Reclaiming Lesbian Pride

[Reader]

Originally Posted by Heart

Kobi, feminism never died and there are many many feminists and feminist groups engaged in action across the globe.

Start with Amnesty International, http://www.amnesty.org/en/campaigns/...-against-women, and take a look at the book I have linked in my sig line (by Nick Kristof, a feminist man).

I understand the urge, but I don't think a "pure" form of feminism exists. As has been talked about, feminism as a movement has been guilty of racism, classism, even misogyny. No social movement is without its serious blind spots and drawbacks. None can be glorified.

Heart

I also agree with some things you said, Heart, but it seems as though the right has succeeded in its attempt to divide and conquer.

[Chazz]

Originally Posted by Hunter Green

I also agree with some things you said, Heart, but it seems as though the right has succeeded in its attempt to divide and conquer.

Hi, Hunter Green. I'm glad you joined the conversation.

It's not just the "right" who has succeeded in its attempts to divide and conquer. We've done it to ourselves by placing certain subjects off limits for discussion. It's as Heart said:

Originally Posted by Heart

....gender theory, at least as enacted in queer communities, seems to lack any political analysis of institutionalized power....

There is is no analysis of institutionalized power in gender theory.

Analysis of gender theory isn't tolerated in most quarters.

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

Those who began by investigating the construct of maleness seem to have ended by fetishizing it instead. It's quite clear to me that although the intent may have once been to destabilize the gender binary, gender studies have had great success in promoting it....

As if there wasn't enough fetishizing of maleness to begin with ! ! ! !

Creating terms like "masculine of center" does not destabilize the gender binary, it reinforces it. How many people outside of the LGBTQ community (or, inside of it for that matter) make a distinction between maleness and masculine? I mean, REALLY.

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

...Is there something transgressive about a female bodied person claiming that they are male because they resemble traditional males? Isn't that just saying that those who look and act traditionally male must BE male? What happened to dismantling assumptions about traditionally gendered behaviours?....

This statement cuts to the core of the issue, doesn't it....

In the absence of a epistemological consideration of gender theory, all that can be said of it is that it's a self-justifying, inaccessible, meme that reinforces stereotypes. There is nothing remotely transgressive about that.


meme = information held in an individual's mind, which is passed on to another individual's mind.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge. It attempts to answer the basic question: what distinguishes true (adequate) knowledge from false (inadequate) knowledge?

[Chazz]

CherylNYC, I, too, have been a gender transgressor my entire life.

In recent years, I've felt like an exile caught in the cross hairs of two competing, though disconcertingly similar, gender binaries - hetero-normity and queer-normity.

If hetero-patriarchists and queer theorists, alike, see me as transgressive because of my buzz cut, skinny jeans and Harley boots.... where do I go to be seen as gender congruent woman?