Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: Say When

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  • Jacqui Dunn, in reply to BenWilson,

    I have a word. Feminist.

    Or :Fe man ist. Like? :)

    Deepest, darkest Avondale… • Since Jul 2010 • 585 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to recordari,

    +1
    Lots of plus ones going on at the moment.

    Think of it as a manual "Like" button, I guess

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Give me a word for “males who believe in some selection of feminist principles”, and I’ll happily use it.

    If only ‘Not-being-a-douchebag-to-and-about-the-vagina-bearing-half-of-the-human-race-ism’ would trip of the tongue a little easier, a lot of time and energy would be spared from endless semantic games of Who's A Real Feminist Bingo.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • recordari, in reply to Sacha,

    Think of it as a manual “Like” button, I guess

    Yezbut, it also seems more than that sometimes. On my part it signals ‘shit you just expressed my point of view way better than I could’. On these occasions I’ve decided not to try and be cleverer or somehow more erudite, as that leads to ‘stuff’n’nonsense’.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to BenWilson,

    Give me a word for “males who believe in some selection of feminist principles”

    Do you really need to be labelled Ben? What’s wrong with having ideas and opinions and experiences and thoughts without having a label?

    Hi I’m Bart, if you want to know and understand what I think and why, I’m sorry but there is no easy peasy label to use that will allow you to skip the hard work of actually trying to understand me. Or not because frankly most folks can’t be arsed. Which is fine really.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    Do you really need to be labelled Ben? What’s wrong with having ideas and opinions and experiences and thoughts without having a label?

    Sometimes it's about making a stand. I consider myself pro-feminist and a socialist. I could fudge or overcomplicate either position so that people won't pigeonhole me or caricature me, but those are good descriptors of my politics and it would be a little precious of me not to use them. Besides, "Hi I'm Bart" might work at a dinner party, but in order to organise politically you simply need other people, and to identify with a variety of groups and currents of thought. Labels can be affirming and also say true things about who you are.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to giovanni tiso,

    Labels can be affirming and also say true things about who you are.

    Agreed. And to be fair I use labels any time I try and describe myself.

    But it seems to me from the discussions I have seen that feminist is a label that no longer functions.

    As soon as the word is used the discussion turns from the actual subject at hand to discussion of the label. If one were cynical you could simply use the word to deflect the discussion.

    Emma's discussion of her freedom to wear what she wants without be abused no longer exists. That strongly suggests the label is not helpful.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Martin Lindberg,

    Quoth Germaine Greeer:

    Afterwards I spoke to Greer to get her thoughts on it all. "Feminism?" she queried. "Oh it's such an old-fashioned word anyway."

    Stockholm • Since Jul 2009 • 802 posts Report Reply

  • recordari, in reply to giovanni tiso,

    Labels can be affirming and also say true things about who you are.

    Perhaps when you apply them to yourself. I can handle ‘I’m a feminist’ much more readily than ‘you’re a feminist’.

    When others arbitrarily apply them on your behalf, often when they don’t really know ‘you’, in Bart’s sense, they can also be limiting and set you off on a course where expectations are lowered, opportunities diminished, playing fields shrunk and a number of other not so healthy things can happen. The baggage that most significant labels hold, when applied by others, seems so heavy that it’s hard to cut through the ‘what you think I mean by this’ to ‘what I actually mean ’. If you know what I mean.

    ETA: Bart replied. Think I'm still current, but things move quickly round here.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Megan Clayton, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    it seems to me from the discussions I have seen that feminist is a label that no longer functions.

    I tend to think that it's because feminist, as a label, "can be affirming and also say true things about who you are" that it is a term whose definition people are willing to contest.

    Christchurch • Since Feb 2007 • 51 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Do you really need to be labelled Ben?

    No, but it does save time. Beating around the bush can also be a very annoying habit, can be used to wreck debate too.

    What’s wrong with having ideas and opinions and experiences and thoughts without having a label?

    Labels are not universally bad. Language would be nearly impossible without them. Of course they're always generalizations, but they might point to the locus of your viewpoint, without accurately ring-fencing it.

    However, you might have missed that I was actually not really arguing to be given a label. The point of that was a thought experiment designed to show the poor direction that introducing gender into labels for viewpoints can go. You can go the reverse direction, like you're arguing, and try to drop the labels altogether. But I think this is impractical. Say a label stands in place of ten words, you could use those? But within those ten words will be yet more labels, which might take their ten word toll each. This recurses very deep, the number of ideas contained in a big label might be enormous, and not much idea transmission is really going to be going on if they have to be used every single time. That exercise might be inevitable in a lot of cases, where a mismatch in label usage seems to be apparent, but it's not guaranteed. A lot of the time, the label does point to a sufficiently similar idea-space/point (I'm undecided whether ideas are points or locuses in idea space, indeed unsure whether such a space really exists at all, but it's a useful theory), for the purposes of the point being made.

    I don't think the entire feminist lexicon has degraded to the point where just about every single word popularly used in it has no useful meaning. There's lots of fantastic ideas which can be readily used there. "Feminism" itself is still meaningful, IMHO, but it's one highly prone to definitional fights. Might be best avoided, or at least highly qualified, sure.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • recordari, in reply to ,

    Not being able to label abstract concepts restricts there development.

    In some instances I think labeling them can equally restrict them.

    Real life example. One of my daughters is constantly called a 'tomboy'. In my opinion this pre supposes a number of things which are not always helpful.

    1) She will be more sporty than her twin sister. Wrong. They just excel in different areas.
    2) She will be tough when she gets hurt. Wrong, she cries much more readily than her siblings.
    3) She will discourage physical contact and tend to be stand offish. Wrong, she is much more affectionate, and craves contact more than her siblings.
    4) She hates 'girl's clothes'. True.

