Feminisms

Why Feminisms?

I chose Feminisms as another topos because in almost all of the quotes and passages for my common place book, I understood and took away feelings of resistance, revolution, and critical evaluations from what I was reading. Feminisms, as I am using it, means literally, the many different ways in which the struggle to end sexist oppression takes place. As an example, the explorations of sexuality and sexual desire as a form of resistance or critique, even in the form of satire, can be considered a type of feminism, just as directly writing petitions to challenge the status quo of patriarchy and advocate for women's education is another feminism. Since not all women were in a place, politically, legitimately, legally to embody notions of contemporary feminism, there is a particular way in which to understand these following quotes and passages as illustrating and challenging the struggles of sexist oppression, which is why I chose them. The various pictures and video that I chose, I did so with purposeful intent to illustrate the affects of what I cannot articulate as I did with previous two topoi.

Bell Hooks

“The foundation of future feminist struggle must be solidly based on a recognition of the need to eradicate the underlying cultural basis and causes of sexism and other forms of oppression. Without challenging and changing these philosophical structures, no feminist reforms will have a long range impact. Consequently, it is now necessary for advocates of feminism to collectively acknowledge that our struggle cannot be defined as a movement to gain social equality with men; that terms like 'liberal feminist' and 'bourgeois feminist' represent contradictions that must be resolved so that feminism will not be continually co-opted to serve opportunistic ends of special interest groups.” -Bell Hooks “Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression”

Hooks' work is a clear call to change the way feminism is done and a way to gather all feminists under

one banner and not continue to be divided. When she writes about the foundation of feminist struggle, she is calling to mind with her terminology the very real struggles and oppressions experienced by all kinds of people everywhere. Instead of thinking in terms of being equal with men, women, she argues, should be working to change the structures that hold oppression in place, including but not limited to sexism.

This relates back to feminist theory as a way of reminding those who engage in feminism that there isn't just one type of Feminism, but rather many types of feminisms. Even though there are many different types, there is still the common goal of ending sexist oppression in its many forms and flavors. Feminisms may be more recognizable when taken in their own contexts, and understanding the struggle people live through.

Clara Sue Kidwell

“While men made treaties and carried on negotiations and waged war, Indian women lived with white men, translated their words, and bore their children. Theirs was the more sustained and enduring contact with new cultural ways, and they gave their men an entree into the cultures and communities of their own people. In this way, Indian women were the first important mediators of meaning between the cultures of two worlds.” -Clara Sue Kidwell “Indian Women as Cultural Mediators”

Kidwell's words are a reminder about history and historical context as well as about the roles women played and still play in many ways. Indian women as cultural interpreters and mediators would have played a very important role in the politics of colonialism when european men met native cultures in the

'new world'. By living by them and with them, Indian women would gain a different perspective about their culture as well as that of the white man's, and would have had considerable personal interest in mediating encounters between their people and that of the white men they took an interest in or were bound to in some way.

Relating this back to Feminist theory, we have to remind ourselves of what different types of feminisms are and what they may have looked like at different times and different places as well as different cultural backgrounds. Just because the men recording history wrote about the women and their motives one way, doesn't mean that that is the whole story, or even the correct one. However, understanding how the truth about history is perceived is very important, as cultural and social understandings of a time can shape actions and decisions, regardless of the real facts and what actually happened.

Anonymous

“We ask to be enlightened, to have work, not in order to usurp men's authority, but in order to be better esteemed by them, so that we might have the means of living out of the way of misfortune and so that poverty does not force the weakest among us, who are blinded by luxury and swept along by example, to join the crowd of unfortunate beings who overpopulate the streets and whose debauched audacity is a disgrace to our sex and to the men who keep them company.” -Anonymous “Petition of Women of the Third Estate to the King” (1789)

This petition is interesting in many ways in that the women writing is assert their rights to live a wholesome and moral life, and also assert that to do so the government must supply them with the means. By framing their plight in a moral way, they address the well being of their whole society, and by addressing the King, they appeal to his duty to care for his people and his country's well being. The kind of feminism these women display is in the assertion of their rights to be better esteemed by men, and to be their moral equals at the least and to be able to have the means and protections to do so. They want a legitimate way to enter in to the public sphere and work that does not cast them as whores and prostitutes.

The aspects of this petition that I find to be the most interesting and to relate back to feminist theory is the way in which women asserted their undeniable presence within society, but were unable to act in the public sphere. As every person is born originally of a woman, and women are the guardians of morality and religious purity, the sex is often seen as one to be defended and placed away from the public view. Women who enter in to the public arena for one reason or another are cast as morally loose and even evil.Women make up roughly over one half of the population, and yet are still vastly underrepresented in the highest stations of power, whether in government and politics, or in CEO’s and upper level management positions in the business sector. In some ways, women still do not have full rights of independence over their own bodies, one such example being the controversies over abortion, right to birth control, and other women’s health issues. However, women are not completely unable to defend and assert their own abilities and rights. Without representation, women often invent ways to get around stifling conventions and regulations. In the cases of the petition to the King of France, allying themselves with morality and addressing their concerns to the King, women assert that change must happen.

Crosslisted Entries with Feminisms

-Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz “ A Philosophical Satire: She proves the inconsistency of the caprice and criticism of men who accuse women of what they cause”
-Leonara Sansay Secret History; or, The Horrors of St. Domingo

-Eliza Haywood Fantomina, or Love in a Maze
-Phillis Wheatley “Letter to Samson Occam”