In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

A suggestion

zuzu

When one is lamenting, a la Phyllis Schlafly, where all the feminists have gone, and bestowing the mantle of “real, pure feminists” on one group or another, it’s a good idea not to refer to women who don’t agree with you as “anti-women.”

Just a thought.

P.S.: Elizabeth Cady Stanton died over a hundred years ago. The world has changed a bit since then; it’s really not necessary for feminism to remain trapped in amber.

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88 thoughts on A suggestion

  1. Damn Zuzu, can you hand me back my jaw, it just fell off on the floor…

    Why am I reminded of that whole “it will give you harry palms and make you go blind” trope?

    Now, why not more concern out of this good Catholic Woman about the Church protecting child molesters, I wonder???

  2. I choose to accept the separate but equal roles of men and women.

    Because I know she’s reading this, a word to the author: Learn to choose your words more carefully. “Separate but equal” is not an idea you want to evoke in this debate.

    (This is the second time I’ve come across a young woman using the phrase “separate but equal” recently in a context that suggests they have no clue about the weight of that phrase. What are they teaching kids in history class these days?)

  3. Also, are “anti-women” like antimatter? If I come into contact with a “real” woman, will we both cease to exist? And how many high-energy photons will our mutual annihilation produce?

  6. I am anti-woman, don’t hear me roar
    In numbers too small not to be ignored
    And I don’t know enough to go back an’ pretend
    ’cause I haven’t heard it all before
    And I’ve never been on the floor
    Everyone’s gonna keep me down again

  7. Woohoo! I am an anti-woman!

    Now if only I knew what that meant…

    It seems to me that an anti-woman would be the opposite of a woman. Therefore, feminists must be men.

    (Hey, I think I’ve heard that before to.)

    ::dripping sarcasm::

  8. I move that the adjectives “real” and “pure” hereafter only be allowed to apply to inanimate objects, like fruit preserves, or textiles.

    I further move that the next time someone sees these ladies, they grasp them by the shoulders, look them dead in the eyes, and shout, “THERE ARE NO ‘REAL, PURE’ IDEAS. ONLY FRUIT PRESERVES.” And go about their business.

  9. For kicks, I’ve been reading a lot of anti-feminist, hyper-conservative blogs written by women. Many of them claim to be so modest and meek and submissive to men, but they are among the most smug, self-satisfied bitches I have ever come across on the Internets. They are basically highschool mean girls who never grew up.

  11. You know what…I thought after having escaped from fundamentalism as a kid I’d never have to deal with those whackos again…but apparently, they’ve followed me out into the real world.

    My very dear, and very feminist, grandmother used to tell me that authentic (my word not hers) feminists choose to react only with kindness to this kind of B.S., because someday women like Alicia are going to need our compassion and our help whether they realize it or not.

    But as the world gets scarier and scarier…I have more trouble following that advice.

  12. Karen, that’s one of the blogs I’ve been reading!

    I am a feminist and I am pretty liberal, but I would never claim to have all the answers. Life is too complex, and everyone has to define their own truth. Is that too hippy-dippy?

  13. I am anti-woman, don’t hear me roar

    norbizness, you just made my day with that unique rendition! hilarious.

    And yes, can I just raise my hand and join others in the “what’s with separate but equal being a good thing” sentiment? I ran across this somewhere recently, and thought to myself, “um, didn’t we decide a long time ago that this was not a good philosophy?” Oh, I think it was in relation to single-sex schools. And again in the debate over segregated buses for women in Mexico City and Israel.

    And no, Jennifer, I don’t think not having all the answers is “hippy-dippy” in a bad way–I think it’s just good old-fashioned humility :)! All the neo-traditionalists should remember that particular virtue a bit more . . .

  14. If masturbation is a crime against human sexuality… why does it work? Isn’t human sexuality the complete set of the abilities and sensations God gave us? I don’t understand the logic in saying masturbation is some kind of modern cultural ill; it’s a natural human ability.

    Yeah it’s “selfish,” but not tragically so; it certainly doesn’t preclude or replace marriage and children.

    When’s the last time you heard someone say “I was thinking of having children, but then I bought a vibrator instead.”?

