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Author Topic:   Feminists....please?
hikoro
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posted October 09, 2013 08:29 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for hikoro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
could someone shed a light on this?
had a conversation with a feminist...two things i took notice.
a. detests muslims and islam and thinks islam will take over the world.
b. although she said that she doesnt have any problem with gays, she called out that the focus should be on women, not gays, because after all, gays are a minority...and that the reason that they really reached the milestone of gay marriage was because of lobbying.

take notice that this woman is from france. so...a french feminist. gay marriage became legal over the summer in france.

yes, i know...not all feminists are like that. the anti-muslim sentiment is quite common in france and other eu countries, so no surprised here.

im more surprised as to her viewpoint on gays...
does this mean that some feminists think that the rights of white women are far more important than the rights of non-white women?
i ask this because ive also talked to feminists (usually white) who seem to unconsciously have racial prejudices against non-white women or dont understand that life for a middle class straight white woman in a developed nation is not as privileged as the life of a lesbian latina woman who lives under the poverty level...for example.

i just dont understand how....i mean, yes...women still have it bad in some countries...but, how do gays being able to marry pose a problem to women's rights? or is she just ol time prejudiced?

and besides, arent there many lesbians involved in feminism and women's rights?

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PixieJane
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posted October 09, 2013 09:08 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Very short answer: maybe in France, but not in the USA and many other countries. Generally speaking the only people in the LGBT community feminists will give a hard time to are transgenders for "promoting stereotypical gender roles" (or at least for claiming there are true psychological differences between men & women other than socially constructed, an idea many feminists rejects) and for very ignorant reasons in addition. Other than that they're natural allies, at least the moderates are.

Not all lesbians are feminists. A common mistake older generations make is that both feminism and lesbianism is about rejecting men and therefore they're one and the same (or at least all lesbians are automatically feminists). This is false! However, back when feminism was very angry in the 70s (and for good reason and probably the only way they could get anyone to not dismiss them and their concerns out of hand) some feminists tried to make "lesbian" to be a POLITICAL orientation (that rejected men) rather than a sexual orientation, so 70s feminism shares some blame for this common mistake (and probably explains why it's mostly people who were teens or older in the 70s that think feminism is about hating and rejecting men and becoming lesbians). That said even in the 70s plenty of feminists decried the fake lesbians as running from the fight rather than standing up for female equality in society.

And lesbians have many cliques with unpredictable relations with standard feminists. For example, some very vanilla lesbians hate S&M lesbians for "giving us a bad name" while the S&M lesbians point out just how much more common true domestic violence seems to be among the vanilla lesbians (there are reasons why this may actually be the case, btw, but that's beside the point). General feminists can be divided on how to relate to each group and vice versa. Feminists strongly against porn are much more likely to relate to the vanilla lesbians while those that promote free expression and diversity are more likely to find themselves easier to accept S&M lesbians over the vanilla. And the stalking & domestic violence can make some feminists cringe as well for various reasons (including they can't make women crisis centers a safe place if it's a LESBIAN who's after her girlfriend staying there...). That's a simplification but I'm sure you don't want a book here trying to explain the nuances.

As for racism? Not officially at all, but it may exist at mostly subtle and/or subconscious levels (and can be more condescension than antipathy), though in some (perhaps even vast majority) cases it may simply just be a lack of understanding for what those of "other races" have to put up with living in a society where the majority are white (including pressures from their own so-called race) which shouldn't be mistaken for racism no matter how annoying it might be.

Don't know the specifics of France, however. It sounds like a strange place in more ways than one.

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hikoro
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posted October 09, 2013 09:46 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for hikoro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
well...pixie...
ive yet met a lesbian who was not pro-women's rights....in the USA and there are plenty of lesbians who empathize with feminism.
but, this feminist is not the first one who tells me the 'why waste time with gays, after all, they are a minority'
it is the irony and the hypocrisy that baffles me.
the point is that...for being feminism...i sure have found plenty of prejudices among some feminists..especially from the middle class cis hetero judeo-christian oriented feminist...

i just dont know how she could argue that...about gays being a minority...
since men can say the same thing about women...
and christians say the same thing to non-christians, and whites towards non-whites.
of course, i dont expect minorities to be more empathetic....but still.

as to racism, imo, i do think it happens in feminism. it is white privilege and some white feminists are not aware of it. it is how some white feminists will blast beyonce but uphold lena dunham....for example.
or turn a blind eye to a white woman who exposes her body but when it is a woc....they tend to be more critical.
all of this explains the reason womanism has become more popular among woc feminists.

i think that one of the issues of feminism...from what ive gathered
is that it has a hierarchy too and its biases.
since most of the feminism/feminist cause in the usa and other developed countries is oriented to white women of middle class backgrounds, usually straight and of judeo-christian pasts....then, they can be unaware/dismissive or ignorant and prejudiced towards women who are not part of that click.

im still curious though....
do some feminists feel that gay marriage and gay rights are taking the spotlight away from serious causes that are still affecting women?

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PixieJane
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posted October 09, 2013 09:49 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Were you really asking questions and for views or were your questions rhetorical?

Anyway, got things to do, will probably be hours before I'm back.

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hikoro
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posted October 09, 2013 10:01 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for hikoro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by PixieJane:
Were you really asking questions and for views or were your questions rhetorical?

Anyway, got things to do, will probably be hours before I'm back.


my op was mainly about how odd i found her opinion as to gays being a minority...that was what my main op was about...that she came across with this notion of gays having 'an agenda'
i mentioned race because that was another example where i see prejudice from some feminists.

your post was mostly about issues among lesbians and the history of feminism, it was highly rhetorical...and much of what you wrote, i already knew. thus, i responded like that.
maybe, i should have clarified.
at the end....
it goes back to this:

i just dont understand how....i mean, yes...women still have it bad in some countries...but, how do gays being able to marry pose a problem to women's rights? or is she just ol time prejudiced?

and besides, arent there many lesbians involved in feminism and women's rights?

what i meant with the last question was that.....i find far more feminists who respond like this feminist did as to gay rights (why are they wasting time on gay rights when there are still things women are suffering from?), but all of the lesbians ive met tend to sympathize with feminism and women's rights.

so i ask.
what's the deal? is this a personal prejudice by some feminists or is there some schism going on between some straight feminists and gays?


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somethingexcellent
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From: vodka fine, I'm so divine
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posted October 09, 2013 10:27 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for somethingexcellent     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I think she just had personal prejudice.

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Violets
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posted October 09, 2013 10:53 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Violets     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by somethingexcellent:
I think she just had personal prejudice.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. Where I live, and with the people I know, there's no antipathy between feminists and the gay community.

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PixieJane
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Posts: 3034
From: CA
Registered: Oct 2010

posted October 09, 2013 04:32 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by hikoro:
what's the deal? is this a personal prejudice by some feminists or is there some schism going on between some straight feminists and gays?


Personal prejudice, not schism.

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hikoro
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posted October 09, 2013 07:08 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for hikoro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
i agree. thanks.
i just didnt expect it.

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Randall
Webmaster

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From: Saturn next to Charmainec
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posted October 10, 2013 08:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I agree (just prejudice).

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