AboutShe can be contacted at cheryl [at] americasfuture [dot] org. Read my other blog. The one that's not obnoxious and self-absorbed! Recent publications"Scary Rise of the 'Sanctimommy'" in The Washington Times "Why Malamud Faded" in Commentary "Blogging Infertility" in The New Atlantis "Outsourcing Childbirth" in The Wall Street Journal "The Painless Peace of Twilight Sleep" in The New Atlantis "The Genius of Old New York" in The Claremont Review of Books "Parenthood At Any Price" in The New Atlantis "Modern Girls and the Moral Revival They Are Leading" in The Washington Times ARTICLE ARCHIVE Links |
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Christina Hoff Sommers Feminism! I was a bit surprised that neither the discussion of Linda Hirshman's article about the feminist movement nor the original piece bring up what might well be the main problem with "intersectionality," that is, with a "feminism" that has morphed into a universalist struggle against oppression, namely that some fights for the underdog contradict the more basic principles of feminism. When discussing, say, radical Islam (or radical anything else, but Islam is the one that comes up the most), while a feminist would condemn certain practices or traditions, a "feminist" who is simply a leftist or a humanist will point to the oppression Muslim men face in this or that country; will insist that Muslim women are more oppressed as Muslims than as women; and in extreme cases, will denounce as sell-outs those Muslim women who subscribe to a 'Western' feminism.I also take Phoebe's point here: To put fighting anti-Semitism above all else is, goes this line of thought, a waste of energy, one could even say, it's like a "feminism" centered around the plight of women who, relatively speaking, are not that oppressed. Do Jews in America, in France, in Israel, have it worse than the rest of humanity, now, in the year 2008?This critique is exactly why it's so important to distinguish the "serious" cases from the "silly" ones. Even a strong philosemite such as myself finds some of the "struggles" against anti-Semitism absurd. I'm thinking particularly of a story a (Jewish) friend told me about how a Jewish group at his Ivy League college protested after receiving candy canes in their student mail. Despite the absence of any religious literature, the students thought the candy cane's symbolism a possible offense and an attempt by Christians to push their faith on them. My friend was disgusted, especially since he otherwise counted himself a supporter of the group's activities. But the protest, he thought, hurt the fight against anti-Semitism: Not only did it distract from actual cases of anti-Semitism, it also helped anti-Semites conflate real abuses with the silliness of the students' imagined one--all the more so since the students seemed to think they were as oppressed as Jews being killed and attacked in Israel and Europe. Basically, the candy cane controversy is the Jewish equivalent of Judith Warner crying oppression over profiteroles. Does that mean fighting anti-Semitism or sexism is silly? No, but you need to pick your battles if only so as not to alienate potential supporters and hurt your own cause. Also, as I tried to argue in my last post, it's hard to galvanize activists around your "need" to vacation in Normandy. As worthy as your cause might be, if you let it get hijacked by pretend victims, most people are going to think you're just "crying wolf," and become indifferent, if not outright hostile, to you and your movement. Perhaps the answer to Hirshman's article is the "Christina Hoff Sommers feminism" to which Rita alluded here--one that puts first real abuses against women's rights first rather than, say, the membership of the Augusta National Golf Club. P.S. I completely understand Sonny's predicament here: I tried to find the video clip of Lisa explaining to Homer the difference between correlation and causality, but I couldn't find it. Instead, I found about twenty Dragonball Z mashups. Can anyone explain to me the purpose of a Dragonball Z mashup? And perhaps suggest somewhere to find clips of Simpsons episodes? I feel like most anything in life can be explained by a South Park clip or a Simpsons clip more succinctly than I can explain it.While working on my Hirshman post, I kept trying to find that hilarious clip from The Simpsons where none of the protesters remember what they're protesting and keep bringing up their own pet causes. That was the entire Hirshman article in a two minute clip. Labels: gender wars posted by Cheryl # 3:40 PM
Comments:
The "War Against Boys" stuff about educational attainment and marriage--that's Christina Hoff Sommers feminism. A different angle, but the same.
Post a Comment
<< Home Archives December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 |
