feminist blogs

A reader is looking for resources:

While pondering the problems of navigating the rocky waters of heterosexual sexuality with its troublesome past and symbolic meanings, I wondered: are there any good resources online for sex from a feminist perspective? Not blogs, but more along the lines of info sites.
Also, an interesting topic of discussion would be if there are any forms of sex that are essentially negative, or against the principles of feminism, if they’re done by sensitive, equal partners? Or is that ideal of a relationship (being very difficult, while everyone thinks they are in one) just likely to obfuscate what might be problematic sex lives?

Can anyone help out?

A reader writes in with a question about how to do feminism in her daily life:

How do you talk about issues that are certainly feminist, but not necessarily button-pushing issues like sex work and abortion, with your friends? I’m thinking specifically about how to encourage my to accept their bodies as they are and to recognize the effect that the media has on everyone’s, and particularly women’s, body image. My friends know that I identify as feminist, and most of them, while they might not accept that label themselves, certainly believe in feminist ideals. I want to bring this idea up, because I am becoming increasingly concerned with the prevalence of body-hating talk whenever we get together. (For what it’s worth, ALL of them are conventionally attractive, so it seems to me that the talk comes more because they subconsciously think it’s expected, even required, in our society than that they actually believe it.) I already tell them regularly that they are beautiful, but I worry that 1) I’m reinforcing the idea that conventional beauty determines female value and 2) they don’t believe me anyway.

Suggestions?

And remember that you can email your Feministe Feedback questions to feministe -at- gmail.com

A doozy of a question:

I’ve been having a series of discussions lately with a friend about the minimum wage. It’s got me thinking about several issues, namely how increasing the minimum wage affects corporations and how lower class families are often blamed for their poverty on the grounds that they shouldn’t have had so many children. My friend states that he’s against raising the minimum wage because it’s nonsensical when you look at the “big picture.” First of all, I’m curious to know if there are any feminist ways to look at the issue of the minimum wage, and whether it should be raised or remain static.

Secondly, there seems to be a kind of evasive classism in the notion that low-income families should have only a small number of children, or none at all. Often it’s not just classism, but racism and sexism as well, as women are often seen as the purpetrators (especially when they are single mothers), and as much of the shame is often levelled toward families of color. I’m having a hard time explaining to my middle-class friend why criticizing low-income families for having children is wrong, perhaps because though it personally affects me (as one of five daughters in a low-income family) I can’t quite articulate my grievances. I call it an ‘evasive’ classism because defenses like, “they should’ve known better/been more responsible” or “how did they plan on feeding you/giving you a decent education?” etc. seem so airtight to the white, middle-class sense of reason. I’m not quite sure how to approach this problem, though I believe very strongly that low-income families have every right to a family, regardless of whether they can provide a life with all of the accouterments the middle-class sees as “necessary.” I also see a lot of classism coming from middle-class people talking about women from 18-21 having children. Anyhow, I’d like to hear some views on these issues.

These are big, complex questions, but well worth discussing (and certainly not discussed enough). Thoughts? Resources? Suggestions?

A reader writes in:

I’m a high schooler who’s recently become interested in feminist/LGBT issues, and since I won’t have anything to do this summer I figured I’d spend the time reading some books on the topic. Can you recommend anything? I’m interested in historical things (I’m probably going to try to read The Second Sex, at least,) but I’d also really love to find some good recent books.

Help a girl out.

I was reading a few articles you’ve linked to recently about children’s media, and a quick squiz through my little brother’s books has me kind of worried. He’s four, so this is about when that kind of stuff starts to really sink in. I’ve noticed before that his favourite series of books/cartoons, Thomas The Tank Engine, was… well, you know the drill. All the trains are male, a few coaches are female - it’s adapted from a pretty old series so that’s not surprising. Lately they’ve tried to add some girl trains but all two of them are pink and purple and the morals of their stories end up being weird riffs on the “woman enters male dominated workplace, thinks she’s all that, can be useful after all when she’s learned her place” theme. Which is really surreal in a childrens book. Then again, the (extremely unsubtle… unless you’re four, I guess) morals of all the male trains stories are basically of the training-corporate-drones genre (Really Useful is the highest accolade a train can hold - yeah, it’s REALLY REALLY blatant).

Anyway, I can’t do anything about what his favourites are, but I would like to make sure his choices include good books with more equality in them. He’s mostly being raised by my parents and grandparents but I babysit, and I can give him books for his birthdays, and I thought your readers might have some recommendations as to children’s books (preferably picture books as he can’t read yet) which have female characters and won’t make me stop halfway through reading them aloud to say things like “which is a little silly because I’m sure she could have caught the dinosaur by herself…” ALL THE TIME.

Thanks in advance

Any ideas for good children’s books that don’t tokenize girls, depend on stereotypes, or train kids to fulfill narrow gender roles (girls as “helpful” or dependent and boys as “useful”)? Or books that have characters from diverse backgrounds and family structures (i.e., not all white kids with two married heterosexual parents)?

