Feminism meme!

[wavyarms]

I'm Kathleen Hanna!

You are Kathleen Hanna! Poster child of the riot
grrls, you've grown up a little in the last few
years. You've brought rape, feminism,
sexuality, and wymyn surviving hard shit into
the mainstream through art, music, and
spokenword. You're PUNKROCK! But, like, for
real.


Which Western feminist icon are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


Now I want time to go look all those people up in further detail.

Who are you?

Comments

[ethicsgradient.livejournal.com]

You are Frida Kahlo! You are an artistic,
passionate, vulnerable person, with openly
bisexual tendancies and were the first womyn to
have her own gallery show in Mexico. You slept
with ... Trotsky?


Which Western feminist icon are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


God, I hate that wymyn thing. It's women, it's a word, get over it. Also, hystory can suck it, too.

Oh, and by the way, Trotsky was pretty good in bed, until he got his head bashed in, though after that he did keep it up longer....

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

I hate that wymyn thing.

Yeah, me too. I tried taking the quiz, but I saw the word 'wymyn' so many times my eyes started to bleed.

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

I was surprised at the prevalence merely b/c the use of the spelling implied to me that pretty much all the people listed in the quiz would have used that spelling. Which I'm not sure is true.

While I don't use the spelling myself, I do sympathize with the philosophy behind it (see above comment to a517dogg.)

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

See, that whole thing pisses me off. I think a lot of people don't like feminism, or claim that they aren't feminists, because they think feminism is all about semantics (like "wymyn"). Whereas the semantics is just a sideline of the real thing, IMO.

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

Well, but don't you think that semantics reflects and reinforces deeper preconceptions?

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's true, but I think it also does the movement of feminism a grave disservice. Language is important, but if people think that's *all there is* to feminism (and I've heard plenty of people express that exact opinion), then it trivializes what the greater movement is about. There has to be something *more* - more substance - but "regular" people just see the re-spellings, and think "hey, this is ridiculous. These feminists are idiots/stoopid/not worth my time."

Basically, I'm saying that while semantics are important, they need to be presented as part of the larger whole. In context it makes more sense, but when separated from the context, it's just bad for the movement as a whole.

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

So, basically, we have to figure out how to present a complex idea in a way that can be digested by the general public, probably through the media, right?

;)

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Yes. Easy, right?

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

I don't particularly sympathize with that philosophy, as you may have guessed, though I don't deny that semantics have power.

First of all, let's get this out of the way: I'm a hardwired language Nazi; poor grammar and misspellings upset me in the same way as hearing wrong notes or an out-of-tune instrument; I am willing, however, to use 'they' as a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun.
___

The use of alternate spellings of any word has always struck me as a fairly pathetic form of rebellion, a kind of verbal adolescent sneering. What's your reaction when you read an attempt at political commentary referring to 'AmeriKa'?

My impression is that such respelling is a way of tackling an insignificant problem to foster the illusion of progress, because the real causes are difficult and complex. "Females are still getting paid 30% less than their male counterparts, but we're now they're better off because we call them 'wymyn'."

In addition, (and this comment was made elsewhere, I believe) such use of language is exclusionary and therefore self-destructive. The implication is that people who still spell 'women' correctly are, at heart, patriarchs or Stepford wives, unworthy of being part of the feminist movement; and the flipside is that such gestures allow someone to dismiss the feminist movement by focusing on a superficial aspect and ignoring the deeper issues.

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

I think all of what you said is pretty much right on.

However, I think the people who began to agitate for the changing of spelling intended to ultimately be successful, and have everyone actually use that spelling. I think they didn't examine the realism of their expectations very well, but I think that was the point. It was just that in falling short it became both ridiculous and exclusionary.

Admittedly, they probably should have called that one before they bothered starting.

But I do think that the pronoun thing should be changed...because that's an example where the grammatical status quo really does enforce preconceptions about gender roles. (Heck, read any book on conducting.)

[mixedborder.livejournal.com]

The most ridiculous example of always-using-male-pronouns-for-everyone that I ever heard of was a scientific article my father told me about--written pre-1960s, I believe. The article was a report of a scientific study where ALL OF THE SUBJECTS WERE FEMALE. But they were all referred to with male pronouns. Leading to such phrases as "his pregnancy."

[zdenka]

One of my teachers once used the spelling "herstory". That really infuriated me, because the word "history" has nothing to do with "his"-anything -- it's from an Ancient Greek word meaning "investigation".