  15. Yes, if God didn’t mean for us to masturbate, we’d get an electric shock every time we touched our privates! Oh wait, maybe that is what He made Mean Old Nuns for…

    It’s nice that this blogger is living up to her middle-namesake, Victoria. But why can’t she just pretend that distasteful things that bother her (such as lesbians, other kinds of anti-women, etc) don’t exist, just like Her Majesty?

  16. Jennifer, it’s part of that same competitive desire to be the boys’ favorite. One no-brainer way to do that is to point out that all the other girls are bitches, not like oneself.

  17. Thank G-d we aren’t the same movement we were during Stanton’s time. Yes first wavers did a ton for feminism but look even how much further we’ve come since then! We’re such a different movement and i’m so damn proud of that!!!

  18. Holly said:

    When’s the last time you heard someone say “I was thinking of having children, but then I bought a vibrator instead.”?

    Slowly raises hand.

    In the blog, Karen links to, the blogger has written many posts ripping apart women who work outside the home. And don’t think you can get away with working outside the home just because you’re single and don’t have kids. You’re supposed to live with your parents under the strict guidance of you father. I am not kidding.

    I just wonder if she’ll change her tune if she ever has to go back to the work place?

  19. Wow. She really swallowed the Katholic Kool-Aid. This is the legacy of the American church’s mass importation of repressed Irish priests in the 1800s, by the way. They outnumbered the resident French and German priests and bishops, and remade the church in their own anti-sexual image. I once read a translated French Catholic book on marriage and the family. It began by tracing the path of a typical young man who has many sex partners before settling on one to marry. My jaw dropped.

    furthermore masturbation denies openness to the gift of children.

    As does menstruation. The only difference between wasting one egg a month and wasting billions of sperm is quantitative, not qualitative. The blogger will surely burn in hell for all eternity, unless someone fills her up with babies ASAP.

    You can read about the sweaty antisex imprint of the Irish on the American church in Morris’s American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America’s Most Powerful Church

  21. Most conservatives wax nostalgic about the 1950s. This one wants to go back to the 19th century (referring to her Stanton comment). That’s all you need to know.

    But thanks Alicia, you just reminded me why I no longer have anything to do with the Catholic Church. I am aware that there are plenty of enlightened theologians and priests who have very women-positive interpretations of the bible. Unfortunately in the Church, they are the exception rather than the rule and the Church’s official doctrine is extremely regressive, particularly now under Ratz.

  22. So funny this blogger gets in a tizzy over masturbation, but where is her anger of pedophile priests?

    Jennifer, it’s part of that same competitive desire to be the boys’ favorite. One no-brainer way to do that is to point out that all the other girls are bitches, not like oneself.

    So true, Mythago, so true.

  23. yeah, I have a really weird hobby. I’m a working mother who owes money to credit cards and sends my kids to public school, where they are completely average students. They get to watch Cartoon Network and eat Fritos. If that blogger and I were in the same room, we would explode like anti-matter and matter.

    Any also, I’m a fairly devout Presbyterian and an elder in my congretation. Although it is rarely exhibited, humility is the pre-eminent Christian virtue. “Not having all the answers” is pretty much the definition of humility, which would mean that all these women who say they have the One Final Answers are, in fact, prideful and therefore poor Christians.

  24. You know, the only time I resent my mom for raising me Catholic is when I think back on the hell I went through over masturbation. Every time I did it, I felt horribly guilty and prayed for forgiveness. Every time, I promised God I would never do it again, but of course I always did, and I felt so weak and sinful. Telling young people that something so normal, natural, and healthy is a sin is so, so harmful.

    As for openness to children, well of course I disagree that everybody has to be open to children. But it doesn’t even make sense. I masturbate, but I’m open to children. Masturbation doesn’t stop me from having sex with my partner!

  25. Women may claim life is alot different since Stanton’s time, but ask yourself is it that different than the 1970s feminist movement. Abortion and birth control are still issues, we are still paid less for equal work, women are still a mass minority in certain academic fields and business. The glass ceiling has not moved an inch since the 1970s in my opinion. A young woman taking off her clothes to applaud a 1950’s sex icon is the top news story and everyone is attacking the angry, bitch Hillary. Wake up women – you are playing the boys game. You remind me of women in business that instead of making progress in the boys world, you buck with the system. Bernadette Arnold.

