feminist blogs

Speaker One

Members of the academy---- as a romantic character, a woman, I am the embodiment of all your theories and desires. I particularly enjoyed my incarnation as a late 21st century hacker Anna Karenina, Tanya X. And Vronsky as the spy she falls in love with--- nice touch. But she kills herself before they can do it. I’m willing to go along with all these little literary experiments, but I’m still not getting laid with any regularity. I’m not getting any S-E-X. And this is definitely getting to be a problem. It’s been five years now. I’d like to jump someone’s bones. Put me in a bodice ripper, let a half-wolf, half-man ravage me. Or something.

And so I’m honored this evening to have Professor Lucy Witter-Avedon, from a very prominent university in Bologna, as my first speaker this morning, and without any further ado I’d like to welcome her to the panel. As she takes her place here on the podium, once again I’d like to remind you, esteemed members of the academy, that you need to find me a narrative so I can get some action in the sack. I don’t know how I can be any clearer. Professor Avedon?

Speaker Two

You’re wearing a Balmain dress, your honey blond hair is wound in an elegant chignon revealing heavy silver earrings. You’re often photographed at Martha’s Vineyard at sunrise, Key West on New Year’s Day, Coney Island on Christmas, and variously at dive bars in Montauk. You’re a woman of a certain age and you are also a woman of the world. You’re a 21st century woman. You’re 40 years old, the 1st wave of feminism is ancient history. So if you’re going to commit adultery, it’s going to be an informed decision. Which means you have enough agency to do it on your own. This is my view. And for this, you don’t need a writer. Let me repeat. This story writes itself. It always has. Authors have always been incidental. You should know that by now.

You could be Anna Karenina again, but not a trashy mash-up. Instead of throwing yourself on the tracks and dying, Benito, a maintenance worker, rescues you at the last minute. As he pulls you to safety, his dark eyes blaze a trail through your heart. You find yourself in a supply closet off the main gate. He’s about to fuck you blind, but you don’t mind. He’s stupid, but that doesn’t bother you either. As he roughly unbuttons your silk blouse and rips off your expensive jewelry, you muse that fucking is better than dying. That would be a revelation for Anna Karenina. So you don’t fall in love, not at all. But at least you are not pulverized. Three days later, you are accidentally shot and killed.  It's tragic but at least your desire is fulfilled

Speaker Three

The story has to maintain its purity. I’ve said this many times before.  Otherwise what is the point? She is tragic, has always been tragic and must remain tragic, this is why she is so beautiful. So hear me out--- Anna K can finally have her orgasm just as the train is crushing her body. It can be a manual orgasm or a mechanical one. Perhaps the vibrating tracks quiver and shake as the iron beast approaches. And in this way, the story retains the same architecture. The same power.

Speaker One

The point is to get laid and stay alive.  But I could be that girl who is photographed at sunrise on Martha’s Vineyard. Why not? The image is beautiful, yet it hides my inner turmoil. I’m on the beach by a bit of driftwood, the sky is barely pink. Why am I alone at such an early hour? Or am I alone? It’s the moment that everything is crashing down around me. The night before, my husband  found out about my affair. We’d just finished dinner at a small but exclusive club in Montauk. I had a bowl of lobster bisque and monk fish with juniper berries, and a white rioja. The stars were out. It was the end of summer. I was wearing that Balmain dress, but my hair was loose, I liked the way it felt in the wind.

