Quote:
Originally Posted by JurisDictum
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Well to be fair to Feminism as a label -- its all people identifying as feminist. You can add a qualifier so that real wack jobs and trolls don't count -- This is what Muslims argue about ISIS (but not every radical group).
But I think its helpful to seperate 2 things labeled feminism:
1) Academic Feminism as a form of scholarship -- usually OK unless from a werid institution.
2) Your run of the mill feminist that follows media trends.
Now 1 is the intellectual basis for 2...but a lot gets lost in translation. Like basically all of it but a slogan or two.
Academic Feminism as a college subject -- important stuff (but don't oversell the B.A. in it IMO).
Media feminism and popular feminism and what most feminists do most the time...not as much. It can be useful when mobilized for a legal goal IMO. But there isn't one really strictly feminist. And frankly -- they got a bad rap in the media. It doesn't help the cause usually to say "feminists believe x."
Why does 2020 need to be about sexual assault and Trump? We aren't going to win that. Even if we do -- yea us, we got ourselves a fucking Clinton or some centrist that makes rich feminists happy. The media is all about girls in their pussyhats -- but wouldn't cover Occupy Wallstreet worth a shit. Except for when it was time to make fun of the bums showing up.
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Amen. Once again I agree with the almost all of your post, but just one thing: I don't see it as just academic feminism vs. media feminism, or that either is "popular" feminism.
To me at least, "real modern feminism" ("popular feminism") is in Facebook. I have one artist friend (not from college, surprisingly) who makes things like Elizabeth Warren "she persevered" t-shirts and pro-Planned Parenthood coffee mugs. I have have several friends from my college rape prevention peer education group; only a few are still active, but they all still hold ("modern") feminist values. I also have (way) more friends who would identify as feminist, but have never actually been "active in the movement".
To me the real "popular feminism" are both the boots on the ground protesting (literally or virtually) AND it's the ones who just (say) consider their senator's position on rape in the military when they're deciding who to vote for. Numerically there are far more of these people than there are either academic or media feminists, yet unless you happen to have them on your Facebook feed all you'd ever know about "modern feminism" is the media and maybe the academics.
When MLK or Malcolm X led their respective segments of their movement it was clear that they represented them. I just don't feel that the people on TV with the word "feminist" underneath their name represent the "real feminists" the same way, and so I don't think it's the best idea to lump them all into one "modern feminist" lump ... especially since many of those non-representative media feminists say some crazy ass shit (which is likely why the TV channel put them on in the first place).