  27. And by disregarding Stanton and other feminists of her era with the ‘you’ve com a long way baby’ mantra you sound like Rush Limbaugh. Go back and watch Iron Jawed Angels.

  30. “Yeah it’s “selfish,” but not tragically so; it certainly doesn’t preclude or replace marriage and children.”

    Not to mention that if a person doesn’t want to marry/have children, they don’t owe it to anyone to suck it up and do it anyway. It may be selfish to do neither, but who could arguably have lost by it?

  31. By saying the world has changed alot since Stanton’s time is a major disregard. Reread women’s history – if it were not for Susan B. Anthony – a childless woman who helped Stanton in the home so they could work for suffrage- things may have turned out differently. The fact that women still are majorly responsible for childcare and are still having to decide and/or juggle work and motherhood is still alive after 100 years. That not all suffragists were on agreement on the voting rights is alive and well today with so many women on different sides of the argument on healthcare, education, reproductive rights. The more I read on this and other feminist blogs, the more I realize how splintered women are.

  32. The Bernadette Arnold – read between the lines. I can’t recall which feminist blog, it may have been this one, I read a great post on how a woman was going to explain to her daughter why, as a feminist, she did not vote for Hillary Clinton. I think alot of women are in denial and think it is more powerful to have the choice to vote for a man. Men have been the only choice for so long.

  33. By saying the world has changed alot since Stanton’s time is a major disregard.

    No. Disregard would be dismissing Stanton entirely. What the linked blogger did was hold up Stanton as the only model for “real, pure feminism.” Which is well and good, but Stanton was a product of her time and place, and many of the issues she was dealing with are no longer on the table. Voting rights, for example. The right of married women to own property. Equal access to education. Etc.

    The blogger wants to erase the past 120 years and claim that Stanton is the be-all and end-all of feminism. That’s like claiming the Wright Brothers are the be-all and end-all of aviation and that anyone who notes that times have changed since their flight at Kitty Hawk is “disregarding them” or some kind of “Bernadette Arnold.”

  34. When’s the last time you heard someone say “I was thinking of having children, but then I bought a vibrator instead.”?

    Well there’s the “openness to the gift of children” thing; I don’t think you’re supposed to think about having children and plan when or if you want to, just be open to getting them all the time.
    The notion of children as a gift instead of a decision is kinda scary to me, because I think most of us’ve gotten Birthday presents or something that we said “Oh thanks” to and then never really knew what to do with. Especially the way people’ll get criticized for abortion, for contraception, for sex outside marriage, for marriage without sex, for not getting married, it seems like there’s no way out aside from everyone being open to having children (and even then always being open to more), despite what kind of affect this might have on your life or the lives of those children. But I don’t believe I could handle that kind of responsibility and it’s not something you could just say “well I’ll give it a try; things’ll work out”.

  35. The Bernadette Arnold – read between the lines.

    Hey, you’re the one calling me Bernadette Arnold, i.e., a traitor to women.

    Spell it out.

  36. Sorry everyone, I know this is off topic, but on that “Families Against Feminism” blog there are some posts regarding “feminine dress” and I couldn’t resist pointing out this gem to you all:

    “One time I put on a pair of overalls–VERY modest, right? And my husband ask me to change (he’s probably not quite as conservative as I am about dress), because he explained that the bib of the overalls accentuated the “upper” part of my body, and looked a bit seductive.”

    I’m assuming she was wearing them with no shirt underneath….:-D

  37. ““One time I put on a pair of overalls–VERY modest, right? And my husband ask me to change (he’s probably not quite as conservative as I am about dress), because he explained that the bib of the overalls accentuated the “upper” part of my body, and looked a bit seductive.””

    Example #5,643 of why trying to dress so as not to arouse over-sexed, over-entitled jackholes with serious control issues is its own little hell.

  38. I’m repeating myself here, but geez…this whole reactionary emphasis on separate, distinct “roles” in marriage is just so much horseshit. So tired of it.

    Does this Alicia truly believe that in families, there are tasks and responsibilities that husbands and wives are not capable of handling as the situation requires? Or that today, healthy families do not depend on the flexibility of shared responsibilities?

    So tired of it.