 I know that when we get home there will be message for him on his Blackberry. I know it will be the end of our marriage. I know that this will also disgrace his family. But I do nothing to stop this from happening. I’m supposed to want to kill myself, but I don’t. This where my desire differs from the canon. And maybe I’m on the beach at dawn because I getting my wits about me. Heads will roll. Shit will hit the fan. I know this. But all I want to do is call up my lover, the DA who is prosecuting my prominent husband for bank fraud. I want to fuck him for hours on the deserted moonlight beach. Because after that revivifying fuck, I want to steal my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s Porsche, sell it for parts in the city, and disappear. I’d like the story to start right here. When she disappears.
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"She adorns herself with many ornaments like a despicable harlot, and takes up her position at the crossroads to seduce the sons of man.  When a fool approaches her, she grabs him, kisses him, and pours him wine of dregs of viper's gall.  As soon as he drinks it, he goes astray after her.  When she sees that he has gone astray after her from the paths of truth, she divests herself of all ornaments which she put on for the fool. Her ornaments for the seduction of the sons of man are: that her hair is long and red, and from her ears hang six ornaments, Egpytian chords and all the ornaments in the Land of the East hang from her nape...her tongue is sharp like a sword, her words are smooth like oil, her lips are red like a rose and sweetened by all the sweetness in the world...yon fool goes astray after her and drinks from the cup of wine and commits fornications with her...that fool awakens...[and] she stands before him clothed in garments of flaming fire, inspiring terror and making body and soul tremble...and she kills that fool and casts him into Gehenna."
---Zohar I 148a-b Sitre Torah
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I like when she "grabs him and kisses him."  This is Lilith of course.  The only Biblical woman who has any agency at all. 
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Two blog posts (see here and here), where men express a clear outrage towards the feminist movement, have been brought to my attention this last week. Amongst the claims and complaints, is that men have no equivalent to feminism, that they are underrepresented as a result and it is unfair to have feminist/women bodies and organisations representing feminist values whilst men go ‘underrepresented’. Alongside this is an outright denial of the fact that women experience disproportionately more hardship – consider the comment:

Only a lifeboat-feminism could spout the gibberish “Women and children are at greatest risk from poverty . . . Women are already facing serious consequences from the recession”, the very day after the unemployment figures were released. These showed that of the 19,600 jobs lost in March, 13,600 were those of men, and 6,000 were those of women.

This equates poverty and inequality to losing a job – it ignores the fact that many women are in fact unemployed to start with and rely on benefits (etc) from the state to help them with children etc. Women are more likely to be in part-time work too, which is most likely to be low paid, poor conditioned and insecure. Then there is the effect this has on women’s pensions, as women on average live longer than men and are therefore more likely to have to survive on a poor pension. Furthermore, the author even recognised that the public sector is where women are more likely to work, and thus, given that this is the most targeted sector of the UK economic project, then women are set to suffer more anyway, when it comes to job loses.

If some men really feel so hard done by, then maybe they should start-up their own unified ‘manist’ movement or something. But I know of many men who actually have joined the feminist movement, as they see that women are overwhelming disadvantaged in so many areas – and that there is a lot to do to create equality between men and women.

I am by no means rejecting the fact that in some areas men are at a disadvantage - such as the often forced ‘masculinisation’ (aka. hegemonic masculinity). However, it isn’t the women’s fault there is no unified male movement against this, and actually, many feminists also campaign against this type of inequality anyway – not all feminists hate men as these articles seem to assume. I am one of those feminists, who would happily campaign against injustices men face. For example, equal paternity rights is an injustice against men as well as women – there are many men who would love to spend more time with their children but are prevented from doing so due to outdated ideologies. Then there is also the sexuality activism linked in with feminism, as many feminists campaign for gay men as well as lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.

That is not to say that there are some feminists, such as the radicals, who seem to hate men (refer to the comment section below, as some disagree with my characterisation). That is a given. But this opposition to feminists on the grounds of unfair generalisations, which seem pretty prevalent at the moment, are just an unfair characterisation of the whole feminist movement. It is just a further attempt to devalue successful campaigns against the many injustices that women face.

Most of these arguments against feminism also imply a strong biological reductionist tone too, consider:

i.e. men are seeking a mate to make them feel comforted, respected and loved, and have a SEX partner… Women on the other hand also have A BIOLOGICAL MISSION, which once again is basically to find a mate, but this time with the aim of reproducing.

This is obviously stone age language. Most people have moved on from the biological essentialism of social biology and Social Darwinism, to recognise that it is a social construction, which reflects a clear power relationship. Again, this is further evidence that arguments such as these are based on very outdated two sex views of sex, gender and sexuality.

