(no subject)

[highlyeccentric]

Apparently I'm using my SRS blog for feminist rants now. About Oxford University Press texts, too.

Comments

Re: Start the discussion up here, too!

[cursor-mundi.livejournal.com]

Problem is that the 'natural' way we do things is pretty much always going to privilege men's ideas. Yes, exactly, and I think it's an issue that's really wide open at this point, despite all the advances in our thinking in the last, eh, 100 or so years. The question of whether or not a book like that, that foregrounds male analysis of the issues, is going to help or hinder is really interesting in the context you found--it's aimed at students, yes?--and whether the help or hinder questions I'm thinking of are even relevant or whether we need to yank our thinking sharply to one side. It also raises the question, particularly relevant on LJ given the infamous (and apparently ongoing) RaceFail stuff, on whether or not the group in the dominant position can truly cede that dominant position. I think it is clear that (contrary to what some feminist and race scholars have claimed) the subordinated can indeed subordinate others. (No joke--people try to argue that oppressed races can not oppress other races, and they do the same with gender, and I'm always deeply confused by those statements.)

I firmly believe that all-female education--at the very least residency, because we had males coming in from other schools to take classes in an exchange, and we could take classes with them, too--has a major influence on students, and it's usually NOT to make them toe the line; it usually makes them think, at least from my experience, because it's not a typical social situation. There's a sort of critical mass effect, and suddenly conversations that your mother would shush you for starting are OK, and you learn a lot because women are finally talking to each other without direct interference. (Cultural interference would require another book!) And only private colleges and universities can do this, at least in the US, because taxpayer funding does not go to that sort of practice, nor should it.

And feminism's all about the freedom to make choices, at least my brand of it is, and hey, if a woman chooses to fulfill a more "traditional" role, as long as she's had a viable chance to chose some other path for her life, I think we as feminists have to be accepting. (Mind you, I also think every woman born is a feminist, so I have a very broad definition of the term in mind!) In this vein, I was just poking through comments on the InsaneJournal version of dearly departed Scans_Daily and found some comments by a professional sex worker. She/he/it was rather rude and foulmouthed and intolerant, but she/he/it did raise valid points about how feminism assumes that sex work is Bad, No Questions Asked. Really made me think, you know, and that sort of thing isn't what I necessarily expect from a comic book forum. (Which is another cultural assumption, but one usually validated by the commentary over there...)

Sorry for going all "yay! discussion *pounce*" on you here; it's a topic that fascinates me and I'm always curious regarding different perspectives, particularly from women who don't share my own nationality.