  39. “One time I put on a pair of overalls–VERY modest, right? And my husband ask me to change (he’s probably not quite as conservative as I am about dress), because he explained that the bib of the overalls accentuated the “upper” part of my body, and looked a bit seductive.”

    Gosh, if my partner thinks my clothes accentuate my “breasts”, the last thing he’s going to say is “please go change into something more shapeless.” But we’re debauched (i.e., appreciative of each others’ bodies rather than consumed by male jealousy and female prudishness) like that.

  40. Yes, if God didn’t mean for us to masturbate, we’d get an electric shock every time we touched our privates!

    That’s a scene idea.

    maybe that is what He made Mean Old Nuns for…

    So’s that.

  41. I’ve read those modest dress posts, and I just have to laugh. Overalls must be the most sexless pieces of clothing ever.

    But here is the thing I just can’t figure out. These women anti-feminism bloggers claim that only men have the strength and intelligence to be leaders in the church, politics and business. Yet, at the same time, men are so weak that a glimplse of my ankle or a hint of my cleavage will turn them into savage raping beasts.

  42. The Bernadette Arnold – read between the lines

    Wait, Bernadette is the feminine form of Benedict? I’m with Zuzu–you’ll need to spell that one out.

  43. What amazes me about those sites, among other things, is that they think about sex WAYYYYYY more than I do. Using the overalls example, if I were putting on something like that, it would be in anticipation of a particularly dirty and physical chore, not usually something I or my husband find conducive to romance. I mean, if he saw me in overalls he’d be thinking about whatever horrible job we have to do, not that he could see the vague outline of my breasts.

  45. That was so funny! She must be JoyfullyPerplexed if she thinks masturbation is bad. She must not know where her clitoris is, which is very, very, very sad. But this was my favorite part.

    Masturbation defies sexuality because it enables sexual gratification outside of sexual complementarity of a man and women in a committed covenant of love, a.k.a. marriage;

    She just promoted orgies! Tee-hee!

  46. Enjoying food has long been a social event for human kind. All of history has proven that eating alone is a sin against god! Only selfish pleasure can be had from enjoying that pint of ben and jerry’s with its empty calories and instant gratification. Eating a meal and enjoying food has been designed by God to be a sacred event between a group of people sharing in mutual pleasure. Dining alone is a product of our selfish GIMME NOW! culture.

    When women shamelessly enjoy meals prepared only by themselves, for themselves alone, they are depriving a poor man of his homecooked meal. Keeping that pleasure to themselves leave them unprepared to share such pleasure with a husband and child. They devalue the sacred pleasure of meal-sharing and ruin their chance to enjoy a family life.

    So put down those bonbons, hussies!

  48. furthermore masturbation denies openness to the gift of children.

    Erm, does she know you can masturbate while pregnant? And after having children? I suppose you also could while having children, too, in theory.

  49. And by disregarding Stanton and other feminists of her era with the ‘you’ve com a long way baby’ mantra you sound like Rush Limbaugh. Go back and watch Iron Jawed Angels.

    Aside from the fact that Stanton and Alice Paul -who the movie Iron Jawed Angels is about – were not contemporaries, it’s a tad ridiculous using an HBO movie (as well done as it was) to instruct on any feminist history. That movie doesn’t even cover Paul’s accomplishments within the movement after getting the vote let alone work as a primer on the history of feminism or the era of Stanton, whose work was also much larger than trying to get the vote.

  50. I really feel that these anti-feminist women are kind of like anti-gay people from rural areas who’ve just never had gay people as family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Usually when these anti-gay people come to know the perfectly lovely gay people in their lives, they realize that gay people are human deserving of full dignity and freedom, and ultimately come to change their views. I think these anti-feminist women just have never truly had a feminist woman in their life who is a powerful role model – smart, beautiful, non-gender conforming, and feminist. They recoil at stereotypes of feminists and cling to a certain vision of the gender order that is highly specific to American evangelical culture out of fear and lack of exposure to other ways of being. How can we put more fabulous feminist women in the media/culture/public consciousness?

  51. Ahhh, pure feminism ! I remember it well. Back in the days of pure medicine (no penicillin for you) and pure racism and pure child-labor. Gosh, everything in the past was so much better than it is now !

    /snark.