I am not quite sure why I even entertained the two articles in the depth I have, but I guess it was because this type of nonsensical writing infuriates me. It is oblivious to the harsh reality of life, that it is women who are more likely to be disadvantaged – and that these current economic policies are more likely to affect women, and that they are more likely to make women’s already disadvantaged position worse. That is just a fact, some men may not like women and men alike getting together to campaign and highlight this injustice, but then why would they when it threatens the very power structure they wish to uphold?

The London Library copy of Before I Go…Reflections on my life and times, by the late Guardian women’s editor Mary Stott, was last borrowed in 1998, and only a couple of times before that.

It’s a pity for her 1985 memoirs have much to offer the reader of today, and have many reminders that many of the issues with which we’re wrestling politically – from voting systems to maternity leave – have been the subject of furious debate for decades.

Born in 1917, she’s something of a bridge between the First Wave feminists and the Second Wave, which she viewed from a place of mature professional power and influence (one of the few women in that position at that time) with some understandable bemusement. By modern standards she’s unsound on the subject of “Ms”, she hated it, and rather unsound on homosexual rights, but given the world she grew up in, she’s humane, commonsensical and remarkably clear-sighted, while being self-effacing and alost frustratingly humble.

She’s much to say on feminism that still has powerful resonance today, for example:

“The spate of books on women’s subjects in the last few years has been extraordinary. Too many, in my view, have been inaccessible to me, who left my grammar school at 17, and to the girls who leave their comprehensives at 16 – not to mention many others in between. I think it is time to concentrate more attention on the writing, on the simple, comprehensible exposition of ideas rather than on the bibliography.”

She’s also interesting as a defector from Labour to be a founding member of the SDP in 1981, and a member of its executive in 1982, a self-identified political neophyte:

“…it takes a very strong and politically idealistic spirit to survive bickering over procedural hassles. Procedure has to be sorted out, but perhaps the political novices, ‘the nice people’, the ‘wets’ have a role in indicating, now and then, when we can summon courage to tackle the technicians, that ‘ends’ are really what matter and what keep enthusiasm alive, and, even, that means can corrupt ends. Sometimes I fear that the more ‘political’ one becomes, the more one is likely to lose sight of the goal that made one join a party in the first place.”

Today, as the conservative government talks much of Big Society, while also slashing funding for the institutions that might support it, she reports on the president of the National Council of Women, Helen Waldsax, asking “that the government should ‘acknowledge in some constructive form the public service given by so many voluntary organisations to this country’ and warned that unless this was done, many organisations would have to function at half strength, or even disappear, which would mean the loss of ‘the source of supply of many specialist skills’. She added, ‘a very important democratic principle is at stake here’. But there has been no sign that Prime Minister Thatcher, who so heartily approves, she says the voluntary principle, has taken any notice.”

But perhaps the most pervasive sense one gets from this book is the modestly and self-deprecation of a woman who was obviously powerful and exceptional. It’s a reminder of how women were taught to be – and must never allowed to be again.

My name is Alexandra Garza and I was a student of Ileana Jiménez’s at Elisabeth Irwin High School (LREI). Before I was a student and now friend of Ileana’s, I had only known her contagious laugh heard frequently throughout the hallways. As time passed, I saw her at school assemblies encouraging students to get involved in various panels, lectures, and discussions on race, class, and gender. For some time, I’d been interested in joining these discussions Ileana so passionately advocated. I took my curiosity into consideration when selecting courses for my junior year. I was definitely lured in by Ileana’s passion. I decided to jump into the conversation head first by signing up for Ileana’s literature course, Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Women Writers, Artists, and Activists. Aside from the fantastic title, I had a feeling this class could change my entire life.

Before I knew it, the summer whizzed by and it was my first day of eleventh grade. The college process was beginning, and not having a clear idea of what I wanted to study, I planned on taking an array of courses that year. Even so, I was nervous about entering Ileana’s class when I received my schedule. As a junior, it was slightly daunting to be in a class with seniors, as my school has mixed grade electives. Yet, Ileana, with her booming voice, warm smile, and passion towards her craft and her students, made sure everyone felt welcome and involved.

