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“Why I’m Not a Feminist”: [Modern Feminism]
Astaereth
In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
So this woman named Jessa Crispin wrote a book called Why I’m Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto, and to promote the book she did an interview with Jezebel.
https://themuse.jezebel.com/a-frank-talk-with-jessa-crispin-about-why-modern-day-fe-1792367458
That interview got posted by a FB friend and I read it and I found it frustrating and confusing, and figured this community might have a better understanding of the subject than I do.
Here’s a somewhat random excerpt of this interview:
On the one hand she says some things that I agree with. A few of these (I’m paraphrasing and possible not accurately representing her views):
-There are people out there who use feminism as a label while co-opting it as a way to excuse buying into an inequal system, and others who use it as a way to earn social justice points for selfcenteredness
-Racial and economic justice are also important to feminism
-A radical restructuring of our society may be necessary to achieve full equality for all
But she also says a lot that I’m not sure I do agree with (again, I’m paraphrasing and possibly misrepresenting):
-She seems to say that living with integrity as a feminist means at the very least not being proud of buying into the capitalist patriarchy, where buying in includes things like working for companies owned by men, having sex with men, getting married, etc
-She asserts that Hillary Clinton would have been a “terrible President” albeit better than Trump on the environment and women’s rights—I don’t know that this should be a topic of discussion here but her basic viewpoint that there’s not much difference between the two, or that Bernie Sanders as she mentions would have been a radical agent of change, suggests to me that some of overall viewpoints are off base
Overall I feel frustrated because from my viewpoint the problem of “some of these people think they are woke but maybe they’re just playing lip service” is not as big of a problem as the sizeable portion of the public who are unwoke as fuck and proud of it. Like “I got a mani-pedi today #feminism” can be frustrating and dilute the meaning of the movement, sure, but surely your firebombs should be lobbed at the people who are Nazis or who rape women or who actually control the levers of power, right?
Maybe a lot of this boils down to “fighting your ineffective ally is less important than fighting your enemy” and “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” but to be fair I haven’t read Dworkin or Firestone, I’m not versed in the philosophy, and maybe that’s why I’m not fully on board for Crispin’s ill-defined vision of a blown-up society from which we somehow rebuild utopia.
What do you guys think of this article, Crispin’s ideas, and where modern feminism is as a whole?
https://themuse.jezebel.com/a-frank-talk-with-jessa-crispin-about-why-modern-day-fe-1792367458
That interview got posted by a FB friend and I read it and I found it frustrating and confusing, and figured this community might have a better understanding of the subject than I do.
Here’s a somewhat random excerpt of this interview:
“Jessa Crispin” wrote:[Laughs] I don’t feel like feminist acts are just making posters and knitting caps and marching in the street. As a writer, it’s become increasingly important to me that everything I write lines up with my value system and not make work that doesn’t or write for publications that don’t line up with my value system. I do feel like we’re in a place where even at the baseline, we don’t know where to find value. We used to get our value from religion, but that was bad so we got rid of religion. But where do we get it from now? Do we get it from the capitalist culture that values greed, competition and selfishness?
Where do we get it from? I think that we think that we can figure that out on our own, but we can’t. Human beings are not that smart. We’re not that logical and rational. We absorb shit just from observing, so really rethinking and understanding that our values need to be recalibrated is really important—especially for feminism, which has, if anything, taken on patriarchal values. In the last 20 years, feminism has embraced competition and greed, like, “I’m making in-roads if I make six figures a year because I’m a woman.”
On the one hand she says some things that I agree with. A few of these (I’m paraphrasing and possible not accurately representing her views):
-There are people out there who use feminism as a label while co-opting it as a way to excuse buying into an inequal system, and others who use it as a way to earn social justice points for selfcenteredness
-Racial and economic justice are also important to feminism
-A radical restructuring of our society may be necessary to achieve full equality for all
But she also says a lot that I’m not sure I do agree with (again, I’m paraphrasing and possibly misrepresenting):
-She seems to say that living with integrity as a feminist means at the very least not being proud of buying into the capitalist patriarchy, where buying in includes things like working for companies owned by men, having sex with men, getting married, etc
-She asserts that Hillary Clinton would have been a “terrible President” albeit better than Trump on the environment and women’s rights—I don’t know that this should be a topic of discussion here but her basic viewpoint that there’s not much difference between the two, or that Bernie Sanders as she mentions would have been a radical agent of change, suggests to me that some of overall viewpoints are off base
Overall I feel frustrated because from my viewpoint the problem of “some of these people think they are woke but maybe they’re just playing lip service” is not as big of a problem as the sizeable portion of the public who are unwoke as fuck and proud of it. Like “I got a mani-pedi today #feminism” can be frustrating and dilute the meaning of the movement, sure, but surely your firebombs should be lobbed at the people who are Nazis or who rape women or who actually control the levers of power, right?
