DISCUSSION FORUM:
feminism and its influence on the portrayal of sexual power



This is an archive page for June 2000.

Where reader comments are of interest or where they raise significant points I will publish my response in dialogue pages such as this one. Reader comment excerpts are in black and my replies in red.
Please send your scathing critiques and observations to the sarcasmo@bigpond.com


From: Kristina info@bigbadchinesemama.com
I wondered if ya wanted to look over my site and consider linking it. Its a mock mail order bride website, i choose the format because it sort of humanized the role women play on actual sites, that and i just wanted to fuck around on my own terms.

http://www.bigbadchinesemama.com
Ass kicking anti-geishas, mail order brides from hell, and what Hello Kitty was thinking all these years under the mouthless/speechless facade of "cuteness." The Asian American womanrant has just begun.

Skip to next entry or continue with my reply.
I had a look at the site and found it very funny, although I doubt most people find my opinions trustworthy. Hopefully she will get additional contributions, making this a valuable countercultural resource.


From: "Athena Sunwolf" asunwolf@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000

Well, I can't say that I agree with much of your site, but I can say it is interesting and at least more intelligent than a lot of nonfeminist sites I've seen.

I am a moderate feminist, not the radical feminazis so many people associate with feminism. I have a male partner whom I love dearly, and all my my close friends are male. I've always gotten along better with men anyway, so I can't be called a man-hater. I see men as equal individuals. Yes, they can lift heavier things than I can, but so what? I as an individual can do things they as individuals can't, like run a kennel raising and training show dogs. Most of my guy-friends, however, pretty well blow me away as far as computers go. Does it really matter? I think not.

I don't believe in judging people in groups, at least not to the extent that many feminists judge or are judged. I've seen some pretty harsh accusations made against all feminists; that we are the reason our culture is going to Hell, that we are the reason for the high school shootings, that we are the reason for all the bad developments within the past 40-plus years. I don't buy that.

Change is the only constant. If our culture didn't change, it would stagnate and die. And when we are in such a great state of unstableness due to change as we are currently, things will be pretty hectic. Old patterns have been uprooted and the new ones haven't been decided yet. It doesn't matter what causes upheaval in society--problems greater than those before will always arise. people expect that the old ways will solve everything, and yet if everyone had been satisfied with what had been, there would have been no need for the changes.

I don't like seeing children shoot eachother, nor do I encourage rises in crime. I do, however, appreciate the freedom I have today. I am currently 30 hours away from completing my BA in English, and I have learned much in the last three years, not only from English courses, but from general education requirements. I like the fact that I can go to college to learn, rather than to find a husband. I look forward to being able to pay my own rent, live on my own and make my own decisions. I also enjoy birth control. I don't like children. Period. I would be an absolutely terrible mother. I highly appreciate not only the Pill, but also living in a society in which my worth is not measured in how many babies I can pop out before I die, or how pretty they are, or how much of myself I sacrifice for them. Had I been born 50 years ago, I would have gone insane.

Feminism, to me, is not about making men slaves, or castration complexes, or turning all women into lesbians who get their babies from sperm banks (not that this doesn't work for some). It is about being a partner with my mate, making decisions together and compromising enough so that neither one of us gets the short end of the stick. It is about relating to people by how they act, not what their genitalia is. It is about each woman having the choice to have children and care for them as best as they can, depending upon their circumstances, or to not have them and instead concentrate on their own wants and needs and developing themselves to the greatest extent possible.

Yes, there are those who have abused the ideals of feminism, turned it from equality to matriarchy. They are not, though, representative of all feminists, and the reputations of the rest of us get trashed along with theirs. There are those who think feminism means a lack of responsibility--this is not so. It is, rather, a refocusing of responsibility. Imagine if men were expected to do nothing but sit around the house all day with a toddler? Some would enjoy it, as stay-at-home dads indicate, but there would be those who would be going every bit as insane as I would.

Women as a group cannot be judged together, just as men as a group can't. I am no ball-busting bitch who wants all men dead. Nor am I the cheerleader from the high school I graduated from who deliberately got herself pregnant by the quarterback just so she could be with him forever. I am an individual. I make my own decisions and I let my intentions be known. If I flirt with my guy-friends, I make it known within the flirtation that it is all in fun, and if they make ribald comments, I answer back with one just as bad. I don;t complain about being harrassed unless someone crosses the well-marked line. I am the same way in most other parts of my life as well.

So please do keep in mind that these wild radicals who call themselves feminists and then hurt women by hurting the men who are special to us, be they friends, partners, coworkers or just the nice mail carrier, are not indicative of the whole. Nor am I. Many people on both sides often forget that not all people of a group, no matter how small, are all alike, despite knowledge otherwise.


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