In a society where feminist educators are often associated with higher education, Ileana introduced my high school classmates and me to feminist authors and icons such as Sojourner Truth, Mary Wollstonecraft, Judy Chicago, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Alice and Rebecca Walker, to name a few. Most of us juniors and seniors barely knew anything about the groundbreaking women listed above before taking this course. One of Ileana’s greatest gifts is her ability to apply history, no matter how far back in time, to our lives as young women and men of the 21st century. Throughout the course, we were all eager to voice our opinions and share our experiences battling the stereotypes and prejudices we face on a daily basis along the lines of not only gender and sexuality but also race and class. My peers and I were encouraged to define feminism for ourselves based on the literature we read, the art we saw, and the feminist conference at Columbia we attended titled “What is Feminist Politics Now? Local and Global.”

I emerged from Ileana’s class unafraid to stand up against sexism and misogyny, and became increasingly more self-confident. In the midst of the college application process and still eager to immerse myself in more feminist literature and theory, I was inspired by Ileana to add her alma mater, Smith College, to my list. After completing another course of Ileana’s, titled Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Memory, Imagination, and the Narratives of Slavery, which consisted of myself and five other young women, I longed for more of the challenging and stimulating discussions Ileana led us through. I knew I would find that at Smith. After unwavering support from and tireless work alongside Ileana, I was accepted to Smith College’s Class of 2014. I am eternally grateful to Ileana for giving me the fantastic opportunities that not many young women have: a devoted teacher and nurturer focused on empowering her students through feminism.

Alexandra Garza is entering her first year at Smith College. Her guest post is a part of an ongoing series on the impact of teaching and learning feminism in high school.

This post is a part of the THIS IS WHAT A YOUNG FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE blog carnival. According to some (ahem, Newsweek and the New York Times), young feminists do not exist. Those same people also say that young people don’t care about reproductive rights and equal pay for women. As a young woman myself, [...]

Read more global feminist posts at Gender Across Borders.

Written by Miriam Zoila Pérez, Founder, Radicaldoula.com and Editor, Feministing.com

The women in my Cuban-immigrant family are definitely feminist. I'm not sure how many of them would identify with the f-word themselves, but they were definitely my feminist role models. Let's start with my mom--an immigrant herself, who came from Cuba when she was only thirteen. After divorcing my dad when I was four, she's been a paragon of strength--raising two kids, a vibrant academic career. All on her own, all without a partner in her life. She I can pretty safely say would call herself a feminist. Her sisters though? Not as likely.

I didn't grow up under a banner of feminism--if my mom was an activist in the 70s, it wasn't under that banner either. But damn if the women in my family aren't strong as hell--and that taught me feminism loud and clear, even if I never knew the word until college (or maybe high school, but then only as an insult).
This quote from My Big Fat Greek Wedding really struck me (courtesy of IMDB):

Toula Portokalos: Ma, Dad is so stubborn. What he says goes. "Ah, the man is the head of the house!"
Maria Portokalos: Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.

Now I wouldn't say the women in my family controlled the men in the way that quote implies--but they were definitely running the scene from backstage. I hate to say it, but the men in my family seem to have a pattern of being a bit of a mess. There is alcoholism, gambling, mental health issues, you name it. Maybe this is a product of being the exile generation? Either way, despite the fact that the men in my family always appear to be in charge, in control, leading things, its more often than not the women in my family who are really keeping things together, making sure things go smoothly, keeping their husbands, brothers and sons going.

That's not the ideal scenario, by any means, but it did give me some amazingly strong (feminist) role models to look up to. My abuela, my mom, my tia.

That might sound pretty gendered--but that's the way it is in my family, even with me, the queer daughter in the mix.

Again, these women didn't carry the banner of feminism, but they affected me for sure. It wasn't until college that I started using the label. I had one semester of intense college feminist activism. It was a semester that left me feeling burned out (typical!) and not so connected to my feminist peers who were at the time primarily straight and white.

I came back to feminism when I was finally in an environment and a movement that centered the Latina experience--working with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. It was at that organization (run and led by a young Latina) and in the reproductive justice movement that I was finally able to connect my immigrant experience with my feminist beliefs, and even see how they went together.