    The 'tomboy' label proves completely unhelpful in most of the circumstances we encounter. If anything Islander's comments, and her 'singularity' gives me more insight, and hope, that she is just who she is, and all of it is wonderful.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    feminist is a label that no longer functions

    Yeah, I... kind of have a wee bit of a problem with being told that.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    Emma's discussion of her freedom to wear what she wants without be abused no longer exists. That strongly suggests the label is not helpful.

    I wouldn't be so sure, given that in the early hours of this thread Emma herself tweeted this.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to giovanni tiso,

    Labels can be affirming and also say true things about who you are.

    Because this is true I'll spend a moment expanding on why I get frustrated with labels.

    The point at which it becomes an issue for me is when the label gets too big. Russell already said "but which feminism?". And that instantly says to me there is a problem. It's like US politics, 300 million people and 2 political positions (right wing and extreme right wing). That's not helpful to anyone. Instead of representing everyone you end up representing no-one.

    If feminist represents 20 or 50 or a 100 different flavours then it isn't a helpful label. I've said I don't consider myself a feminist but I've also made it clear that I hate treating women as lessor beings. By Megan's definition I am a feminist. So am I right or is Megan? And the answer is we are both right because the label can mean two different things depending on who is listening and who is speaking.

    We have this problem in science where words that have a very specific meaning in one field get appropriated by another field and misused, or worse get appropriated by the general public. On the one hand it's simply evolution of the language but on the other hand we end up having to make a new word to again mean the very specific thing we first described.

    Feminist used to mean something very specific and I would have been happy to be described as one back then, but I was like 8 and much more interested in space flight. But now it is a term with many diverse meanings, despite Megan's link. I'm no longer happy to be described as a feminist, it's too big a grouping.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to Danielle,

    Yeah, I… kind of have a wee bit of a problem with being told that.

    It seems to me...

    that was the whole quote Danielle :P.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    that was the whole quote Danielle

    Yeah, but it's not as if you said in that post 'it's not a label that works FOR ME'. You said it seemed to you that it 'no longer functions'. In general. If you didn't mean that, then hooray.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Deborah,

    "Feminism" and "feminist" work for me.

    New Lynn • Since Nov 2006 • 1447 posts Report Reply

  • recordari, in reply to ,

    This in turn, ironically, only adds to the argument that maybe I am indeed an artist.

    By this same token I'm a picture framer. Haven't framed a picture, as a job, for 22 years. But I can still frame pictures. What's my point? I'm not a boiler maker. ;-)

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Jackie Clark,

    I'm a human, a woman, a teacher, a wife, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a daughter, a friend. All of those things are labels which define what I do, who I am, my relationships to others. But the word which informs them all, is feminist. I am a thoughtful, conscious, supportive friend to other women because I'm a feminist. I'm a subversive, gender questioning teacher of little girls because I'm a feminist. I'm a fantastic, stroppy wife because I'm a feminist. To water it down, to deny it's importance to me, to try to make it anything other than what it is devalues my relationships, my work, my beliefs. I may not have the same ways of being a feminist as other women, I may beg to differ or argue about what constitutes empowerment for women, but I am no less a feminist, and neither are the women I count amongst my closest and dearest friends. None of whom, incidentally, call themselves feminists. They use other words, such as strong, stroppy, characterful and so on. And that's up to them. I don't love them any the less, neither does it injure my relationships with them. For them, that label doesn't necessarily ring true. TBH, we don't even talk about the word, feminism, but we do talk about ourselves, our work and struggles and triumphs as women. We support each other, and try to make life better for each other. That's feminism, whichever way you look at it. And it makes me very happy. My name is Jackie and I am a feminist.

    Mt Eden, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 3136 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    I'm just saying, if someone posts a Meredith Brooks YouTube video at any point during this thread I'll know we are all beyond hope. ;)

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to Danielle,

    Ok so it's probably fair that you have a problem with me then. Because by saying "it seems to me" I don't mean feminist isn't a label that works FOR me but rather that I think (with the proviso that I can and will be wrong at times) that the label no longer works properly. To the extent that I'm reluctant to use it when describing another at all, and not happy to fit the label to myself.

    Deborah says it works for her, so theoretically I could describe her as a feminist, if I knew her beyond these posts. But would my description of her as a feminist be the same as hers? Would we be meaning the same thing? Would using the word to describe you mean the same thing as using the word to describe Deborah or Emma or Megan, regardless of who was using the word?

    That's why it seems to me to be broken. But I could be wrong ...

    to dispel ideas like that feminism is a struggle by women for equality, when we know its not just that

    And oddly this is the definition that I am most comfortable with :). Even though I know it is more than that.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Jackie Clark,

    Of course, feminism is a political movement, Steven. But I'm one of those people who believes that the political is personal, and vice versa.

    Mt Eden, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 3136 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    I think (with the proviso that I can and will be wrong at times) that the label no longer works properly

    I don't want to be an asshole here Bart, but... isn't it a bit presumptuous to say that a group you're not a part of isn't defining itself appropriately?

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Deborah, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    I think that it's simply polite to refer to people using the labels which they assign to themselves. So once I was apprised of Emma's (former) preference not to use the label 'feminist', I tried not to use it in respect of her. Given that I happily use it to describe myself, then it would be at least polite of you to describe me as a feminist, even if you want to add 'self-proclaimed' to it. Though I think that 'self-proclaimed' soubriquet is more usefully applied to people who don't really seem to be feminists at all i.e. there is no external validity to their claim to be feminist (for example, I would be confused and disbelieving if Tony Veitch described himself as a feminist).

    Also, what Danielle said just above.

    My name is Deborah and I am a feminist.

    New Lynn • Since Nov 2006 • 1447 posts Report Reply

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