Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 114 Editor's Choice: 21
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betraying feminism?
[Read the article: Feminism after Friedan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And since when is starting a sentence with "but" a problem? It never hurt Virginia Woolf...
But there are some really smart insights from a lot of the letters. The most significant point being the dualism inherent within Walsh's understanding of feminism. I am continually surprised by how some of the letter-writers characterize feminism, but I don't recogninze the feminism I know in any way agonizing over the "choice" between work and family that Walsh sets up. (Or is this a poor attempt at a journalistic lead?)
Walsh's interjections of her own life allow us to see where such a theoretical framework comes from. The middle class privilege may help, but it also blinds you like a bitch.
I would highly, highly recommend Martha Albertson Fineman's The Autonomy Myth (particularly chapter two "Dependency and Social Debt"). Here, she suggests understanding caretaking (in all its forms, but especially child-rearing) as a social (not individual) responsibility. We need more than "family-friendly" policies; we need a society that is willing to support reproducing the next generation.
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social responsibility
[Read the article: Feminism after Friedan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Justice demands that society recongize that caretaking labor produces a good for the larger society." M.A. Fineman
Parents and family-friendly business practices can only go so far. What we need is social responsibility. We supposedly care enough about children to educate them until they're 18, and care enough about seniors to give them some paltry existance, but we don't subsidize those who are literally reproducing our society.
As a society, we benefit from this labor. But what do we provide in return?
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who said anything about socialism?
[Read the article: Feminism after Friedan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]are we really going to have to hear about the limitations of socialism? I got enough from Reagan and company during the 80s, thanks.
I sound like a friggin librarian today, but I highly recommend Arlie Russell Hochschild's "The Time Bind" in regards to businesses with "family friendly" policies. Not to suggest that these families' experiences are definitive, but they do show the inadequacies of simply creating family friendly policies without adequate social support. While it is easy to sit here and say that I would take family leave, it is another thing to be on the job and worry about how serious you're taken if you take time "off." These policies are good, but how many people use them and to what effect? These are some of the insightful questions Hochschild attempts to answer.
Family friendly policies, longer school days, whatever. Until we recognize and renumerate parents for reproducing society, we'll continue to have parents struggle, and their children and society suffer the consequences.
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I've never watched Buffy, but
[Read the article: Rated G for guys]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I read the Harry Potter series only to find out what Hermione is up to. For the first couple of books, she solved everything. Definitely no side-kick. Then, Harry had to become a man (yawn) or the "chosen one," and all of the endings were based on his specialness (snoooooooze).
In fact, I really liked the early Harry Potter books because it seemed without all of the help from various people, Harry wouldn't defeat Voldemort. And women roles were often vital.
So I guess it depends on how you read the book. But I think a lot of these discussions that assume there is one message that people are going to get from a text (any text) dumbs down the complexity that we all use in understanding stories.
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what's a feminist
[Read the article: Feminism 101]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think Robert Franklin's criteria for gender equality provides its own definition of feminism. Feminism is concerned about gender equality for women.
I say this as someone who identifies as a feminist.
Robert Franklin's claim that if women believed in gender equality, they would seek to alleviate men's over-representation in statistics (which come from?? not that they sound all that off) of well-being. The family law reference is probably the most glarringly anti-feminist in my opinion. I'm not family law scholar by any stretch, but I think that is definitely an area where if feminists really want men to take their roles as fathers seriously (which presumes they don't already), feminists would work to make it more equitable.
The other scenarios Franklin uses to describe the lack of gender equality for men (college enrollments, military and workplace deaths) are interesting. I don't really see a problem with college enrollment among men being down because they still make more money than women (well, white men make more than white women do). So men's declining numbers in college enrollment is a distinct trend, I'm more concerned with how this translates into earning potential later in life. So far, we haven't seen it hurt men, yet.
Workplace and military deaths are gender-specific because work is gender segregated, especially the military. The military didn't want women to be a part of it, so I think it is hardly fair to blame feminists for not being concerned with it. Further, the military's job is....well, to kill people. So when people die, should we be surprised?
And men are more likely to die on the job because they do more dangerous labor on the job than women. Again, the unions put up a big fight and didn't want women in. So blaming women or feminists for their lack of fighting for gender equality isn't quite fair in my humble opinion.
For all the television I watch, I have noticed this men-as-idiots theme. Is this funny to women? It isn't to me, but then are we really looking to popular culture for insight into how to lead our lives? Let's hope not. Not that media isn't important in our lives, but give the viewers at home some freaking credit about how to understand corporate images...