Alrighty, I have some work to do but the
computer I need for that work is old and currently updating so I thought
I should get some thoughts down. Been having them for the last few days
ever since I encountered a rather enjoyable discussion on someone’s
facebook feed in the comment section of an article by Roxane Gay. In the
article Gay voiced some frustrations around the fact that Emma Watson’s
speech was widely lauded by the mainstream media and branded “Emma
Watson’s Feminism.” This is part of a larger presentation of “new”
feminism that the mainstream media thinks is so vastly different from
the “man-hating” feminism of old. The problem is that the feminism they
deemed as unacceptable was never really real in any strict sense and was
actually the by-product of mainstream media writers of old not
understanding what feminism was all about. At any rate, mainstream media
has a shitty track record of talking about feminism.
Gay was approached by someone who asked about making feminism more accessible to men to which her response was that she didn’t care for making feminism more accessible to anyone. Gay’s criticism centered around the fact that celebrity endorsements of feminism go a lot further, faster than any work done by any feminist activist.
I’m not going to talk about the article here. It’s here for your consideration.
The long and short of my view, for what it’s worth, is that it is very frustrating that it takes star-power endorsement for some people to pay attention, but I also can see the value in the fact that now there’s a new crop of people interested that were not before the star-power influence.
Why I’m bringing it up is that it sparked a nice little discussion in the comment section about intersectionality, policing (or not) feminism, and what the movement is all about. One of the responses got me thinking about resistance to feminism, which is something I’m dealing with when it comes to engaging men, and why/how that sort of thing comes about. Before I knew it my response was 4 paragraphs long and not at all related to the topic in question. So I ‘Liked’ the comment and decided to write something separate in my fancy new writing space about what I was thinking about.
Good god that was a lot of background info, hope ya’ll are still with me.
I think that there’s an element of ‘forest through the trees’ that develops for people that are deeply involved in any particular movement. It’s not a failing by any stretch but I think it plays a factor in people’s resistance to getting involved, especially if the media is pushing an inaccurate, harmful definition of the movement in question.
People involved in feminism have, or will develop, a good handle on who they’re fighting for with the lived experiences of that particular group in mind. Whereas people on the outside are generally looking for a quick summary from someone they can easily identify as a ‘leader’ of the movement. I don’t quite know what to call this but it would be something along the lines of knowledge/context/arguing from silos disconnect?
Perhaps: Context disconnect?
I dunno.
Anyway.
People on the outside of feminism are invested in the practice of anointing leaders because it creates an easy focal point for discussion and knowledge searching; IE, if I have a leader in mind, I can easily look them up which speeds up the time and reduces the mental energy required to self-educate. For the mainstream media, who have a vested interest in presenting a so-called “neutral” stance, an easily identifiable leader is even more important because it streamlines the narrative that they can present and allows them to avoid as few nuances as possible; IE, Leader X says this, so we’ll run with that and anyone who disagrees with Leader X we’ll pose as an opponent. Finally, the more people want to stay out of a discussion the more they’ll rely on the words of an easily identifiable leader because it allows them to read, evaluate, and get out of the discussion as quickly as possible.
Recently, I watched a talk between Gloria Steinem and bell hooks and when they did the introduction for Steinem the presenter made a comment about “you became a leader for a movement that wasn’t supposed to have any leaders” (that’s not verbatim, just how I remember it). It was brought up later in the discussion about how feminism is, and was supposed to be, a movement-without-leaders as a major emphasis for feminism was allowing various people to bring their stories and experiences to the table. People within feminism can grasp the concept of a movement-without-leaders, but to people on the outside all they see is infighting and disorganization.
Moreover, the feminist movement, recently, has put a large emphasis on intersectionality which further complicates the movement-without-leaders concept. This may lead media to lean more heavily on their stardom bias and people outside the movement to recoil (just look at the #womenagainstfeminism hashtag on twitter); after all, a movement that’s intersectional means recognizing that privilege is intersectional and that’s always an initial barrier because doing so is usually uncomfortable.
I get that uncomfortable discussions around intersectional privilege might be a barrier to people getting involved in the movement, but I would argue that I don’t see that as a problem. I’m reminded of a bit of advice from bell hooks when asked about accessibility with regards to feminism: it was something to the effect of “if feminism is everything to everybody, then what is it?”