Summer of Feminista is a project where Latinas are sharing what feminism means to them. Positive. Negative. Academic statements. Personal stories. Learn more or how you can join the Summer of Feminista. This is a project of Viva la Feminista. Link and quote, but do not repost without written permission

Today is the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, also known as Women's Equality Day. You probably (hopefully?) know that the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote (okay, theoretically…this was many years before the passage of the Voting Rights Act so in reality we are probably [...]

“My name is Lola Lorber, I’m a freshman, and my preferred gender pronouns are she, her, and hers.”

This is how we introduce ourselves on the first few days of classes at Oberlin College. To some it may sound weird, funny, or redundant; but at Oberlin, it is the norm.

I am proud to say I believe in sex positivity and freedom of speech. I’m a vegan, and I like to laugh. I’ve recently gotten into stand-up comedy because I like being able to say things into a microphone and make myself loud and heard. I am proud to make people laugh. I am proud to be an LREI alum (Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School).

The first elective course I ever took in high school was a memoir writing class my junior year. In this class, I discovered my voice, my identity, and my love for telling stories. In the fall of 2007, we were an intimate class of ten students consisting of a mix of juniors and seniors, and one teacher, Ileana Jiménez (also known as Feminist Teacher). We met almost every day in a hidden corner of the library–and it was here where our lives were shared and merged with each other’s. My peers would read aloud their pieces to the class revealing their true selves. With assigned readings from published memoirs and writing prompts given to us by Ileana, we were all immersed on a journey of our own words. I quickly became familiar with my humorous and sincere voice and I knew that I would continue to embrace it in my future.

In my senior year, I took another English elective titled Dangerous Language with a different teacher at my high school. We read pieces of literature that were considered in many countries to be “taboo,” “inappropriate,” and in fact, “dangerous.” Who can imagine 17 and 18 year-olds reading The Color Purple and Lolita and having regular debates about race, gender, sex, rape, pedophilia and incest?

In another elective called Gender and Madness with the same teacher who taught Dangerous Language, we explored plays such as Proof, Hedda Gabler, and Hamlet where the female protagonists were perceived as insane. The famous Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet was presumed to have gone mad, but honestly, wouldn’t we all go mad if we were dating someone like Hamlet? In this course, we also read about postpartum depression and how doctors and men often overlook or misdiagnose the hormonal, and often chemical imbalance a female-bodied person may endure after giving birth.

All of these courses—Memoir Writing, Dangerous Language, Gender and Madness—opened my mind to think about feminism, sex, gender, identity, and how they all pertain to me. Now having left the nest of LREI, I’ve taken the tools that I gained there and brought them along with me to college. I took a student-taught sex+sexual health course where we discussed safer-sex, contraceptive methods, the taboos of anal sex, STI’s, transgender identity, birthing options (including orgasmic birth . . . who knew?) and more! I was able to be conscious of my peers and accept other people’s views. I now believe strongly that gender, sex, and identity should be things we continue to talk about. I consider myself to be extremely fortunate to have grown up in such an open and accepting environment as LREI; not only is it okay, but it is encouraged and safe for students to communicate with teachers and one another about their identity, including one’s gender and sexuality.

Nonetheless, I do realize that not everyone grew up with the same values as I had sung to me; but because I know this, I feel it is one of my duties as an alum to share what I have learned, and that which I continue to learn. Don’t worry, I’m not going to force-feed you vegan treats, tell you how to plan the birth of your baby, or throw my sex+gender term flashcards at you; I’m just here to say that I’m Lola Lorber, a to-be college sophomore, and my preferred pronouns are she, her, and hers, and if you want, I’m open to continuing the conversation of sex, gender, and identity with you.

Lola Lorber is entering her sophomore year at Oberlin College. Read her blog, Thoughts From a Vegetable-Lover. Her guest post is a part of an ongoing series on the impact of teaching and learning feminism in high school.

After being at LREI for four years, speaking about diversity and feminism became second nature to me. The classes that I took–such as Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Women Writers, Artists, and Activists; Queer Identities: LGBT Literature and Film; and Memoir Writing–paired with the student diversity conferences that I attended, as well as the series of speakers that we were lucky to have at my school, all made issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality prevalent in my mind. During my years at Little Red, one of my teachers, Ileana Jiménez, helped me find myself, develop my feminist identity, and be proud of who I am. I learned to do diversity work in my everyday life.

