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Quote of the Day

Jill

I think of feminism as a socially just and imaginative world. You know, in my twenties I was taught that feminism meant we had to be supersmart, in the realm of intellectualism—to make rational, detached, unemotional pleas. But now I think what Gloria and all our sisters have given us is imagination. It’s a question of: Can I imagine that world?

–Suheir Hammad

That certainly puts words to how I feel about feminism. It’s about social justice, but it’s also about being able to imagine something better.

And an exchange between Hammad and Gloria Steinem about the choices we make in childbirth, child-rearing and reproduction generally:

SH: You know, it’s complicated. I do want children. But one of the things that’s interesting about it now being a choice, there’s the possibility of feeling regret about the decisions you’ve made. I don’t know if that was the case before, but the more options you have, the more you can do—

GS: That’s very smart. I think that’s true about abortion too. When I was growing up, if you got accidentally pregnant, you were so desperate to get an abortion, ambivalence about it was extremely small. With availability, you can afford to be ambivalent.

The whole interview is interesting. Check it out.

5 thoughts on Quote of the Day

  1. Just read this article, and that (the second quote) was my favorite part of the interview, too. Because it addressed that anti-feminist trope you always here these days—that oh-no! feminism has tricked women into delaying childbirth and then they find themselves barren and faced with a lifetime of regrets!—not by arguing that this (women not deciding to have children until it’s too late) was completely untrue or implausible, but by owning it, sort of saying, yeah, some women are going to regret it, but who cares? At least they have the chance to make this choice they might regret, as opposed to regretting putting kids ahead of their own lives back when they had no other choice. Part of having freedom and options is the freedom and option to, you know, fuck up.

  3. This is a fabulous post! It is refreshing to know that your vision for feminism is about “imagining something better,” as well as cha(lle)nging the status quo. It makes me think of Robin Kelley’s Freedom Dreams, in which he expounds on the importance of dreaming in creating and sustaining movements.

    Also, Suheir Hammad is amazing.

  5. “yeah, some women are going to regret it, but who cares?”
    This is a bit strong, isn’t it? It’s true that in a free society we are able to make choices that turn out to be wrong for us, but isn’t also true that a genuinely free society would encourage us to understand ourselves instead of conforming our behavior in ways that are ultimately unsatisfying and cause for regret?

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