Still on a break, but I’ll be putting up some Feministe Feedback posts this week. And if you have a question for Feministe readers, email feministe-at-gmail-dot-com. Today’s question:

I recently found out that my father has been asked to join an all-male social club. It’s not quite the Freemasons, but it’s definitely one of those “Former Presidents became members before they became Presidents” clubs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Club). He’s a working-class guy and would never have been asked to join were it not that he has some skills and qualifications that they require for some of their activities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove). He was very excited about it when he told me about it, offering to take me in on their “Ladies’ Night.” I was a little shocked that he assumed I wouldn’t have a problem with it. At the time, I just rolled my eyes and changed the subject, but it’s been bugging me ever since.

What I need some help with is, how do you explain what’s wrong with all-male organizations like this one? I’m at a loss for how to talk to him about it, in part because it seems so obviously wrong to me that I don’t quite know where to begin with someone who can’t see it intuitively. My dad normally has a fine-tuned sense of fairness and in the past has been willing to do what’s right at the expense of what’s convenient, but something’s gone wrong in this case. Can you help me articulate concrete reasons why he shouldn’t join this club?

Ideas?

An excellent question:

I was pretty disgusted to find out that the economic stimulus checks are going to be sent out instead of increasing benefits for the poor (if I recall correctly, unemployment and other public services were going to take a hit so that people could get $300 to spend on stuff). I’m not really that well off, but am well off enough that I don’t really need the $300 check when it comes, and I’d love to donate it to an organization that is both pro-woman / feminist and helps the poor. If I keep my $300, I’d probably just spend it on something unnecessary, and I don’t want the money to trickle up to people who are already swimming in gold coins. I’d like it to trickle down to people less fortunate than myself.

I’m sure you all have lots of suggestions, so let’s hear ‘em. And this is a really great idea — maybe those of us who don’t need an extra $300 could follow suit.

A reader writes in:

I have a feminist blog that I update pretty regularly, and of course people close to me end up in it from time to time. Anyway, I made a post about an argument my friend and I had, and she ended up reading it. She accused me of selling her out in order to get more hits for my site; in reality I was pretty distressed by her arguments and was writing about them as a discourse on arguements that I commonly face against feminism.

Well, after I found she was upset, I apologized and took down the post.

My real question is where do you draw the line about possibly hurting those close to you and standing your ground? I still feel very strongly about this and the arguments I made, but really, my relationship with her matters more to me.

Any suggestions?

This is one I struggle a lot with. It happens often enough where something happens in my personal life, or in my family, or among my friends, or with the boyfriend, and I think to myself, “This would make really interesting blog fodder.” But usually, I err on the side of not writing about anything personally — and it’s been a hard lesson learned. I’ve never written anything about a friend or partner that’s gotten me into trouble, but commenters can be tough when you write about your personal life — and they can be especially tough when you write something good. So I don’t write about the negative things because those usually involve other people and I don’t want to violate their privacy, and I always hesitate to write about the positive things (or even the neutral-but-personal things) all that much because someone inevitably has to come in and say something nasty, or someone feels the need to make you justify whatever decision you made.

But that said, many of my favorite blog posts ever have been personal ones — just not written by me. Lauren, Feministe’s founder, is one of the best feminist writers out there when it comes to taking personal anecdotes and translating them into broader feminist lessons. I wish I had the talent (and the stomach) for that.

So what do you all do? How much of your personal life do you blog about? Where do you draw the line? How do you write in a way that is true to your experience, but that doesn’t violate anyone’s privacy? How do you justify using your own experiences in your writing when those experiences might include (and potentially hurt) other people?

I suppose you could say that I’m a fairly new Feminist, only having recently started self-identifying as one despite having long held the beliefs. I’ve been immersing myself in the literature and devouring blogs like Feministe in order to better educate myself as to the issues. Feministe Feedback has been a wonderful resource for me and after reading your last column I thought it was time I asked for some advice or at least a chance to hear from other Feminists in a situation similar to mine. The subject I’m asking for help with is this: As of September this year I will be a trainee teacher, before I became involved with Feminism I had never really considered the implications of my gender or political beliefs on this course of action. Now I’m seeing things with slightly clearer eyes. There are a myriad of issues to address, from convincing students that despite the fact I am very young the correct way to refer to me is as “Ms” not “Miss” right through to the challenges of teaching sex ed (I’ll be a biology teacher, luckily in the UK so I won’t have to contend with abstinence only programs), but what’s really concerning me is challenging sexism and homophobia in the classroom. I’m aware that teenagers are a tough crowd at the best of times and that I’ll have to not appear to be pushing a certain political agenda but I’m certain that I won’t be able to stay quiet. Especially considering the statistics about homophobia and sexual harassment in schools that are coming to light at the moment. Amongst all that rambling is the following request: are there any Feminist teachers or people who have had experience dealing with teenagers, particularly the older ones, that can give me any advice for how to handle situations in the classroom that I’m uncomfortable with or find flat out offensive?

Any suggestions for teachers (and other adults) who are in positions of authority and have to challenge sexism, homophobia, racism and other issues?

Your most recent entry - on what a feminist relationship looks like - is primarily pitched at female feminists. I, as a well-intentioned but nonetheless male participant in relationships, would really like to know the answer to that question. i don’t commit the obvious sort of mistakes that non-feminist guys do, or at least i hope i don’t. Nonetheless there are certainly crimes of ignorance, so to speak.

In fact, you should write a book answering this question - “how to be a feminist boyfriend.”

Perhaps I will. In the meantime, what are your suggestions for men who want to be good feminist partners?