When I got accepted to Cornell University I was ecstatic. It was my first choice, and I was going to be the first in my family to go to college. I thought,“It’s a huge school, so I am sure that I can find people who share my views on diversity, since Cornell is pretty diverse.” Boy, was I wrong! During my first weeks there, I noticed how racially segregated my field of hospitality management was as well as the University as a whole. I was taken by surprise when I saw that two clubs that I was interested in were completely segregated. One was all white, and the other was made up of all students of color. Naturally, I joined both, not only because I was interested in both clubs but also because I wanted to get at the root of the problem.

When I told members of the club with only students of color that I was applying for a position in the other club I was told, “People that are in this club either don’t get positions in that other club or they don’t like the other club.” Guess what? I was one of the few freshmen who secured leadership positions with both clubs and I loved the experience. I can trace my success directly to the LGBT literature and feminism classes that I took in high school because they prepared me to challenge society and the status quo. I observed that the segregation between the clubs was limiting many fellow students’ potential to become leaders and I had to do something so that all kinds of students could feel comfortable joining both clubs.

During my second semester at Cornell, I took an Introduction to Feminist and Gender Studies class, thinking that I would find the people I was yearning to speak to and share my views with. When I joined this class, I discovered that my classmates were not yet ready to take the initiative that I wanted to take in college. We discussed texts that I had already read my junior year in high school in Ileana’s feminism class. In their attempt to analyze the texts, my classmates simply skimmed the surface and didn’t analyze the readings critically. They did not “squeeze all of the juice” from the texts as I had learned to do and had been doing for years with Ileana. Their observations were superficial and they did not analyze the overall problems and challenges that society’s strict gender roles create. I noticed that my thinking was deeper and more personal than that of others.

As a result, I was determined to find a feminist community at Cornell. I joined the cast of The Vagina Monologues, which is co-sponsored by Cornell’s Women’s Resource Center, searching for my people once again! The women in the cast were strong and independent-minded individuals. But during rehearsal, it was all about memorizing lines, and the bonding that I thought would occur didn’t. Once again, I didn’t find the group that I was looking for.

I did find a connection in a place that I was not expecting. I helped organize a speaker panel on discrimination in hospitality establishments, where we discussed the changes that need to happen in the industry. I was surprised and impressed that one of my classmates was able to invite Khadijah Farmer, who was thrown out of the women’s bathroom at the Caliente Cab Restaurant Company in New York in 2007 for her masculine appearance. For many of the hospitality students, this was the first time that they heard about this case. I knew all about the case as the restaurant happened to blocks be away from my high school and we had spent time discussing this incident in my LGBT literature and feminism classes. As a result, I was able to ask direct questions that further developed our conversation and understanding of the changes that need to happen both in the hospitality industry and in the world in general. The point of the panel was to discuss changes that my generation of hospitality leaders needs to make, and my questions helped students to think broadly about the changes that need to happen in our larger society.

The feminism and LGBT classes that I took at LREI prepared me to challenge the aspects of society that limit me as a woman of color. I learned that not all places are as open as Little Red, and that sometimes it is hard to be the only one somewhere that wants to discuss and challenge society. But the classes I took in high school have prepared to challenge what’s wrong even if others around me don’t feel inclined to do so.

I am going to use the toolbox that I was provided with at Little Red to mold and shape Big Red into what I want it to be for me. Cornell is too big to provide me with the intimate and inclusive environment that I had at LREI. What I must do is initiate discussions with the people around me to create a strong, diverse environment, and then perhaps certain aspects of Big Red can be similar to my high school. When I need to talk about these issues with someone who truly understands, I know that I can turn to Ileana for advice and motivation to keep fighting the good fight because her motivation to do the work that she does has made me become the fierce and fabulous woman I am today.

Jenilssa Holguin is entering her sophomore year at Cornell University. Follow her tweets here. Her guest post is a part of an ongoing series on the impact of teaching and learning feminism in high school.