Interview with a Feminist

[Yerda]

ok .... Iv got a wall to build and some washing up .

which job do you want to do

be honest

I know my better half is much more useful when it comes to DIY. She's pretty handy.

 

[YmirGF]

ok .... Iv got a wall to build and some washing up .

which job do you want to do

be honest

I'd ask you to help with the dishes so that we could go build the wall.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

What needs to be done?

My to do list:

Girls education in areas that prohibit or discourage education for girls in favor of them being home caretakers, teen prostitution, etc.

**** cultural differences...female genital mutilation must stop. Today.

Further push for better investigation into trafficking of women and children from countries like China, Kenya, Syria, and others from Southeast Asia as well as Muslim-theocracies in the African west coast.

Better follow through in rape and sexual assault investigations, and heal relations with law enforcement precincts so that the flow of information can improve between rape crisis centers and investigators into the courts. The lack of trust is an obstacle.

Pay better attention to the obstacles created from intersectionality.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

seriously this is common for a man and woman family, the woman gets the easy jobs and the man gets the hard ones ......... I thinks its wise

i wish i was a lady

Posts like these show why IMO feminism remains relevant.

Last time as a public warning, stop trolling and derailing the thread and take your views elsewhere. This is not the thread for them.

 

[Ingledsva]

seriously this is common for a man and woman family, the woman gets the easy jobs and the man gets the hard ones ......... I thinks its wise

i wish i was a lady

Dude, you need to come into the new era.

Women do most of the same work as men these days.

And the jobs they aren't in, - are usually because of prejudice, and the belief that they are men's jobs, hence they don't get them when they apply.

One of my sisters owns a bar and restaurant, and the other is a welder millwright, in a lumber mill.

I hunt for our Deer and Moose, cut, chop, and stack wood, etc., as well as working.

*

 

[dust1n]

Hey Mystic, (prepare for palate cleanser)

As a feminist, what do you think is the desirable end goal in humanity and in individuals?

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Dude, you need to come into the new era.

Women do most of the same work as men these days.

And the jobs they aren't in, - are usually because of prejudice, and the belief that they are men's jobs, hence they don't get them when they apply.

One of my sisters owns a bar and restaurant, and the other is a welder millwright, in a lumber mill.

I hunt for our Deer and Moose, cut, chop, and stack wood, etc., as well as working.

*

I just got a little excited.

Oh and I am a business owner, but I also have off and on volunteered on a local farm where I shovel manure, build and repair fences, and report at 3am to kill and butcher animals for food.

I am also trained in hand to hand combat, firearms, and edge weapons.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Hey Mystic, (prepare for palate cleanser)

As a feminist, what do you think is the desirable end goal in humanity and in individuals?

I'm sorry. I don't understand the question. Can you rephrase?

 

[Ingledsva]

I just got a little excited.

Oh and I am a business owner, but I also have off and on volunteered on a local farm where I shovel manure, build and repair fences, and report at 3am to kill and butcher animals for food.

I am also trained in hand to hand combat, firearms, and edge weapons.

Ooooh! A Sister! I also have been trained to fight, and have used guns since childhood. I have a concealed Carry permit, which I trained for with the local Police Department. And I collect Swords, daggers, dirks, etc. They go great with the oriental furnishings, and dragons, that I love. LOL!

*

 

[dust1n]

I'm sorry. I don't understand the question. Can you rephrase?

Yea.

What should humanity as a whole be working towards?

And

What should individuals being working towards?

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Yea.

Thanks. These are deep, btw. Great questions!

What should humanity as a whole be working towards?

Remembering our humanity in the first place. We have a tendency to drop that in place of excess acquisition that comes with a greater cost.

And

What should individuals being working towards?

Balancing our skills in adaptation right alongside our skills in innovation. In other words, I personally alter the serenity prayer this way...that I accept the things I cannot change while changing the things I do not accept.

Thank you, feminism.

 

[dust1n]

Thanks. These are deep, btw. Great questions

Thanks. Investigative journalism taught me that great answers come with great questions.

Remembering our humanity in the first place. We have a tendency to drop that in place of excess acquisition that comes with a greater cost.

What does remembering our humanity entail?

Balancing our skills in adaptation right alongside our skills in innovation.

That I like.

 

[Ingledsva]

Thanks. These are deep, btw. Great questions!



Remembering our humanity in the first place. We have a tendency to drop that in place of excess acquisition that comes with a greater cost.



Balancing our skills in adaptation right alongside our skills in innovation. In other words, I personally alter the serenity prayer this way...that I accept the things I cannot change while changing the things I do not accept.

Thank you, feminism.

You should put that under your posts.

*

 

[Bunyip]

I think that the biggest issue with feminism is in keeping the younger generation aware that femenist issues still exist and are very important. Many young women seem to see femenism as something more relevant to the 60's than to them personally, but the equality the radicals of the 60's fought for is still yet to be fulfilled.
So my question is, do you think that feminism needs to be better understood by modern women? And how would you go about doing so?

 

[MysticSang'ha]

What does remembering our humanity entail?

