feminism

Barack Obama is everywhere--- from tacky collector plates advertised late at night on cable TV to Spiderman . That's cool, after eight years of yuck we need and deserve it. And it is exciting that the parents let us bring the hippest exotic kid in school home for dinner—and are even, for the most part, being nice about it. But a lot of feminists have their collective panties in a knot over the recent Ms. Magazine cover where, with the assistance of Photoshop , Obama was made into a Feminist Superhero (and if you subscribe now you can get a 18” X 24” commemorative ... Read Full Story

When we look at labels to describe activism by women we commonly use the term womanist, or feminist.  Words mean something despite how casually we toss them around.  They are how we order and understand our world.  In an effort to be inclusive when we write about activism many will often write feminists/womanists.  This acknowledges that some WOC have to some degree separated themselves and have taken on the label of womanists because of the history of racism within the feminist movement. The problem with using these labels is that they often appear in a certain order.  Most will write feminists/womanists rather than womanists/feminists.  ... Read Full Story

It is common to hear many women today say I am not a feminist or anything but...I think that we are suffering from a form of collective amnesia about what the world before feminism was like.  Pay close attention colluders.  Every time you say I am not a feminist, you are denying things like battered womens shelters, the right to vote, rape counselling, and equal pay for equal work. Which one of these benefits do you want to give back?  It may not be "cool" these days to say that you are feminist, but it is even less cool to embrace a world where ... Read Full Story

I often engage in conversations with white women in which I accuse them of not owning their race privilege.  Quite often the response is, why are you blaming us, and not white males.  I believe that this is an important issue to discuss because despite the sisterhood claims of feminism, there actually exists a lot of animosity between WOC and white women. White women and black men, both focus on the marginalizatio0n that they face from over privileged white men.  Though WOC will acknowledge that there is definitely an issue with how the  white male body is encoded with power; they are not our ... Read Full Story

I was inspired to write this post after reading about this incident at the Field Negro.   Read the following commentary by Ms.Couric and see if you have any difficulty understanding why WOC have trouble trusting white women as allies. "The corporate pressure and the ratings terror are intensifying all the time, and the situation is not simple. I find myself in the last bastion of male dominance, and realizing what Hillary Clinton might have realized not long ago: that sexism in the American society is more common than racism, and certainly more acceptable or forgivable. In any case, I think my post and ... Read Full Story