Why I am a feminist
It depends on what you define as feminist, really. I think feminists, in the most basic sense, are essentially human right advocates-- only instead of campaigning for others' rights, we campaign for our own rights. Perhaps that is what grates on some people's nerves.
Why I am a feminist: what it all boils down to, comes from a simple emotion called fear. Fear of being subjugated, subverted, because I am born this way and I do not have the power to change that so what I can only change now is perhaps our status in society. Fear of not having the right to my own body-- fear of being raped, the penetrating phallic organ used as a tool to wield power (and we all know rape is mostly about power issues, not only mere lust and raging testosterone.) And lately this book I am reading now, Managing the Monstrous Feminine by Jane M. Ussher, brings up an insight in which I haven't thought of: fear of our own internal body processes.
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In a similar vein, Elizabeth Grosz argues that abjection 'testifies to the precarious grasp of the subject on its own identity, an assertion that the subject may slide back into the impure chaos out of which it was formed' [24, p. 90]. The apparently uncontained fecund body, with its creases and cruves, secretions and seepages, as well as its changing boundaries at times of pregnancy and menopause, signifies association with the animal world, which reminds us of our mortality and fragility, and stands as the antithesis of the clean, contained, proper body, which 'must bear no trace of its debt to nature' [8, p. 101] -- epitomised by the body of man, or the pre-pubescent girl not yet despoiled by fecundity. No wonder women subject their bodies to punishing regimes of diet and exercise to maintain the illusion that they can contain and control outward signs of feminine excess"Essentially what the book argues up till now is that society seeks to contain the "monstrous feminine" through "the female nude, icon of idealized feminine sexuality", pornography and myths such as Medusa, "depicted with open-mouthed writhing snakes as her hair, her 'entire visage alive with images of toothed vaginas ready to strike'". While this view might be a little extremist, certain points such as the desire for things to remain ordered and contained stemming from the fear of the unknown hence leading to fear of our own bodily processes bears fruit for thought.
Maybe thomas is right, feminism stems from insecurity-- but can you fault insecurity when right from the moment you were born you are deemed to be inferior to the other sex? Maybe this is not relevant in the modern world as you argue, but generalizations and stereotypes still exist, no matter how invisible they might seem. And perhaps guys might be teasing us when they make chauvinistic comments, but how much of it do they actually believe? For jokes made have some truth of what you truly feel. Pang says, "women are born to suffer" and he brings up all the processes we are subjected to, from menstuation to stomach cramps to pregnancy, but does he feel that because of these innate processes we should "suffer" under their rule as well, that because "god" made us like this "he" means for us to suffer all our lives?
I think what we need now is a change of perspective, that instead of seeing such processes as suffering (which I know I am prone to doing), maybe if society saw them as a sort of gift we wouldn't be seeing them now as a torture we have to go through. I remember I had a thought once, penned down in my diary: the power to create life isn't valued enough, and maybe that is why modern societies generally see a trend of a diminishing birth rate.
Everyday during orientation when nighttime falls my parents would start calling frantically and scolding me for still not coming home; they scare me with accounts of girls being attacked and raped as they go about at night, and this fear has been drilled into me from young. I've often envied people, especially guys, who can go home as late as they wish because they are not made afraid of such terrors. Perhaps after all, fear does make the foundation of my feministic thinking-- as well as the desire to go out about freely at night alone.
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far and wee
you and i together mysteriously and always floating
Friday, March 28
8:13 PM