Maybe a lot of this boils down to “fighting your ineffective ally is less important than fighting your enemy” and “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” but to be fair I haven’t read Dworkin or Firestone, I’m not versed in the philosophy, and maybe that’s why I’m not fully on board for Crispin’s ill-defined vision of a blown-up society from which we somehow rebuild utopia.
What do you guys think of this article, Crispin’s ideas, and where modern feminism is as a whole?
Astaereth on
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Half intentionally and half by inertia, I've ended up with a *ton* of feminist followings on things like Twitter. One of the ideas I see lately that has finally landed with me is that one of the best things cishet white men can do for feminism is just talk less in public spaces. I hadn't realized how much I'd internalized the idea that my opinion is relevant in all situations and to all conversations, by birthright.
So I see these women post their opinions on women's issues on Twitter or Facebook, and like clockwork a half-dozen cishet white men will pop up to say that they mostly agree with feminism but they have some specific complaint about that specific take, and I know I could have easily been one of those guys five years ago, and that it must be *exhausting* to deal with.
So my take on that article is that it was interesting and I am glad she shared her perspective.
So instead of seeking wage equity, seek to tear down the forces that make compensation proportional to effort instead of need.
I don't know if that's as useful as the first point, which is taking care of the women most in need first. A lot of culture, including feminist culture, is superficial with a very small gain/effort ratio. Focusing more on the least of us by forgoing celebrity is not sexy, but we can't really pat ourselves on the back while a sizeable chunk of women are starving and unsafe because they've been spurned by the system.
Good luck trying to make a better system, though. I've learned that the necessary skills required to appropriately use power are enmeshed with patriarchy, masculinism, and capitalism. Rejecting all practices wholesale because of association deprives you of the tools necessary to do basic stuff like finance an initiative or develop an action plan. If you try to start from scratch out of obstinacy, well ... the reason the article exists is because there is no successful feminist system currently that will support people that buy into it. There has to be a reason for that.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I’ve found I don’t like calling myself a feminist inside feminist circles, but that outside feminist circles it’s a useful shorthand to describe my general system of beliefs.
I don’t agree with her take on capitalism/greed, or it’s jnclusion in feminist ideology as a whole. It’s a great example of how big the umbrella has become.
I agree with your assessment, Astaereth, but it's not really my place to say.
At the college I attend, we have a 'Center for Feminisms' instead of a 'Center for Feminism' for just this reason - feminism is a huge, multifaceted movement much too broad to really mean one thing or be approached one way - the simple idea of moving towards equality for all genders is in and of itself a task that must be approached from multiple angles.
There really is no one 'modern feminism'; the 'third wave', or whatever wave we're supposedly on, is in fact a multitude of smaller waves, and it's impossible (and should be impossible!) to truly separate today's women's rights movement from efforts towards racial and ethnic equality, or QUILTBAG equality, without losing a considerable amount of meaning and momentum.
I'd love it if you took a look at my art and my PATREON!
That's it. That is literally all there is to it.
I am a feminist. I am proud to be a feminist. I will always be proud to be a feminist. I don't care what ridiculous notions other people claiming the feminist title may have. If you can't handle the basic tenant that women and men deserve equality in the eyes of society and the law then you're not a feminist.
And yes, occasionally being treated equally means NOT being treated exactly the same, in the same way nobody would expect a blind person to accept that they were being treated equally if Braille signs aren't provided and trip hazards are left all over the place. And yes, the equality of men and women applies just as much to trans men and women as it does to CIS men and women, so if you can't handle that then goodbye, so long, turn in your badge and decoder ring please you are not a feminist and I'm fucking looking at you Germaine Greer.
