Thursday, September 6, 2012

Question of the Day

Via the comments in my post about men making excuses for not advocating on behalf of men, Archy wants to know:
"Where are the feminists speaking up and condemning the Valerie Solanas's, the extreme misandry at the radfemhub website (which seems to have some support from the SLPC if various articles tell the truth), SCUM manifesto lovers, and the extremist feminists?"
My response can be read here.

But, the gist of it is that.... well, really?

No, really?

We're still talking about Valerie Solanas? People who are feminists still have to explicitly condemn, disassociate ourselves from, and continually apologize for her book that she wrote 50 years ago?  And, if we don't consistently and explicitly do so, that is some people's excuse for not being a feminist?

I see.

It seems as though some gender egalitarians think that if feminism isn't spending the same exact equal amount of time condemning Solanas' misandry as we are spending it condemning current acts of misogyny and actual threats to women's bodily autonomy, then we're not being good, real, or legitimate feminists- since, ya know, feminism is about "equality" and all.

So, here's a challenge of my own.

When someone can point to critical masses of actual politicians and religious leaders in the real world who take the SCUM Manifesto as seriously as they do their gender essentialist, sexist, homophobic, male supremacist "Judeo-Christian" religious teachings, I'll start expecting feminists to put more time and effort into explicitly condemning Valerie Solanas.

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