    Also: I truly have a deep, vast problem with any movement that’s going to tell my husband; who owns not only man-turtlenecks but a plastic jacket with stripes on the arms and a camoflage-print sweater; that he has authority over my clothes.

  52. Another suggestion you might add..or rather question you would ask this person…If you are going to pose as some type of messenger for feminism and the church why in God’s name would you reference Stanton, who was one of the first to take on the Church and their subjugation of women?? I was going to post that over there but she seems to be just talking to herself on that blog and I didn’t want to interrupt…

  53. Using the overalls example, if I were putting on something like that, it would be in anticipation of a particularly dirty and physical chore, not usually something I or my husband find conducive to romance. I mean, if he saw me in overalls he’d be thinking about whatever horrible job we have to do, not that he could see the vague outline of my breasts. – Karen

    What, when you and your husband are faced with some dirty, annoying and horrible chore, you two don’t get distracted and then use being turned on as an excuse to delay doing said chore? You’ve never had procrastination/chore avoidance sex?

    … slowly slinks away …

  54. She must be JoyfullyPerplexed if she thinks masturbation is bad. She must not know where her clitoris is, which is very, very, very sad. – ThickRedGlasses

    Not necessarily. I would think you’re allowed to manually stimulate your or your partner’s clitoris as long as you are having unprotected PIV sex at some point in the whole process so that way you are “open to the possibility of having children”: they are just against masturbation being a substitute for unprotected sex as they think sex is only ok if the possibility of children is involved, otherwise sex is teh evil.

  55. Women may claim life is alot different since Stanton’s time, but ask yourself is it that different than the 1970s feminist movement. Abortion and birth control are still issues, we are still paid less for equal work, women are still a mass minority in certain academic fields and business. The glass ceiling has not moved an inch since the 1970s in my opinion.

    Tell it to someone who’s lived through those changes. When my mother listens to my friends and me talk about our careers and our decisions, she literally gets tears in her eyes at how different our lives and opportunities are from the ones she and her peers had. I know women who took their employers to court in order to shatter pieces of that glass ceiling and who won. I’m not going to disrespect or dismiss their tremendous work and struggles by claiming that hey, nothing has changed. We have rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters. My mother had not one female professor when she went to college in the late 1960s. Not one. Not in any subject. Not at all. Want ads are no longer divided into “Men’s” and “Women’s” columns. Go back and ask someone who grew up in the 1960s if things have changed.

  56. What, when you and your husband are faced with some dirty, annoying and horrible chore, you two don’t get distracted and then use being turned on as an excuse to delay doing said chore? You’ve never had procrastination/chore avoidance sex?

    Shhhh…otherwise my husband might figure out why my “painting clothes” consist of a white t-shirt and cuttoffs.

  57. BTW, I just caught this-

    Masturbation defies sexuality because it enables sexual gratification outside of sexual complementarity of a man and women in a committed covenant of love, a.k.a. marriage; furthermore masturbation denies openness to the gift of children.

    Bold by me.

    So she supports polygamy? Interesting.

  59. Overalls must be the most sexless pieces of clothing ever.

    Just had to say to this, heck no! My wife in her overalls and steel toed boots building a new chair or entertainment center or wielding a power tool of some sort fixing something, that is damn sexy. It would be its own little hell, trying to wear only clothes that can’t be seen as sexy, pretty sure its next to impossible.

  60. DAS said:

    I would think you’re allowed to manually stimulate your or your partner’s clitoris as long as you are having unprotected PIV sex at some point in the whole process so that way you are “open to the possibility of having children”

    I suppose. Then again, wouldn’t the sole purpose of stimulation be to provide pleasure? Unless female orgasm increases the chances of conceiving, which I’ve heard, but I’m not sure that’s a fact.

  61. Shit, I’m so glad my Catholic in-laws (especially the women) are NOTHING like her. Nope. They’re your stereotypical Northeastern, liberal, pro-choice, pro-gender/sex-equality, pro-Queer-rights/equality, Irish Catholics. I suppose they would be called “cafeteria Catholics” or even “heretics” to self-misogynist, Opus Dei-esque caricatures, such as Schlafly here. Shouldn’t she be attending to her hearth and home, or on her back underneath her husband, and practicing what she preaches? Oh, that’s right. She’s *exceptional*…just like Ann Coulter, and she’s far too busy barking orders at the rest of us lowly bitches on how to live our lives. It must be nice to get a pat on the head from the Ole Boys and occasionally allowed into their treehouse as an honorary man. Pathetic. Isn’t there some psychoanalytic name for projecting your self-loathing onto others?

