I was reading over many of the blog post and I can agree with most that is being said. I extremely support the equality of men and women, I do think its a topic that we should talk about. What peeved me in class today, was the exercise with the list of placing objects of our culture into a category wether they were masculine or feminine. I believe that as we put things into boxes we are only cementing the fact into peoples brains that high heels are only for women or suits only men etc. I think what we should be doing is showing the exceptions instead of enforcing categorization.
I firmly believe that the reason Feminist get the stereotype they do is because the millions of women who are not radical Feminist are not the people being talked about. So lets talk about the people who are not talked about.
To get people to break the stereotype, you must tell them what it is, which I think we have been told many a time, then break it. We have been talked about stereotypes really this whole year, women in particular these past few weeks. Yet, we never talk about the people who are breaking these stereotypes everyday. From the feminist who dresses to how ever she wants to dress, to the transgendered kid that has accepted them self, or the pink boys or the tom girls, to the drag queens, to the openly gay community and I could go on, and to every man and women who wants equal rights, these are the unspoken heroes of the feminists moment. The amount of people who have taken the stand against gender hate, continues to grow, yet are rarely admired for it.
I believe that it is really [messed] up to call use privileged and unrealistic because we want to talk about these unspoken heroes. We are the generation of change and I think we need to talk about the acceptance and change.
"I believe that it is really fucked up to call use privileged and unrealistic because we want to talk about these unspoken heroes. We are the generation of change and I think we need to talk about the acceptance and change."
ReplyDeleteyes. 1000x yes.
-E
First, that was me who did a bit of censoring here. Let's keep our audience in mind -- and the representation of our class. I appreciate the passion, of course.
ReplyDeleteAnd more to the point, I certainly didn't mean to call you privileged because you wanted to talk about those heroes you noted. They are certainly people to celebrate -- that's part of the point. And I hope many of our feminist critique are about shows and songs that challenge gender norms and celebrate difference.
But we also need to recognize how, while we might feel a sense of personal freedom, it's important to recognize how American culture at large and -- I don't think it's an exaggeration -- the great majority of Americans -- are confined, often unquestioningly, into a very rigid system of gender roles and expectations.