-i-betray-my-gender-for-common-sense/#comment-24 Marjorie Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:10:11 +0000 http://meaplet.wordpress.com/?p=34#comment-24 I don't have much patience for those expressions of feminism that consist of obscuring what progress has been made in order to emphasize the problems that exist. Not that every discussion of women has to start with "thank goodness we can wear pants and vote and retain property when married and get professional educations," but a serious discussion of women in public life really ought to take the success stories into account. There are success stories because feminism works, you'd think organizations like NOW would want to acknowledge that. The strain of criticism of this election that dismisses the strength of racism in order to play up sexism also drives me crazy. The discussion about feminism being only for white women was such a big part of the transition from second-wave to third-wave feminism, and now a bunch of the second-wavers seem to have forgotten all about it. The demographic issues were SO complicated and difficult to accurately pin down in this race that analyses like Gloria Steinem's (so many months ago) are just irritatingly reductive. ALSO, completely unrelated to this post, you know that Steampunk article in the NY Times you have in your bookmarks? Did it seem strange to you that it never mentioned clockwork? Or do I have a stilted sense of the importance of clockwork in the steampunk aesthetic? (You don't have to reply to all of this. Self, stop blabbering and go back to work.) I don’t have much patience for those expressions of feminism that consist of obscuring what progress has been made in order to emphasize the problems that exist. Not that every discussion of women has to start with “thank goodness we can wear pants and vote and retain property when married and get professional educations,” but a serious discussion of women in public life really ought to take the success stories into account. There are success stories because feminism works, you’d think organizations like NOW would want to acknowledge that.

The strain of criticism of this election that dismisses the strength of racism in order to play up sexism also drives me crazy. The discussion about feminism being only for white women was such a big part of the transition from second-wave to third-wave feminism, and now a bunch of the second-wavers seem to have forgotten all about it. The demographic issues were SO complicated and difficult to accurately pin down in this race that analyses like Gloria Steinem’s (so many months ago) are just irritatingly reductive.

ALSO, completely unrelated to this post, you know that Steampunk article in the NY Times you have in your bookmarks? Did it seem strange to you that it never mentioned clockwork? Or do I have a stilted sense of the importance of clockwork in the steampunk aesthetic?

(You don’t have to reply to all of this. Self, stop blabbering and go back to work.)

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