This is something I've always found disturbing, how you're forced to either use the tools the system offers, or just go completely rogue and resort to terrorism, neither of which has any real chance of progress.
also this but also nonbinary and genderfluid peoplllleeee *bangs drum quietly*
(not saying you didn't mean them but I think it's important to be explicit about it!!)
I'd love it if you took a look at my art and my PATREON!
I'm hesitant to even go that far, as it frames 'being a feminist' or being regarded as a feminist as some kind of end goal. As in, you get there and yay, you win! Same as being an 'ally'
I mostly agree with the author, where wielding the label is much less important than actually conducting yourself in accordance with an honest appraisal of your values.
Isn't that sort of thing already explicitly illegal? Paying someone less because of their sex?
I find it interesting that certain feminist ideas are becoming more mainstream despite few people identifying as feminists. It's like popular feminist ideas become disassociated from feminism, with only more radical ideas considered uniquely feminist.
It doesn't help that social justice movements don't have many central authority figures and are mainly defined by the ideas that become most well-known, which can unfortunately be ideas that most people reblog with "can you believe these people believe this shit?" For example, "all heterosexual sex is rape" isn't exactly a mainstream feminist idea, but it was outrageous enough that it still remains in the popular consciousness to a degree.
And yes! Those too and asexuals and all the other sorts of people I always forget exist because I possess tragic levels of CISdom. We are ALL equal, and steps should always be taken to help each and every one of us BE equal in our daily lives, so that all of the shit that all of us have to put up with every day isn't compounded by some of us having to spend each and every day trying to prove that it's actually okay for us to exist and expect to be treated equally and to have opinions and stuff.
I mean FFS I know the how of it can get bogged down in stupid detail sometimes but feminism is such a simple and obvious concept I literally cannot understand why anyone is okay with allowing it to absorb all these negative associations. No. Fuck all of that. Get that shit the fuck away from feminism.
yes but it's hard to prove because American workers are discouraged from discussing and comparing wages.
Unless you have an explicit policy that spells out what workers are paid and what modifiers can be applied to that.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
It is, but only if intent can be proven, which it never is. Wages being so subjective, even for the same job, allows them to basically do whatever they want
It seems very critical, in any serious discussion of feminism and what it is, to at least acknowledge the three different waves of feminism, if not going forward and explicitly outlining the various schools of feminism that have emerged as part of the Third Wave, many of which have pretty fundamental differences with each other. Talking about "feminism" isn't in and of itself useless, but it's about as abstract as talking about "Christianity" or "whiteness" or "Asians" - it's a minefield of banalities, generalities, and truisms. It's what allows anti-feminists to point at the radical feminists and go, "Look, feminism has gone insane!" and simultaneously allows the corporatist feminists to "sell out" (many of) the other feminist schools. (At the same time, its vagueness allows me to identify as a feminist, without especially going into the nitty-gritty of which school I think is ultimately correct.)
In particular, I think contemporary discussion of feminism is particularly complicated by the fact that Third Wave feminism emphasized intersectionality, which necessarily diffused the conceptual core of feminism across various social justice movements, and by what, in my belief, is a new emerging Fourth Wave of feminism, which remains nascent and evolving.
As a result, frankly, whenever I hear/read comments where someone declares themselves not being a feminist, I have a pretty strong skepticism of the intellectual rigour of that declaration. Not that I disbelieve that person isn't a feminist, but because, frankly, people who aren't feminists tend not to have a very good grasp of how extensive and broad feminism has become as a ... I don't even know what it is, a social philosophy? School of thought????
And, no, it's not just because of the sexists and Nazis on there.
The platform by design encourages and reinforces toxic behavior and even people who I agree with end up sucked into the bullshit.
Lots of different websites have contributed to the celebrity feud paradigm of social activism ("Jessa Crispin trashes Lena Dunham!") but many of them including Jezebel and BuzzFeed have tried to pull back on that somewhat. But there's only so much you can do in 140 characters (yes, I know it's 280 now and no I don't care), and the platform is designed to focus conversations around a social elite, so Twitter remains one of the worst offenders.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
You negotiate your salary, which means that the wage gap is pretty untraceable.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Yeah, but it doesnt seem to matter how much you scream about how bad Twitter is, the majority of it's users just dont seem to care.