  62. Speaking of masturbation, what would it be like if it didn’t work – like how you can’t tickle yourself. I have to believe we’d be living in a much more deeply fucked up society.

  63. It would be its own little hell, trying to wear only clothes that can’t be seen as sexy, pretty sure its next to impossible.

    See, that’s my point. They have to obsess about sex way more than I do just to avoid the possibility that someone else could have sexual thoughts about them. Really, ladies, don’t flatter yourselves that much.

  64. It would be its own little hell, trying to wear only clothes that can’t be seen as sexy, pretty sure its next to impossible.

    See, that’s my point. They have to obsess about sex way more than I do just to avoid the possibility that someone else could have sexual thoughts about them. Really, ladies, don’t flatter yourselves that much.

  65. It would be its own little hell, trying to wear only clothes that can’t be seen as sexy, pretty sure its next to impossible.

    See, that’s my point. They have to obsess about sex way more than I do just to avoid the possibility that someone else could have sexual thoughts about them. Really, ladies, don’t flatter yourselves that much.

  66. I was also struck that her photo features her backed into the corner of two brick walls. More true than she realizes, with the positions she espouses. Liberating, innit?

    Pseudo-Adrienne, you nailed it and I am totally stealing “cafeteria Catholics.”

  67. My main point is to keep reminding yourself how far we have come and how much further we have to go. That it is wrong to say – wow we have come so far I can rationalize voting for Obama.

    Someone mentioned job discrimination – well it still goes on. Try going to a temp agency and telling them you know computers – automatic secretary – yeah, they have fancy titles, but it is still the same job.

    Here is why I don’t buy into all the Obama uniting anyone. Will he unite pro-choice liberals and conservative pro-lifers? ABSOLUTELY NOT! And don’t give me some line that he never intended to do that. Well, that is splitting the country, it’s not all about race. Reproductive rights see no color.

  68. Then again, wouldn’t the sole purpose of stimulation be to provide pleasure?

    Well, even most strict Catholic anti-choicers say procreation doesn’t have to be the primary purpose of sex, you just have to be “open to the gift of children”. So it’s okay to have sex as a means of marital bonding and even pleasure, as long as the sex act still has the potential of leading to children and you’re not doing anything to prevent that (ie birth control).

  69. Pingback: the fshk blog » quickies: what is this thing called feminism? edition

  70. Urbanartiste – I’m voting for Obama. Saying we have to vote for Clinton because she’s a woman isn’t feminist, it’s… blind. Would you vote for Ann Coulter?

    We need more women in power but that doesn’t mean that we have to support every woman running for office just because she’s a woman.

  71. My main point is to keep reminding yourself how far we have come and how much further we have to go. That it is wrong to say – wow we have come so far I can rationalize voting for Obama.

    This post had nothing to do with Obama. And surprise! Women can vote for whoever they want! That’s part of feminism.

    You really *are* young, aren’t you?

  72. OT, but did anyone else notice the ad for a Laura Sessions Stepp book on the right-hand side of the main page?? 🙁

  73. First of all I am not third wave. I believe in every single issue Hillary stands for. Having said that, I do vote for women in every election except for pro-choice candidates. This past primary election there were some men and women delegates running the same platforms on issues and vote for the women over men. It may not be the best example, but imagine how the film industry would be different if women maintained 50% of key positions (studio heads, directors, etc.). One may make noise, but many change the voice. I was watching the Oscars and pondered if a woman ever one Best Directing, how about a nomination. You may not need more women in charge of government, but I do.

  74. You may not need more women in charge of government, but I do.

    Clearly, you’re in the wrong post. Because, again, this post has nothing to do with how many women are in government, nor is it about the Oscars.

    Since you’re bound and determined to derail (and you still haven’t explained your “Bernadette Arnold” insult earlier, despite being asked), I’m going to consider you a troll and mod you.