Barriers and boundaries are important for maintaining integrity. There are complex factors that feminism is working against and it is important that people within the movement do their best to get a handle on those complexities in play. People within feminism are navigating an ever evolving movement as more and more voices join the chorus, this is not ‘in-fighting’ it is growth.
Whew, there. That’s a lot. If you made it this far, thanks!
That’s all for now…I’ll write more later…
Gay was approached by someone who asked about making feminism more accessible to men to which her response was that she didn’t care for making feminism more accessible to anyone. Gay’s criticism centered around the fact that celebrity endorsements of feminism go a lot further, faster than any work done by any feminist activist.
I’m not going to talk about the article here. It’s here for your consideration.
The long and short of my view, for what it’s worth, is that it is very frustrating that it takes star-power endorsement for some people to pay attention, but I also can see the value in the fact that now there’s a new crop of people interested that were not before the star-power influence.
Why I’m bringing it up is that it sparked a nice little discussion in the comment section about intersectionality, policing (or not) feminism, and what the movement is all about. One of the responses got me thinking about resistance to feminism, which is something I’m dealing with when it comes to engaging men, and why/how that sort of thing comes about. Before I knew it my response was 4 paragraphs long and not at all related to the topic in question. So I ‘Liked’ the comment and decided to write something separate in my fancy new writing space about what I was thinking about.
Good god that was a lot of background info, hope ya’ll are still with me.
I think that there’s an element of ‘forest through the trees’ that develops for people that are deeply involved in any particular movement. It’s not a failing by any stretch but I think it plays a factor in people’s resistance to getting involved, especially if the media is pushing an inaccurate, harmful definition of the movement in question.
People involved in feminism have, or will develop, a good handle on who they’re fighting for with the lived experiences of that particular group in mind. Whereas people on the outside are generally looking for a quick summary from someone they can easily identify as a ‘leader’ of the movement. I don’t quite know what to call this but it would be something along the lines of knowledge/context/arguing from silos disconnect?
Perhaps: Context disconnect?
I dunno.
Anyway.
People on the outside of feminism are invested in the practice of anointing leaders because it creates an easy focal point for discussion and knowledge searching; IE, if I have a leader in mind, I can easily look them up which speeds up the time and reduces the mental energy required to self-educate. For the mainstream media, who have a vested interest in presenting a so-called “neutral” stance, an easily identifiable leader is even more important because it streamlines the narrative that they can present and allows them to avoid as few nuances as possible; IE, Leader X says this, so we’ll run with that and anyone who disagrees with Leader X we’ll pose as an opponent. Finally, the more people want to stay out of a discussion the more they’ll rely on the words of an easily identifiable leader because it allows them to read, evaluate, and get out of the discussion as quickly as possible.
Recently, I watched a talk between Gloria Steinem and bell hooks and when they did the introduction for Steinem the presenter made a comment about “you became a leader for a movement that wasn’t supposed to have any leaders” (that’s not verbatim, just how I remember it). It was brought up later in the discussion about how feminism is, and was supposed to be, a movement-without-leaders as a major emphasis for feminism was allowing various people to bring their stories and experiences to the table. People within feminism can grasp the concept of a movement-without-leaders, but to people on the outside all they see is infighting and disorganization.
Moreover, the feminist movement, recently, has put a large emphasis on intersectionality which further complicates the movement-without-leaders concept. This may lead media to lean more heavily on their stardom bias and people outside the movement to recoil (just look at the #womenagainstfeminism hashtag on twitter); after all, a movement that’s intersectional means recognizing that privilege is intersectional and that’s always an initial barrier because doing so is usually uncomfortable.
I get that uncomfortable discussions around intersectional privilege might be a barrier to people getting involved in the movement, but I would argue that I don’t see that as a problem. I’m reminded of a bit of advice from bell hooks when asked about accessibility with regards to feminism: it was something to the effect of “if feminism is everything to everybody, then what is it?”
Barriers and boundaries are important for maintaining integrity. There are complex factors that feminism is working against and it is important that people within the movement do their best to get a handle on those complexities in play. People within feminism are navigating an ever evolving movement as more and more voices join the chorus, this is not ‘in-fighting’ it is growth.
Whew, there. That’s a lot. If you made it this far, thanks!
That’s all for now…I’ll write more later…
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