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(Parts One, Two and Three are linked.)

See, this is one of the biggest reasons I don’t listen to Ann Coulter.

(wtf? How did Ann Coulter get involved in this? you might ask. Well–)

Ann has made a career out of, among other things, trashing feminism. The last time I paid any attention to much of anything she had to say was one of the first times I ever paid any attention to her at all–basically I got to the point where she was saying that women needed to get out of public discourse, particularly political public discourse, because they weren’t suited to it and had been screwing everything up in it for decades. Once I heard her say that, I translated it to mean that there was no point in listening to her discourse publicly anymore, particularly politically–I mean, she’s a woman herself. And I never argue with other people who tell me not to listen to themselves, eh?

Generally I am underwhelmed by women who globally trash feminism. Not that being a self-identified feminist has a hell of a lot of meaning these days–given that Sarah Palin, Maureen Dowd, Catherine MacKinnon and Wendy McElroy all insist that they are feminists, I’m not sure exactly what assumptions about them we’re supposed to be making based on that. So, when women state that they have a problem with specific so-called feminists or specific schools of self-identified feminist thought, THAT I have no problem empathizing with. However–

The third and last session at Sex 2.0 that I attended was the following:

Revisiting Naked on the Internet

My book Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In On Internet Sexploration was published by Seal Press in 2007. This session will include a panel with some of the women I interviewed for the book; we will discuss what has changed and stayed the same in past two years. Questions include: How has the sense of community in online sexual networks changed since 2007? How have new technologies, applications, and websites (like Tumblr and Twitter) shifted the ways we think about sex online? How have shifts in law enforcement like crackdowns on online prostitution, arrests of teens for making child porn, and the obscenity trials of pornographers affected sex online?

There were four session leaders present–one was the author of the book referenced above and the other three were women that, as she said, she had interviewed for it. I hadn’t read the book, so I was a little worried going into the session that I would have absolutely no idea what was going on. However, I needn’t have worried–they didn’t really discuss the fine details of the book. One thing that did come up, though, was feminism–almost the very first time I’d even heard the word mentioned since I’d arrived at the conference.

Three of the session leaders self-identified as feminists; the fourth did not. Specifically, she self-identified as most definitely not a feminist, and her reasoning was more or less as follows:

“Because, you know, people kept using the word ‘feminist’ as a synonym for ‘awesome.’ (giggle!) Like, I’m a militant awesome-ist!”

Oh, boy. How, er, rebellious of you to so boldly reject feminism. That’s so rare in mainstream society. Especially those icky, oogy second wavers. Really they’re probably all worried that you’re fucking their husbands–! (Direct quote from someone in an earlier session–I couldn’t say if it was the same stellar intellect or not, I did not take special note of the speaker at the time.)

Yes, let’s all hate us on some second-wave feminists. I mean, who needs all this crap: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in employment on the basis of sex? The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission? Executive Order 11375, that expanded President Lyndon Johnson’s affirmative action policy of 1965 to cover discrimination based on gender? The EEOC ruling that sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers are illegal, that opened the way for women to apply for higher-paying jobs that were previously only open to men? No-fault divorce? Community property laws? Schultz v. Wheaton Glass Co, which prevented employers from changing the job titles of women workers in order to pay them less than men? Eisenstadt v. Baird, where the Supreme Court ruled that the right to privacy includes an unmarried person’s right to use contraceptives? Title IX of the Education Amendments that bans sex discrimination in schools? Roe vs. Wade? The Equal Credit Opportunity Act, prohibiting discrimination in consumer credit practices on the basis of sex? Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, forcing employers to cease justifying paying women lower wages because that is what they traditionally received under the “going market rate?” Marital rape laws? The Pregnancy Discrimination Act?

One thing I have to give Ann–she did say that when she proposed taking the vote away from women, she meant herself too. I suppose, if she were actually serious, one would have to respect her consistency and lack of hypocrisy in that one area (she still hasn’t shut up and gotten back into the kitchen, though, which leaves her open to remarks of her display of at least a tad bit of hypocritical behavior on all other fronts). So, you bold brave anti-feminist ladies! tell ya what–

You reject, and cease taking advantage of, all that feminism has enabled you personally to take advantage of. I have a nice starter list above, and that’s only the benefits reaped from the sweat, blood and tears of the second-wave feminists–I haven’t even listed what the third-wavers have achieved. You do that, and then at least you’ll stop looking and sounding like a raving hypocrite, and not a very bright one at that. Then, after you’ve lived that life for a year or so, we’ll talk again–and if you’re still giggling over the awfulness that is feminists, then I’ll have to suck it up and admit that there really must be something to the anti-feminist life that I’ve simply overlooked, and I will be absolutely willing to learn what that is at your feet.

Or, if you have a specific problem with specific feminists, or specific feminist schools of thought, you can articulate that–I know, I know, but that requires thought and effort–just like it does for anyone to refrain from making blanket statements condemning a whole swathe of a specific subgroup of humanity–can’t imagine where else or for whom that problem might come up, can you?

…only with feminism can a conference that specifically celebrates feminism in its general description, openly slam feminism. sigh

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 11:53 pm and is filed under Feminism, For the ladies, Lick My Jackboots of Love, Soapbox, What would we do without such great advice?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.