What feminist am I supposed to like? Just curious.
Probably a feminist whose audience isn't actually mostly made up of, um... men?
I don't know. I believe more in the idea of universalism personally. I think organising under common cause is a better approach. It is a better way to form solidarity. And lets face it, feminism is divisive. And the funny thing is, it is not only divisive to men, but to women also.
In a previous post I mentioned I wasn't much of a fan of Emmeline Pankhurst, yet for some reason Sylvia Pankhurst is a hero/heroine of mine. Both were women's rights activists and both campaigned for the vote. It's funny actually because Emmeline Pankhurst seems to be championed to this day, yet Sylvia Pankhurst is often forgotten. I think politics plays a role in this.
The reason I prefer Sylvia over Emmeline is to do with the approach. Emmeline Pankhurst and the WSPU were bourgeoisie through and through. They campaigned solely for rich women to get the vote. Working-class women,
and one of the key differences, working class men were not really a concern for the WSPU. Only rich property owning men had the vote in those days, and they campaigned for rich property owning women. In fact Emmeline Pankhurst became more and more aligned with the establishment as time went on. During WWI, for instance, she joined the White Feather movement. The white feather was a symbol of cowardice. It was given to young men to shame them for not conscripting into the war. So she basically walked around shaming young men into going to war. She was an advocate of British imperialism also.
Sylvia Pankhurst started off in the WSPU with her sisters but was eventually expelled from the WSPU for her links with the labour movement and socialism. It was that relationship between class and gender along with other things that caused the rift. She unlike her mother and the WSPU was actually for universal suffrage for both men and women. Her concerns started off with working class women, but over time there was a shift away from a focus on women specifically to a focus on
workers. It was not just a single issue campaign. It wasn't just about the issues of female workers, but of all workers.
It is that universalising approach that I believe is far more effective in not only achieving common goals, but also individual goals. And so I don't see having a strong male audience as necessarily a bad thing. My whole philosophy on this is the exact opposite of what you seem to be suggesting. To judge a feminist by how many women listen to her, and how few men listen to her, doesn't give me a particularly good impression. The thing is, feminism isn't a popular movement among women let alone men. The amount of women who identify as feminist has been small for years. Feminism doesn't speak for most women. That said though, I don't judge people by their audience, I judge them by their ideas.
paglia's a climate truther iirc, which is as good a heuristic as any to spot someone with poor judgment
I can disagree with someone on a number of things. However, there can be one thing I believe they are right on. You are talking about Paglia specifically, but this obviously holds true with everyone. An argument stands by its own merits, right?
And if you really were to judge feminists by this standard then you would dismiss many of them off hand. Because lets be honest here, Paglia isn't the only feminist to believe some pseudo-scientific trash.
Anyone who starts a sentence with "The left"
How do you define the far-left?