There are varying ways to invoke empathy, whether it's through science or the humanities or art or service. I prefer a diversity of methods, though.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

I think that the biggest issue with feminism is in keeping the younger generation aware that femenist issues still exist and are very important. Many young women seem to see femenism as something more relevant to the 60's than to them personally, but the equality the radicals of the 60's fought for is still yet to be fulfilled.

Growing up in a household where I was reading Ms. Magazine right alongside "Where the Sidewalk Ends"...and that I knew who Gloria Steinem was right alongside knowing who Donna Summer was...there's a lot of what hadn't been accomplished. Including the Equal Rights Amendment. And yes, many young women are still unaware of the barriers created because of Phyllis Schlafly and her grassroots movement for the Moral Majority/Christian Right and it's establishment as an anti-feminist front.

So my question is, do you think that feminism needs to be better understood by modern women? And how would you go about doing so?

I think the internet allows for younger women a lot of information, but it has in many areas become a turf war. In one corner, we have Beyonce and Taylor Swift utilizing the word "feminist" as a label for themselves to send a message of strength, and in another corner we have Katy Perry and Kirsten Dunst utilizing the word "anti-feminist" as a label for themselves to send a message of strength.

The term itself in it's superficial form is considered polarizing. What many people are unaware of is how this has been true since it's inception hundreds of years ago (and yes, the term was coined well before American's suffragettes). It's a visceral reaction to the "fem" root in the word, implying a focus entirely on womanhood in a language that normalizes the gendered root word "man" to represent all of us. Either people prefer the status quo in our language and dislike "fem"-rooted descriptors, or people don't like the status quo and gravitate toward "fem"-rooted descriptors.

So, my answer to your first question is that I think feminism ought to be better understood by all of us. There is so much misinformation out there, so much conflating, that I think the scholarship and the activism against violence and brutality gets lost in the semantics of the word itself.

My method for better understanding: continued utilization of communication technology to educate and act through theory and praxis in a careful balance.

 

[Poeticus]

We get a really really bad rep in academia, some deserved because it is so embarrassingly middle class white female centered. But women's studies would do better if it would continue stepping aside and allowing womanism and queer studies offer more voices to what looks like a privileged White Woman Front.

Thank you for this concession, Mystic. Men and women around the world experience life differently. And I believe womanism, both in its initial stages as a reaction against White-centric feminism and in its current contexts in regards to females around the world utilizing their own socio-cultural perspectives to address inequality and misogyny around them as opposed to utilizing Anglophone perspectives, enables peoples of a multitude of backgrounds in highlighting the shortcomings of their societies through platforms and outlets that resonate best with their socio-cultural realities.

For example, the Indian city of Delhi has a horrid rape culture---so horrid, in fact, that I tremble at the idea of even visiting such a city. To address that culture of rape, many Delhites are utilizing Indian perspectives to call that culture out instead of solely using Western perspectives. This has enabled thousands of interested parties that wish to see change to work on levels or platforms that they can personally connect with, platforms that resonate best with how they, as a particular group of people, experience the world.

 

[BSM1]

Are you a true feminist? Have you, or would you, call Bill Clinton to task for his openly demeaning treatment of women as well as those that attacked Sarah Palin's gender instead of her politics?

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Are you a true feminist? Have you, or would you, call Bill Clinton to task for his openly demeaning treatment of women as well as those that attacked Sarah Palin's gender instead of her politics?

I despised the actions and decisions of Bill Clinton in office. DOMA was the icing on the cake, but the many sexual harassment lawsuits filed against him I didn't think were frivolous. They indicated IMO a hatred for women.

Oh and I blogged extensively back in 2008 about how Palin was "ditzified" in the press, and that her platform was what should have been central in the debate over why IMO she was a poor candidate. I could care less about her hair, glasses, voice, or how she winked at the camera. I cared much more about her politics and her overt anti-choice stance.

I also to this day call out the White House and it's own gender wage gap, in spite of Obama's claim to achieve equal pay for equal work.

Whether or not this makes me a true feminist, I still identify as one. The War on Women is not limited to one party platform. It's a systemic problem that manifests differently. Some hide behind their religious views to disenfranchise women. Some hide behind their corporatist views to disenfranchise women. And then some hide behind their "evo-psych" views to perpetuate the marginalization, so it happens in academia as well.

Here's a huge problem, and one that doesn't get talked about a lot: sexual harassment within the ranks of feminism. Women who assault other women within the feminist movement, and men who join feminist activism and sexually assault the women they claim to be allies to.

I occasionally lose friends in our local group because I've physically removed perpetrators both male and female who have been shown to harm others from sexual assault, as well as their friends who become apologists for the perps behaviors. These are people who claim progressive politics, but see no problem assaulting others.

Case in point: the man who raped me and then attempted to murder me self identified as a libertarian, and who thought of himself as a true progressive who stood for freedom of equality for all women. His label didn't stop him from thinking that if he couldn't have me, nobody would.

TL;DR - Misogyny is perpetuated in the majority of public spheres. I stand for equal opportunity, liberty, and protections in all these spheres.

 

[dust1n]

There are varying ways to invoke empathy, whether it's through science or the humanities or art or service. I prefer a diversity of methods, though.

I gotcha. Thanks!