  75. Oh my god. I went to college with this woman. I know her personally. She is everything she seems like and more. I have been reading her blog for a while now, and it never occured to me that I would see it on a feminst blog site, mostly because everything she says makes me groan. I am a little shocked she is terrifying people outside of Loyola now.

    Anyone asking a question like, “Does she REALLY believe…” can just assume the answer is yes.

  76. I finally went and actually read through her blog. Mostly it makes me terribly, terribly sad. I feel, reading her, about like I felt in an Issues in Modern Religion class, listening to a fellow female student going on, very sincerely, about how the world had gone downhill ever since women had been given the vote, and that she viewed her proper contribution to the political scene as being a sounding-board for her husband, so that he might make a more thoughtful vote.

    About the only thing that could be said for her viewpoint was that she wasn’t in the least hypocritical. She fully intended to never vote, but merely to discuss her husband’s vote, and possibly affect it.

    I do wonder, periodically, if she held to that view the first time she and her husband (she was not married at the time of the above class) had a serious political difference.

  77. Yes, it does promote radical individualism.

    Why is it so bad to be an individual? Although I have no idea what “radical individualism” actually has to do with masturbating, why is the general concept of “individualism” so reviled by religious conservatives? Individuality seems to be one of the sticking points — that by choosing to take control of your own anatomy and life, you are a selfish horrible person who thinks of no one except yourself. Why is that a bad thing if, in your individualism, you are not neglecting or hurting anyone else? And most socially liberal people I know are far more involved in ‘helping others’ than the social conservatives; they just don’t have six or eight children to drag around or have a host of self-loathing issues brought on by repression or never measuring up as a “righteous” person.

    Another suggestion you might add..or rather question you would ask this person…If you are going to pose as some type of messenger for feminism and the church why in God’s name would you reference Stanton, who was one of the first to take on the Church and their subjugation of women?? I was going to post that over there but she seems to be just talking to herself on that blog and I didn’t want to interrupt…

    When you ask most American women, except for the very, very, very fundamentalist religious ones, most women will say heck yes, they like having the right to vote. I don’t think there are many women saying, “Women should not vote. We need to repeal that amendment ASAP.” Now, I’m sure there are women who ARE that masochistic and devalue themselves THAT much and have swallowed that much Kool-Aid, but I think even Alicia Victoria Joan Torres thinks allowing women to vote is okay. In the conscious of the general public, Stanton and Anthony wanted to vote and didn’t demand much more than that. I’m not saying they DIDN’T do more than that, but if you ask most people who don’t have a vested interested in gender equality or American history, “the right to vote” will probably be the standard take-home answer from 9th grade American History.

    Since a lot of people believe that’s all Stanton and Anthony asked for and since most every American woman will say they SHOULD be allowed to vote, then Stanton and Anthony are the “good” feminists. They don’t come to mind as agitators for the hairy-legged man-hating bra-burning family-destroying baby-killing issues. They are “good” because they “knew a woman’s place” and didn’t ask for anything more than the right to vote. Does that make any sense? I’m not sure how to explain it. There are a lot of anti-feminists who think that the “original” feminists are okay because they weren’t actually “feminists” in the modern “selfish arrogant feminist” way. I’ve heard that argument before, that “of course” and “don’t be silly” — no one is seriously suggesting that we stop allowing women to vote — but it’s just that the “feminists” of “today” are “selfish” and “arrogant” — with all that “I don’t need a man!” stuff. And it’s just SO frustrating.

    And that usually goes into spiels about how God created man and woman to be different and feminists want to deny biology and a woman should be a man’s helper and blahblahsubmissionblah. I was thinking of going to an Episcopalian church today but the more I think about it, the more I don’t want to be near ANY of it, not even with a more inclusive domination. Too many bad memories. Ugh.

  78. Also – I love how individuality is the end-all and be-all of goodness when it comes to poor people trying to scrape by, and eeeevvviiilllll when it comes to women trying to have any agency in their lives. Given how many poor people are women shouldn’t the cognitive dissonance make conservatives heads explode?

  79. When you ask most American women, except for the very, very, very fundamentalist religious ones, most women will say heck yes, they like having the right to vote. I don’t think there are many women saying, “Women should not vote.

