Given that it is now fashionable to write things like "It is time to replace those faded and equivocal calls of yesteryear, for equality based on mutual respect and equanimity between the genders.", I figured we could examine some examples of our iFeminist future, where we unshackle ourselves from foolish excesses and old battles from the 60's.
I know nobody bothers to read Slate anymore (with good reason), so this blogpost was easily overlooked (like most things there).
The headline is "Enough Already With Political Categories Like "White Women"", the thesis is broader: "There is no "women's vote."", says Bill Bishop, while pounding his fist on the table and howling "Beer me!". He probably wished he could have gone further and said "There is no womens!".
Now the polls he sites in his own blogpost may disprove it (as would a casual reading of covers in the magazine aisles), or by experts in market research (as my wife was in a former life and called what he wrote "bullshit"), but hey, like Blutto, don't stop him, he's on a roll.
Welcome to your iFeminism future. Not only are the offenses down the memory hole, but the entire gender is too.
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Stalker!
:o).
SARAH PALIN IS A C*NT
Buy Your Post-Feminism T-shirt Today! Purchase by Nov.4, 2008 and you'll also receive the Hillary Vagina Nutcracker and a beautiful 4color screen saver of Sarah Palin with a rifle pointed to her head!!!
All proceeds will go to the Obama campaign whose vision of Hope™ and Change™ inspired this amazing post-feminist collection!
Gender is a social construct?
Or it just doesn't exist at all?
No women=no problems
I think the point is that since those silly white women don't even exist, there isn't any point in listening to them, or trying to cater to their needs. They are powerless, divided by their "interests" and can be preyed upon more effectively merely as a collection of cultural traits.
Try telling that to Lifetime.
But since the polls show disproportionate voting between different demographics (and the primaries showed demographics were the determitive factor in the outcomes, see BTD at TalkLeft), this peckerhead can't let the data get in the way of a catchy headline.
One that suprisingly helps "certain candidates and parties" ignore women voters desires.
Go figure.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
Is wishing a woman to be gang raped
part of the new ifeminism world?
We don't care if it happens or if someone wishes it to happen
which makes it a nonissue which means we don't have to
think about anything feminist ever again! fantastic! I love my
new hate-is-cool world! Send those old crowing hags off to be gassed!
They are smudging up my hope and change goggles.
Oh, and don't miss the super cool unity video called "drill baby drill".
Soon to be played at an Obama rally near you (and i hope he does that little
flick off the shoulder and wipe off the shoes thing again! that is the coolest dog whistle ever- says Matt Yglesias!)
But who will iron my shirts
if all the old hags are sent off to be gassed? Please be realistic, scoutt.
Sorry.
I don't have the first rate intellect or temperament to actually think through issues. You're right, someone will need to iron the shirts. I guess I should be grateful that my demographic will be needed even in a recession.
Also, I think the racism charges seem to be intertwined with the hatin' on the c*nts. Feeling the moral glow of supporting the black candidate seems to need the yang of accusing and burning the old hags. Where would they put all of that hate if we weren't here? The hags are useful as a target for all that youthful aggression. Would they rather actually DO something for the AA community? Nah, much more fun to make C*nt tshirts - that i'd be happy to iron, btw.
This is the same with race.
It was exactly the strategy proponents of anti-Affirmative Action ballot initiatives use. Since we live in a 'color-blind' society, and everyone is equal under the law, there are no such thing as minorities, so they don't need any attention as a seperate group. Plus, the Irish and Italians were discriminated against and didn't get any additional attention.
It's the most convenient-of-convenient ideologies.
"If women don't exist, well, then, how can we possibly help them?" **said with feigned concern**
As much fun as it is
... to watch a bunch of men argue over who'e the biggest feminist, it's painfully apparent that none of you -- BIO, HTV or Bill Bishop -- are aware that there is, in fact, a debate going on within feminism (or more accurately, "feminisms" or "feminism/womanism") over the precise goals of the movement and whether straight gender equity (gender is the single most important factor, and therefore, achieving gender equality will solve a whole host of issues) or intersectionality (it is precisely the whole host of other issues, such as poverty, disability, racism, queerness, etc. which keep women back (albeit in different and varying ways) and therefore those must be addressed along with gender issues) is the right approach.
The Second Wave comes in for a lot of deserved criticism for their white-straight-middle-class-woman-centric approach. Which is not the same thing as dismissing their ideas because they're old, or because you think the younger generation is more pliable.
Also, I'm not sure why the "Sarah Palin is a Cunt" T-shirts are getting blamed on (third wave) feminism rather than on plain old standard-issue anti-feminism. But then, I see a lot of people who confuse Girls Gone Wild with sexual liberation.
me ignorant yes
Zuzu, I confess to being ignorant of what New Feminism is or what the internal debates are. I also confess I am male.
I hope what I write is not construed to say these T-shirts or Girls Gone Wild or whatever else are third wave feminism, but since I have no idea what that is, I can't say.
What I'm saying is more along the lines of what DamonMI pointed out, that this is the tactic used by others to dismiss the identity of a group. That is the specific point in this "There are no women voters" case. I don't need to be female to notice that since it is the same as saying "There are no black voters" or hispanic voters or whatever other group. It is part of a larger argument to dismiss the concerns of historically oppressed people as irrelevant.
Dismissing the inherent sexism in "Sarah Palin is a Cunt" shirts as merely poor taste and comparing it to a (mythical) "Barack Obama is a Dick" shirt is in my mind disingenous. I didn't think I needed to be female to point that out, but maybe I'm just old skool.
The reason why I coined a new word iFeminism is to portray the new anti-feminism which is dressed up as the hippest, newest wave of feminism. This is the anti-feminism where you get to say and do anything you want since there is no such thing as sexism anymore.
Update: last paragraph added.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites