Commercialization has a way of watering things down to totems and symbols. If feminism is becoming part of mass culture, then there is the risk of it seeming more like a lifestyle choice defined by what you consume rather than a coherent political or social philosophy. Record sales of a t-shirt made in a sweat-shop in Bangladesh sewn by a 12 year old girl that says, “Girl Power!” is… well… not exactly a victory for feminism.
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Straight up Society of the Spectacle.
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“You can’t defeat capitalism because capitalism co-opts everything” - Karl Marx, probably.
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1000 years. Heh. The optimism of anarchists never ceases to amaze me.
Sounds like an MRA’s dreamworld. Seriously, what is it about dudebros and anarcho-libertarianism?
You’re sounding pretty red there, comrade 
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That one is a keeper!
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Your mother sounds a lot like me. It’s true that the term “feminism” has been associated with every negative or extreme possibility available, but the real problem within the movement is racism, classism and ageism, not misandry. Outside academia, Dworkin and Solanas were never household names. Caricatures of their work have been used by Schlafly types to discredit feminism, but have been attributed in general to the movement more than they’ve been specifically named.
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What is it with people who can’t tell the difference between Libertarian-socialism (to the point of historical revisionism and denying it exists) and libertarian-capitalism (which repeatedly fails to be anarchist in any meaningful way)
Was Emma Goldman a dudebro?
Was Lucy Parsons a dudebro?
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I think this is so true and intrresting, partly because the cultural agency and economic support for feminist projects/movements has changed over time.
The abolitionist project was a great vehicle for women’s and African American suffrage generally until the post-Civil War amendments showed it wasn’t. The labor, civil rights and welfare rights movements yielded wage, voting, child care and other protections.
Weren’t those secondary gains in some ways? Why were feminist projects so often allied to other projects that didn’t necessarily prioritize women’s issues?
And as with abolition and suffrage — or “celebrity feminism” today — hasn’t that sort of alliance often betrayed worthwhile aspects of a feminist program?
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I’m a little disconnected from academic feminism these days, so I don’t know what you’re talking about here. It’s probably true that wealthy young white women have more wherewithal to pursue that interest, since they’re not too busy scrubbing hotel toilets or flipping burgers, but their disproportionate representation within the movement is a symptom of society-at-large’s racism/classism/ageism, not something specific to feminism. If there’s any concerted effort to exclude coloredsWOC or poors or olds from the agenda it’s news to me.
Because that’s what defines them as other projects. They might realize that feminism is integral to Black Power or Zionism or Anarcho-Communism or what have you, but it isn’t any of their raisons d’être.
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No, not a concerted effort. More like unexamined privilege.
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Meh, I meant the simple definition of solidarity: the feelings that bind a society together.
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I think your recognition of those feelings, and of that binding – as opposed to the staunch, atomizing and illusory individualism promoted in the West, particularly in the U.S. – does make you sound pretty “red.” Or at least, left-leaning, whatever your actual inclinations.
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Strange. I would consider nationalism, religion, language and culture to be the basis of solidarity in the West. None of those seem overtly left/right to me.
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That’s interesting. Coalitions of groups with overlapping agendas are needed to change policies or remove a harmful institution. Like other groups, feminists may ally with other groups for particular projects.
OTOH, are feminist projects overly prone to splitting when you think about how many women there actually are who potentially share an interest in an issue like suffrage, equal pay or reproductive liberty?
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