My personal definition of feminism is closely related to the definition of Professor Marylou Ruud’s from the University of West Florida. We, and many other women and men, believe in equality between the two sexes which extends to the work place, the justice system, and pretty much everything else (for example, the same kind of resources). As a human and especially as a woman, of course, I define myself as a feminist. I honestly believe that all women are feminists because everyone wants to be treated the same as everyone else. It does not make sense that anyone would want to be paid less than someone else when they both have the same qualifications and do the same type of work just because they were born into different bodies. I really liked what Jessica Valenti said when she said “most young women have feminist values. Most young women are feminist, but they just don’t quite know it yet” because I totally believe that as well.
Throughout The F Word lots of females and males gave their own definitions about what feminism means, but each one was slightly different than the previous one. Granted, many of the definitions had the same common themes such as the myths associated with feminism. Some common myths among the interviewees were that feminism is about hating men (the most common one), feminists are lesbians, feminists want to be treated better than men, feminists think alike, feminists just like to complain about stuff, feminists are hippies who like to burn bras and not shave their underarms/legs, and feminists are too aggressive. I do not really know if feminism is on the decline in today’s society or not because I never really hear anything about it. I had never heard of the organization “Global Fund for Women” or the group “Guerrilla Girls” before watching this documentary. I would probably guess that feminism is still going strong, but it just seems that it is a little more under the radar than it was in the 60s/70s.
You have a great point that all women are feminists since all women want to be treated equally. Which is true because all women should be treated equally. I'm with you on that you're not very sure if feminism is on the decline. I mean we haven't heard much about it, but people still do care if women and men are treated equally. I'm sure people still fight everyday for their equal rights just not as crazily like in the 60's/70's.
ReplyDeleteJessica Valenti has done a lot to help push feminism forward in recent times. She has helped a lot of young women come to feminism and is considered one of the leaders of the third wave feminist movement. Her Blog, Feministing, is very, very popular. Last semester, I used her book Full Frontal feminism, and most of my female students seemed to enjoy it, although they found her style a bit different from the normal academic style in many feminist and women's studies books--which ultimately they found a nice change of pace.
ReplyDelete@WS 405 J-Term: You make a good point when you mentioned that people still care/fight about equal rights, but they just don't do it as strongly as they used to.
ReplyDelete@Joelle Ruby Ryan: I was thinking about checking out her blog. I checked out the Guerrilla Girls' website - which was very interesting. I will also try to read that book - thanks!!