Monday, March 8, 2010
Attitudes about Feminism in the Classroom
Today in class, Professor Johnson simply mentioned a book about the connection between meat-eating and the oppression of women, and with the single mention of the word "feminism", comments were made that I thought were rude and insulting. For some reason, many people like to treat feminism as a joke, when they would never treat racial issues, other human rights issues, and animal rights issues as anything but gravely serious. The reason I am writing about this is because I find this offensive behavior appalling, especially in a classroom setting. Our class is male-dominated. The discipline of philosophy itself seems pretty male-dominated too. While this isn't necessarily anyone's fault, these insulting attitudes towards feminism could make it even more of a challenge for female students to be active participants in class discussions. I personally am drawn to philosophy because it challenges me to be open-minded and question things that I never did before. This dismissal of feminism and women's rights is the complete opposite of what philosophy should be about, in my opinion. To just write off women's perspectives without really considering them is a huge mistake, and it reflects poorly on you and your intellect. I am not counting this post as one of my 2 per week, I just really think this needed to be said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Could you clarify which comments you thought were specifically anti-feminist? Though I would like to point out that feminism, as a movement and as a philosophy, is quite fractured, a reflection of the various perspectives that are brought to any broad topic of this sort, and that I did not see any of the comments made in class as "dismissing" feminism or women's rights. Given the wide array of viewpoints that feminism encompasses, it is a worthwhile pursuit to explore the particular type of feminism that a particular feminist subscribes to, just as finding out the specific denomination of a Christian is useful in knowing what, specifically, the person believes.
ReplyDelete"It is a worthwhile pursuit to explore the particular type of feminism that a particular feminist subscribes to"? I believe the student's question was along the lines of "Is she an egalitarian feminist or a 'FEMINIST feminist'?" That is not asking what school of feminism the author subscribes to. It's just insulting.
ReplyDeleteIt actually is, but I understand how it could have come across as insulting. There are legitimate egalitarian feminists who believe that humans are equal regardless of sex and that is respectable, but the question was, whether you think it insulting or not, a valid one. There are numerous examples of "feminism" that does seek equality but a superiority for females, and that is not respectable. This particular brand of feminism is, though merely an overreaction to the problems of gender inequality, growing in popularity.
ReplyDeleteYes, perhaps he should have phrased the question better. Perhaps "FEMINIST feminist" was tactless.
Was it a dismissal of feminism? Was it a denial of rights for women? Was it writing off the perspectives of women?
Certainly Not.
I believe the comment was asking if she was "an egalitarian feminist or a CHAUVINIST feminist," implying, as Jacob suggested, an inquiry into whether her beliefs are equality or for female superiority. I may have misheard, but that's what I recall, which makes the question a valid, legitimate inquiry to pursue.
ReplyDelete"There are numerous examples of "feminism" that does seek equality but a superiority for females, and that is not respectable."
ReplyDeleteWhat are some examples of this? I am very involved in feminism and I have never come across anyone (and I know some pretty radical feminists) that want to be superior to males.
Well...let's look at a few...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.womanthouartgod.com (Explore this site for a bit)
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19990226&id=yUYyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2eYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4730,3124817
There is a Facebook Group titled "Female Superiority: Dominate Men." I would not usually cite something like Facebook, but it does have over 9000 members.
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulGreenberg/2010/03/03/women_know (An interesting article)
Plus countless blogs with which I shall not bore you. Needless to say, it is not an isolated phenomenon.
As for your first and fourth link- I couldn't even find the word "feminism" mentioned anywhere in these links. Promoting female superiority is not synonymous with feminism.
ReplyDeleteThe story about the feminist professor is obviously pretty extreme, but the article doesn't mention that the professor thinks women are better than women. She simply thought the male students were a distraction from the discussion (which I am not necessarily defending here).
And lastly, the facebook group. I'm sure there are some facebook groups out there that hate on men. But it cannot compare to the number of misogynistic groups. Every single time I log into facebook, I see that another one of my friends has joined a group about female inferiority, making light of rape/sexual assault, and many other horrible things. Many of these groups make jokes about/have pictures of men beating women. THIS is not an isolated phenomenon. There will always be extremists in groups, and feminism is certainly no exception, but the oppression and dominance of women is everywhere, everyday, all the time.
I never claim that female superiority is synonymous with feminism.
ReplyDeleteI know that there is plenty of misogyny in today's world, I am not debating that. Should it be fixed? Absolutely!
You may define feminism in a way that excludes female superiority, but not all people do. The lack of the word 'feminism' in these links means that it isn't feminism? Huh. So a website that insults, deplores, and advocates the destruction of all minorities is not racist if it doesn't use the word racist?
...Curious...
I only intended to point out that this idea of female superiority exists and thus renders the ORIGINAL question a valid one.
"The term feminism can be used to describe a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women. Feminism involves political, cultural and sociological theories, as well as philosophies concerned with issues of gender difference. It is also a movement that advocates gender equality for women and campaigns for women's rights and interests."
ReplyDelete(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism)
This is a broad definition of feminism, which includes all the different sects of feminism. Again, while I don't doubt that there are extremists out there, THIS is what feminism is. Also, I don't know why you compared feminism and racism. Feminism is a movement, racism is an attitude or belief. Of course you can express a belief without using the word for it, but feminism is a specific movement that you either belong to or don't. That is why I pointed out that those sites never claimed to be feminist. You can't assume that people who believe in female superiority are feminist (which you ARE doing). That is just silly; feminism is all about equality and that would be completely contradictory.
I do not doubt that the idea of female superiority exists. Many, many ideas are out there. But female superiority has nothing to do with feminism.
That is fair, and I concede that I am making an erroneous assumption. However, it is an easy one to make when professed feminists often make claims that are sexist. (Some more subtle than others)
ReplyDeleteThis is the key, sometimes these claims come from self professed feminists. Whether they are true feminists or not, it happens.
Therefore, as I have been saying this entire time, the original question was valid and was dismissing neither feminism nor the rights of women.
But the original question was asked in an insulting way, in my opinion. It didn't sound like it was asked with genuine curiosity; it sounded rude.
ReplyDelete