I understand this viewpoint and I don’t think it’s a bad idea. But I also feel that as long as I don’t drag the discussion in a shitty direction, it is okay for me to contribute and respond and interpret and argue in good faith.
There’s a difference I think between men speaking up less in a meeting and men speaking up less in response to something a woman has already put in the public space of ideas. Equality should not demand that I ignore what Crispin has said, or avoid critiquing her viewpoint, or avoid seeking to increase my own understanding through a dialogue about that viewpoint—so long as I am not a bad faith jerk when I do it.
She wrote a book and then did a public interview with a major internet news site; for me to offer my opinion on a discussion board is not really silencing or undermining her.
What I appreciated most was a video in which she stated that she often gets people sending messages like "but what about this professed feminist who said this stupid thing/acted bizarrely/etc?" Her response was "lots of people are assholes, and as feminism becomes more accepted and more people identify as feminists, so too will more assholes identify as feminist; these feminist assholes, though, don't define feminism".
Doesnt that apply for every viewpoint though- oh, I get it
It is very easy to tell when a "feminist" theory is bullshit. Just apply the basic tenant of feminism. That all genders should be equal in the eyes of society and the law.
Does "all heterosexual sex is rape" pass this test? Fuck no. It's an attempt to criminalise the preferred sexual relationship of straight men and straight women. It doesn't matter if it's said ironically or for shock value or to bring attention to something important, like the very real issue of rape culture. It is, at the most basic, fundamental level, not a feminist theory.
Apply this to transphobic "feminists", the stereotypical man hating "feminist" (which honestly I have never met a single one) racist "feminists", "feminists" claiming that choosing a career is wrong, "feminists" claiming that staying home and having children is wrong, "feminists" who try to control what other women wear, or look like, "feminists" who claim it's impossible for a man to be a feminist and so on and so forth ad copious amounts of fucking nauseum.
All genders are equal. That. Is. Fucking. It.
Feminism rules.
1) Illegal stuff still happens, and it's still a problem.
2) There are plenty of legal ways to pay women less for the same job, like giving raises to men who are more "deserving" than women.
3) Part of the wage gap consists of women being over-represented in lower paying, less prestigious careers (like family medicine vs. surgery, for doctors), which is also not illegal.
As for the article itself, I haven't read the book, but a lot of the conversation in this thread seems to be more or less ignoring basically all of her points (which aren't at all about the usage of the word "feminism" from what I can tell). There's way too much stuff in that interview to cover, but in general I think she's pretty much right about most of what she says. Her point about how everyone has been brainwashed into wanting a traditional wedding is a good ones. A real commitment to liberation is incompatible with just going with the flow for 90% of what you do. That doesn't work when the culture's super fucked up.
They don't have to justify it, is the thing. That's literally it.
So, I don't necessarily disagree with your definition of feminism, but there are definitely schools of feminist thought that would abolish gender entirely. At least, I think those are schools of feminist thought; they're certainly descendants thereof. This is one of those critical conflicts between trans-exclusive and trans-inclusive feminists. Two genders vs multiple genders vs no genders, fluid or static barriers between genders, etc..
I mean to themselves. Even sexists dont usually go around thinking "fuck that bitch".
Okay, they probably do, but still, they probably try to dress it up.
An interesting thing I saw recently was an article talking about "male silence" during the #MeToo campaign, asking what this male silence meant. That men don't care? Don't feel comfortable talking about it? Think it's not their place to talk about it?
I partially understand the annoyance feminists might have with hearing the same questions and arguments over and over, especially from people saying these things in bad faith, but I also feel like people who are talking in good faith might have mental stumbling blocks in their way that can keep them from really understanding the things they read.
I know I before have had moments where, after being perplexed and/or annoyed by a given concept for a while, I suddenly experience some kind of perspective shift that lets things fall into place.
All comes back to the same thing. When you look at their theories, are they upholding the basic tenant that all genders should be treated equally? Are they abolishing gender to attempt to do that, or is it an attempt to control gender and gender expression?
