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women and music
ALoveSupreme:
"A co-opting or less frequently co-optation most commonly refers to action performed in a number of fields whereby an opponent is nullified or neutralized by absorption but there are other distinct senses as well."
What male feminist does that? Are you saying that is the interpretation?
I dunno, I feel like I maybe understand where you're coming from, but also mostly not at all. I guess I don't know what I would do if I encountered a female who shunned me for being someone who supports her rights as a female, but I would probably not make it seem as though I or my views on what feminism is are superior to hers. Luckily I have not found myself in that situation, I guess.
Yunior:
--- Quote from: Ptommydski on 03 Mar 2011, 13:04 ---No, it was more I felt disenfranchised in myself. I never called myself a feminist because I used to live with active feminists who hated the appropriation of what they viewed as their liberation movement. Try as you might to be sympathetic, you're never going to fully understand all the subtleties and nuances of actually being a female and thus, you're not really going to be able to think and act the same way.
--- End quote ---
I've never really understood this hang-up and maybe you can explain it to me. Why does not fully understanding the "female experience" preclude you from identifying as a feminist? I feel like, yeah, obviously there are some fundamental biological differences and, stemming from that, certain societal expectations that each of us respond to, consciously or otherwise, depending on our gender. But I don't feel like there is some sort of immutable experience of gender. I don't feel like because I am a woman, I understand all women or that I can speak for all women as an authority on the experience of being a woman. I also feel, in a way, as if you are almost not giving yourself enough credit. You know that women, being primarily human, eat, sleep, and do any number of other human things. You also do a lot of those same things; you don't have to sympathize with an experience that you don't understand because a lot of that experience is bridgeable. And when those experiences aren't bridge-able (like you probably are never gonna grow a baby inside yourself or get followed home by a crazy-looking fellow), then yeah, of course, that is a good place to defer to someone who knows what's up.
Also, with respect to the risk of making feminism another male-dominated sphere -- maybe I'm too new to it, but I've honestly never met any loud-mouth-man-feminists. I have met precious few male feminists, and a few more thoughtful men who wouldn't think to use the label/don't label themselves as feminist for any number of (fairly problematic) reasons but who none-the-less appear to me to be thinking critically about women's issues. And they are, by and large, doing a lot more listening than talking (anecdotal generalization what what). I guess I am curious if when you say "male-dominated sphere" if you are talking about the risk of becoming male-dominated applying to academia in specific, or in a broader sense, culturally or something?
Shifting gears back to the original topic, I remember when I was young (Clara the Pre-Teen era or thereabouts) I went to this friend's birthday party that had boys at it, possibly the first boy-girl party I'd gone to since toddlerhood (that's probably a gross exaggeration, but anyways it was a very big deal to the birthday girl that boys were there and I did remember it feeling sort of new somehow), and anyways I was talking to this one boy about the White Stripes and he was like, "Man I love them, but that girl can't drum" followed by a general "Can girls play music?" soliloquy. And I remember I was like, "Heh, yeah" and sort of wracking my brain for some sort of counterexample and feeling suddenly woefully unlearned about what good drumming is or is not. I did not tell him that I thought he was wrong about his "girls playing music" ideas or that I didn't like the White Stripes or even that I played piano for several years and could probably out-music him and whatever lame guitar tabs he learned on the internet. Which is to say, the language of female inadequacy can make even bright, competent women shut up, and it's an important thing to keep in mind and consciously work against. So, there.
Yunior:
Okay yeah and five posts just posted while I wrote that addressing basically the same issue, I feel better now.
Yunior:
--- Quote from: Ptommydski on 03 Mar 2011, 16:56 ---I'm not saying don't call yourself a feminist if you're a man, I'm saying I don't and won't in the future because I've met a lot of very active feminists who found it offensive.
--- End quote ---
I can definitely appreciate that you are choosing to represent yourself in a certain way, but I sort of wonder if this line of thinking doesn't hit a wall somehow? Like I personally, as a feminist, wished feminism would evolve to create a space/role for men -- as good fathers, good partners, good colleagues, etc. -- because I feel like so many of the practical, day-to-day issues facing women today (domestic abuse/rape, wage gaps, reproductive rights) would lessen if we put the onus on men to stop thinking of women as lesser or other and to recognize they are deserving of respect and fair treatment in both public and private spheres. Doesn't that sort of mean, by trying not to step on the toes of feminists you know and agree with, you are stepping on my toes?
It's obvious you've thought about it and I'm not trying to convince you of using the label if it's not for you. It's just, to be completely honest, when I meet some man who could potentially label himself as feminist and he chooses not to, it kind of registers to me as a cop-out somehow (I am probably a lot like Johnny C's friends in that way?). I'm not accusing you of copping out, it's just
I invited you to a party and you didn't go and my feelings got hurt :-(
ALoveSupreme:
--- Quote from: Yunior on 03 Mar 2011, 17:36 ---Like I personally, as a feminist, wished feminism would evolve to create a space/role for men -- as good fathers, good partners, good colleagues, etc. -- because I feel like so many of the practical, day-to-day issues facing women today (domestic abuse/rape, wage gaps, reproductive rights) would lessen if we put the onus on men to stop thinking of women as lesser or other and to recognize they are deserving of respect and fair treatment in both public and private spheres.
--- End quote ---
This.
And, yeah, guys who take women's studies classes to "pick up chicks" are fucking pricks, since when has there never been a fucking prick within a movement that doesn't represent it.
To this logic, white people should not support equality among races and just keep their mouths shut and never try to take Black/African American Studies courses in college to educate themselves? Sorry, I'm really not buying any of that at all.
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