in the context of "bla bla bla" I'd like to hear your thoughts on this: http://dinahproject.com/articles_view_details.asp?id=117
do men have a place in every female struggle? Is it not just soft patriarchy?
Mona, I apologize. I have worked and reworked a post about what I think about the place of men in feminism, of female-only spaces and the like, but I must admit that the whole damn thing is just way too complex for me at the moment. I mean, I have done some thinking on it, and have some intuitions about it all (which basically boil down to 'people who self-identify should be the ones to decide who gets included'--but this has the problem of being self-referential, because there are self-identified feminists out there who I hesitate to include in my flavors of feminism, so it doesn't really get me very far). I realized the limits of my thinking on all of this when I came across a lot of angry, anti-trans vitriol in what can often be a fantastic space for women, Women's Space/The Margins:
The next thing that we’ll hear is that as women, before we ask a woman to perform for, or speak to us, we will need to submit a bio and an outline of her political views and activism to local transgender activists for their approval, otherwise we will be boycotted, attacked, harrassed, and lied about. I sued the Religious Right for this kind of behavior 13 years ago. And I won. This is colonizing behavior. It is cultural imperialism. The members of a community themselves, when we are talking about a marginalized, oppressed, people group, as lesbians are, as women are, have a right to autonomy, self-definition and the defining of our own in-group/out-group boundaries.
It's well and good to say that being who 'are lesbians' have a right to self-definition, but it begs the question: who 'are lesbians'. MTF trans women sometimes identify as lesbians. Do they have a right to self-definition? If so, then why don't some of the women in radical feminist circles consider them lesbians, much less women? If not, why not?
But I'll write more about it later, because, obviously, my thoughts are evolving on it all.
What counts as a women's only space? Who counts as women? What counts as a feminist space? Who counts as feminists? I'm only beginning to understand the situation, I think, and probably should frame anything I say about it in those terms--that I'm learning. Only within the past few years did I come to understand the usefulness/need for women's only spaces (heck, and men's only spaces, too). But I'll think some more on it, and perhaps get some help from my groupblog friends and commentors as well (hint, hint).
2 comments:
jeff, as you know i am not a separatist... and i believe that because feminism needs to become more expansive due to the nature of "woman" not being one and exclusive... the different race, sexualities, etc.... means that feminism needs to take considerations of how those affect a "woman's" experience of the world.
therefore, i can be an ally in anti-racism and because that experience is not mine... in those spaces i need to listen a lot more than talk... however in my space i need to talk about anti-racism work because i belong to an oppressive group.
so i strongly believe that men need to be included in feminist spaces and respect the voices of those they want to ally... and create spaces of their own that does not contribute to oppression of women.
that said i believe that both can co-exist and contribute to each other with a commitment to end oppression...
found in today's light reading:
"embracing notions of inclusion and exclusion whether based on shared gender, race or nationality seriously impedes all progressive effort to create a culture where border crossing enables both the sharing of resources and the production of a culture of communalism and mutuality" (bell hooks Outlaw Culture 7)
I think it also, and hooks does not express this explicitly; halts communication *between* various groups.
It is precisely through communication among groups of different classes, ethnicities, nationalities, genders, sexualities and so on, that feminism thus far has become enriched: through talking about abject sexualities, racism, classism, able-bodiedness and so on.
This was how feminism made the move from a white middle-to-upper class movement to one that has been open to addressing the issues all women face.
Now we are beginning to make the progression to a movement that helps to resist patriarchy in general, which has the capacity to include many more kinds of bodies and identities.
I consider feminist movement(s) to be about resisting patriarchy; and that means as it pertains to gender, sexuality, able-bodiedness, ageing, class, race, and so on.
I realize that there is more at stake in creating *safe spaces* as well, but I think that people mindful in constructing safe spaces need to think about why they are constructing systems of inclusion/exclusion and what that means in the grand scheme of things.
-m
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