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[taimatsu]

I have just had my first lecture of the year - the introductory session for Women's Writing 1. This involved defining feminism, mostly, and the horrible but not unexpected discovery that about six of the 60 predominantly female people in the room defined themselves as feminist. Gaaaaah!

Also Gaaaaaah was the thing where the lecturer was talking about an essay on basic feminism which discusses the terms 'feminist' 'female' and 'feminine', and dismissed biological sex - 'female' - as binary 'apart from a few hermaphrodites and things'. I was so cross. I know a variety of people who are women but for whom the biological clues to 'sex' are not straightforwardly female - whether that's because of a chromosomal disorder, or physical intersexedness, or being transsexual/transgendered. The lecturer has no idea if one of those people is in the room, and I was cross that she made them invisible and used what I suspect is rather an inappropriate term for the biologically different. She's my seminar leader so I might be able to tackle her about it tomorrow, though it's tricky when I'm not in that group myself.

Similarly, she was talking about the prevailing image of feminism as all about 'hairy humourless lesbians'; while it's *true* that that's what people think, what if I *had* been a hairy lesbian? It really sounded very dismissive, and her talk didn't make any compensatory mention of the contributions lesbian community has made to the women's movement.

I think I sound way too 'right-on' here, but then the whole point of the lecture was to make the girls who go 'eww, I'm not a feminist!' think again. Maybe it ought to make me think again about saying 'erk, I'm not one of those radical queer folks!' (Actually, I think I'm not, but I get the feeling if I make the fairly basic points above about sex and gender non-hegemony, I'll be thought of as one.)

It makes me nervous to think of saying any of this in a seminar, but I want that to be a safe(r) space where I can talk about, you know, lesbians and queer politics if it's relevant without being afraid to come out. *sigh*

Thoughts most welcome. Anyone got any experience with feminist literary criticism or feminist writing in general? I'm making this public so I can link to it in a community.

Comments

[thinkstoomuch.livejournal.com]

Well, it's apparent that you don't strongly identify as being a feminist. Neither do I, though I think I am one. It also seems entirely sensible to me to not bother listing all the possibilities that egalitarianism covers every time. It sounds like you are taking it a bit further than that though, in a way I find confusing: you seem to be saying that because you prefer the broader term, the narrower term, while entirely encompassed by the broader one, does not apply to you at all!

I think it's particularly confusing for me since I identify much more strongly with egalitarian than feminist, but I feel that because I agree with egalitarian ideals I necessarily agree with (core) feminist ideals. Perhaps we have different definitions.

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

I agree with the core feminist ideal, this is part of my personal egalitarian stance. I don't think that makes me a feminist. If I've said that I don't identify as such, I don't feel that it is up to anyone else to say "you also happen to hold the basic ideals of feminisism, and thus, are a feminisist as well" or state in any other way that I am a feminist really.

It's not a great deal to ask of people. Please don't tell me what I think.