Seriously, just... apply the test. Apply it every time. And if you're ever unsure, remember that feminism was created in the first place to stop people getting shit on by other people. If your version of "feminism" means shitting on a particular expression of gender, you're doing it wrong.
This definition of feminist includes MRAs and redpillers. It's pretty silly.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
That's not to say that I support everything that comes out of someones mouth just because they're a feminist. Jessa Crispin is definitely a feminist, and that's good. She's also a socialist feminist, and seems to apply a fairly narrow view of what feminism is, which means she has some ideas that I don't approve of at all. Greed and competition can totally be compatible with feminism. Competition in itself isn't bad, it's what drives us towards efficiency. Greed can be positive two, with the right constraints. It's only when unleashed without constraints, when it becomes "winning at all costs", then we can start talking about toxic "patriarchal values".
But honestly. The fractured feminism is probably a good thing as long as we keep our ears open and are willing to listen to opposing viewpoints.
Feminism is at a stage were we're going "Huzzah! We* solved the obvious issues of blatant legal discrimination....and it didn't fix everything. So where do we go from here?". That's kind of true with all revolutions. French Revolution to Functioning democracy only took like 170 years for France. They're on their 5th version right now.
Considering that nobody on the planet has yet to make a society where the vast majority of women haven't been sexually harassed at some point in their life we're still in the experimental phase. I'm still waiting for the Feminist version of Reign of Terror (well, metaphoricly considering how heavily based the Reign of Terror was in patriarchal values).
*Or at least the western hemisphere. Saudi Arabia is still hilariously sexist. Hilarious for people who don't live there that is. Mostly. The US is twisting itself like a pretzel to take steps backwards and erase the strides forward during the 60s/70s.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
So when a feminist says that a certain expression of masculinity is toxic, they're being bad feminists?
I think you're oversimplifying things a lot.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Is that form of masculinity shitting on other peoples ability to be comfortable with their own gender roles without being harassed or discriminated against? Then it's probably toxic.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
If there's one thing Ive learned as I've matured (I HAVE TOO MATURED SHUT UP) it's that sometimes even heroines of feminism can spout the most unbelievably vile unfeminist bullshit imaginable when the chips are down and they're required to support a type of woman they don't like. Again, I'm fucking looking at you Germaine Greer!
That being said, I'd say that we haven't solved the obvious issues of blatant legal discrimination, and won't until we've made vast legal changes to how rape is dealt with. Which, by the way, also includes prison rape which for some reason not only are we overall quite happy to joke about, we've even collectively decided it's part of the punishment you're supposed to suffer when you go to prison, which is unbelievably fucked up, and is yet another expression of the same idea that has some people accepting that it's okay for "misbehaving" women to risk rape for things like binge drinking, being out after dark or wearing heels.
They're saying that an expression of masculinity that harms others is toxic, which in turn means that others are treated unequally by that expression of masculinity. So talking about toxic masculinity is good feminism.
It really is that simple.
There are forms of toxic masculinity that can't be easily condensed down to "shitting on other people" - for example, excessive risk taking in younger men, or willful social isolation in older men.
One of my favorite books about this is bell hooks's Will to Change and I'm not going to dismiss that as bad feminism because she deigned to interrogate certain forms of gender expression. (Honestly I have a mountain of books about toxic masculinity, but I'm name dropping bell hooks to illustrate that it isn't intrinsically antifeminist to interrogate gender expression.)
In general, there's necessarily going to be a tension between two truths: 1) old gender paradigms were often unhealthy and 2) people should be able to express gender any way they want as long as they do so in a healthy manner. There's going to be a lot of discussion over what constitutes a benign or unhealthy form of gender expression.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I tend to think of it in terms of your value as a person and the value of your ideas are independent of your sex or gender. Note that this is independent from the value of your *perspective* when that perspective is relevant. Men know more about being men and women know more about being women etc.
I have further positions along these lines that extend beyond feminism itself. I'm not sure to what degree other aspects of identity should really fall under feminism itself instead of under the larger umbrella of equality, equity, and etc.
What about capitalism, the idea of heroes, and seeking validation through fame? These pillars of our society are what this feminist rejects as elements of patriarchy.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.