Feminists can be sexy and funny – but it's anger that changes the world

[boston bean]

snip

To my mind, the most amazing and miserable aspect of The Feminine Mystique is how relevant it still is. Women of my generation are still being sold lies to keep us obedient. We are told that we are valued, until we accuse a revered man of rape. We are told we are equal, and yet we still do most of the low-paid and unpaid work. We are told we are respected, and yet we are harassed in the street, objectified and ridiculed in the media, and haunted by words like nag, harridan and hysteric in our personal relationships. Like Friedan's, our feminism is stifled by the belief that the battles have been won, and we are free to enjoy equality in all of its male-sanctioned glory.

There are the flickers of a revival of feminism: slut walks, projects about harassment and media objectification and feminist summer schools all suggest a new generation of women fighting the lies that they are being sold. But at the same time, the pole-dancing, one-of-the-lads brand of feminism which was such an utter failure in the 1990s seems to be re-emerging in a different form.

..............................

In my mind, if being sexy and funny are the two cornerstones of a new feminist movement, we may as well all pack up and go home now. At its core, feminism should be angry. It should be angry because women are still being taken for a ride. Like the women in The Feminine Mystique, we are being sold a lie of equality in a society where the odds are politically, socially and economically stacked against us.

Feminism's most basic function should be to emphasise that sexism is not an accident, but an inevitable consequence of a society structured to favour men. Jokes about vaginas and reassurances that we won't have to give up lipstick are not enough. To put it bluntly, a new feminism should not be afraid to piss people off.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/26/feminists-sexy-funny-anger-changes-world

[boston bean]

1. more...

Sexy, funny feminism is inspired by the fear that feminism will never get anywhere unless it is likeable. For a long time now, feminists have been told that their message will never spread to the masses if the messenger appears to be an angry man-hating lesbian shouting the odds from a gender studies seminar room. But we need to realise that popular, non-threatening feminism is destined for failure as well. In a patriarchy – and if you are a feminist, you accept that we are living in one – what is popular and non-threatening is what men deem to be acceptable.


When feminists decide they want to appeal to everybody, what they are really doing is attempting to appeal to men, as culture in a patriarchy is defined by male values and male norms. Feminism that prioritises popularity over its own integrity will necessarily fail, as it is bound to reproduce the very problems it is fighting against. Perhaps Moran's recent observations that women who wear high heels are inviting rape are testament to this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/26/feminists-sexy-funny-anger-changes-world

[sufrommich]

3. Anger has fueled every rights movement in this country.

http://www.culture-of-peace.info/ppa/chapter4-10.html

The anger that can be harnessed to action and consciousness development is anger directed against the institutions of war and injustice, rather than anger directed against individuals as such. "You must not harbor anger," Martin Luther King Jr. admonished himself at one point in his autobiography when speaking about a personal anger. But in describing the growing demand for bus desegregation in Montgomery, King made it clear that anger is essential as a motive for action, as "there had developed beneath the surface a slow fire of discontent, fed by the continuing indignities and inequities to which the Negroes were subjected." Debs, upon his release from prison in 1895 where he had been confined in order to break the national railway strike, expressed it this way: "there has been no liberty in the world....for the maintenance of which man has not been required to fight." He was echoing the motto of Frederick Douglass, the American slave who fought his way to freedom and became a hero of the emancipation a generation before: "without struggle, there can be no progress."



Those who pretend that being nice and polite as a way fight injustices are really telling those who are angry that their anger makes them uncomfortable and therefore must be mocked. Same as it ever was.

[redqueen]

4. I'm so fucking sick of hearing the tone argument.

How dare we not be nice and demure while advocating against the patriarchy?

[sufrommich]

5. Me too. I also notice the tone argument is

only made against feminists. Some of the descriptors used against us are really nasty but have been used since the advent of women's right (humorless,prudish,etc.)

[boston bean]

8. the criticism is steeped in sexism.

[seabeyond]

6. We have perfectly nice post explaining where the issue is. We are then told that we are angry and outrage.

What that tells me is it really doesn't matter how it is presented the person merely does not want to Address the issue. Basically telling us to shut up.

[Little Star]

9. Those attitudes remind me of....

when the RW told the Dixie Chicks to shut up & sing. They want us to shut up and sit down. Fuck that!

[seabeyond]

10. not shut up and sit down. shut up and be their fuckable. nt

[PassingFair]

11. You ladies sound a little "shrill" to me.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Nope, anger is destructive & self-destructive. Turn anger into determination & lose toxic emotions.

Toxic emotions like anger eat people up inside. A person can be completely as motivated for rational reasons without the acid of anger.

You can forgive someone privately in your heart and never forget, while prosecuting a lawsuit or court case to the fullest extent. Forgiveness is for inward peace. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, quite the opposite, it is a better way to remember.

Nobody needs to be blinded by anger because that is what anger does. Lose the anger and strengthen the vision. One of the first things a wise warrior does is try to anger the opponent so that they make mistakes.

Anger spills over and damages loved ones.

You can vanquish enemies and enjoy it more without anger.

[seabeyond]

7. We are told if we would address the issue differently we would be more effective

So I ask, in all sincerity, how would we address the issue differently to be more effective. There is no answer. It is not about how we are addressing the issue. It is about people not wanting to hear the issue.

[redqueen]

12. Exactly. nt