Challenge your attitudes towards Feminism
This article is part of the Featured section and originally ran with illustrations and a lot of graphic-intensive layout. You can see how the article originally looked in print here.
I know what you’re thinking when you read the title. A rant about how working women have destroyed the nuclear family. Or as Pat Buchanan wrote in a 1983 syndicated column, “Rail as they will about ‘discrimination,’ women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the !ercely competitive world of Western capitalism.”
This is not what I am saying. I fully support feminism and its impact on the world. I appreciate the fact that I am not expected to pop out kids and cook a pot roast for my husband.
However, the oppression of women is not the only form of oppression that exists. How could it be? Social problems ranging from gender bias, racism, religious intolerance, poor education or socio-economic inequality are interconnected. To privilege one over another is a mistake.
It is so easy for white, afluent women, in which I include myself, to overlook this. I have the gift of cultural capital. Literacy, access to information and a supportive environment all contribute to my ability to understand that oppression of white, afluent women is still alive and that even something as simple as thinking my vagina smells bad is a type of oppression. As a result, I am able to stand up in room full of strangers and declare that my vagina smells like roses, as is done in “The Vagina Monologues” of which I participated in my first-year.
I think that “white girl feminism” is still relevant. Eating disorders and rape still occur regardless of class or race, thus feminism cannot die.
Yet, identity and ideology don’t exist in a vacuum. I am a feminist because I have cultural capital, not because feminism is the highest and most true ideology. Don’t assume your support of feminism, or any belief for that matter, for this reason. There is always a reason.
Here is my challenge to you: self-examine. Understand yourself and where you’ve come from. When you start see why you believe the things you do, identifying other forms of oppression in your life will be easier. Your feminist attitudes are a great place to start.
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