    I was referring to Stanton’s work with The Woman’s Bible not her suffragist work. Just a primer for anyone who isn’t familiar, Stanton basically said the church was a prime source of women’s subjugation and challenged the Church’s interpretation of the bible. So when I see a woman who defines herself as devoting her life to the church actually pining for the days of Stanton it brings a chuckle to say the least. I’d bet money that she googled historic feminists and didn’t bother to check what they were up to in their day.

  80. I really feel that these anti-feminist women are kind of like anti-gay people from rural areas who’ve just never had gay people as family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Usually when these anti-gay people come to know the perfectly lovely gay people in their lives, they realize that gay people are human deserving of full dignity and freedom, and ultimately come to change their views. I think these anti-feminist women just have never truly had a feminist woman in their life who is a powerful role model – smart, beautiful, non-gender conforming, and feminist. They recoil at stereotypes of feminists and cling to a certain vision of the gender order that is highly specific to American evangelical culture out of fear and lack of exposure to other ways of being. How can we put more fabulous feminist women in the media/culture/public consciousness?

    Sarah, I wish I could be as optimistic as you, but I think the feminist you just described could save an anti-feminist’s entire family from a burning building, and they’d still find reasons to hate her.

    Sadly, I’ve worked with anti-feminist women, and it is not pretty. Nearly every single one was conniving, undermining and manipulative. One totally slandered me at one job but because she put on the nice church-going lady act management never held her accountable. I was the bad guy.

  81. I think back on the hell I went through over masturbation. Every time I did it, I felt horribly guilty and prayed for forgiveness.

    A friend of mine who was a former mormon had a church-written thing up on her bathroom door (for us to laugh at), that suggested ways for resisting and overcoming the terrible terrible sin of masturbation. I remember one suggestion was to take a calendar, and on any day you relapsed and committed a masturbatory sin, you were to color the square for that day solidly black, striving for a “pure” month. We allowed as how for us it would probably be more efficient to just start with a piece of black posterboard and a very small bottle of white-out.

    By saying the world has changed alot since Stanton’s time is a major disregard.
    No. Disregard would be dismissing Stanton entirely.

    It seems to me that “disregard” would be to suggest that all her efforts accomplished absolutely nothing at all.

    Isn’t there some psychoanalytic name for projecting your self-loathing onto others?

    um, yes, that’s what Freud called “projection.” 😛

    and Jennifer Kaufman, did you go to grad school at Tulane?

  82. Jennifer Kaufman, did you go to grad school at Tulane?

    Nope, calliopejane. Must be another Jennifer Kaufman. Lately I’ve been noticing that my name is quite common.

  83. Nope, calliopejane. Must be another Jennifer Kaufman.

    Oh well — I thought the tone didn’t quite sound like the J.K. I knew, but it’s been several years so I thought it possible.

    never mind, then.

  84. Okay, I too, waded through Alicia’s site, and came away with the sense that the “holy femininity” she advocates is almost an affectation. I do not doubt the sincerity…but there is no question in my mind that she truly considers herself above ordinary mortals…claiming the insight and special grace granted only to those who know the mind of God.

    Trouble is…I see nothing in her writings to indicate anything other than adherence to the minds of men who define women in narrowest terms; men who deny women their full humanity, insisting instead that there is but one manifestation of true womanhood…consisting of unquestioning fertility and social subordination.

    Sad.

    The mind of God…? Not so much, mehtinks.

  85. “Given how many poor people are women shouldn’t the cognitive dissonance make conservatives heads explode?”

    Only if their paradox-absorbing crumple-zones have been removed.

  86. But I like bonbons! The cappucino ice cream ones at trader joe’s are especially delicious.

    I told her I was a happy feminist. Because I am. 🙂

    -Izzy

  87. Pingback: Recommended Reads through February 29th at Faux Real

  88. You ladies haven’t got a clue as to what Christ brought to us all.

    I challenge you to take one month and pray one solitary prayer silently before Jesus in a Catholic Church in front of The Blessed Sacrament: “Jesus: I trust in Thee.” See what happens. Don’t talk; just be silent. I dare you. To be a true feminist is to be truly feminie by imitating His Blessed Mother.

    We can all shoot our mouths off; that is nothing more than a cannon without a cannonball.

    Are you SURE about what you are talking about?

    Humility vs. arrogance.

    God Bless you.

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