equal rights for women

[theyellowspot]

What should be recognized, is that their are millions of people who call themselves "feminists", so their is gonna be some variation in viewpoint, approach, etc. Take a cue from Emma Goldman, she was most definitely a feminist, but would be just as offended by female cops/judges as male cops/judges. People can mix up anarchists like us with anarcho-capitalists, doesn't mean I believe in free market economics. just because some feminists believe that chivalry is sexist is no reason to write off a huge and diverse strain of political theory. Try to find the book that AK Press put out last year called Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Anthology, and then tell how much of it you disagree with. I'll tell you that The Tyranny of Structurelessness is the only essay in there that I wouldn't call anarchist AND feminist. Though, I think it was included to give context for The Tyranny of Tyranny, a much better essay. Feminism how I define it is nothing without anarchism, and anarchism nothing without feminism.

[workerscommunes]

AT, I seriously think you are unfairly lumping all feminists under the same banner: that of man-hating, power-hungry, humourless bastards. That's like saying anarchism is stupid because it's all about bomb-chucking mowhawked dickheads. You're criticising feminism as a belief based on the actions of certain individuals who claim to support it and that seems pretty irrational to me. I still don't understand why you roped in Thatcher and Condoleeza Rice as examples of why feminism is a bad idea as they have never said or done anything to my knowledge that would link them to feminism.

Like TYS said, there are millions of people, male and female, who call themselves feminists and only a very small and bitter minority are the kind who want to cut your cock off soon as look at you. I do not consider these people feminists any more than I consider Pol Pot a socialist. Most just want gender equality (not just 'equal rights') and I think as an anarchist you'd be hard pressed to find a rational argument as to why that request is so unreasonable.

[WyrmTribe]

One of the things I have found most interesting throughout my studies of attachment parenting, is that children have been left out the most in the feminist equation.
Unfortunately for many an empowered working momma, there is generally a child in day care or at home wishing that they had her with them.
I cannot deny that women should stand on equal footing with men, but I just wonder what the daily migration of mommas from their needy and often still-nursing babies, has to really do with empowering women.
It would be a very human thing indeed, to ensure the equality of rights for all, beginning with the tiniest and most helpless of us....more stipends for mommas and poppas of little children, adequate maternity leave (6 weeks in the US-hardly enough).
Families should not have to sacrifice financial well being just to ensure the attachment process for their children.

I highly recommend "The Continuum Concept" for further reading on this.....it is on Questia, if anyone has an account there.

[Anarchic Tribes]

WT,
good point, very true and very very sad.
Thanks for shining a light on just one of the many parts to this topic that I take issue with but seem to not find the words with which to convey what I mean.
Fortunately other people can. From Michelaccio's above posted link:

One need only consider Emma Goldman, passionate anarchist proponent of women's liberation who rejected the feminism of her time (though current feminists claim her as one of their own, often to the exclusion of her anarchist perspective), because she considered it incapable of carrying its project forward to total liberation. [On the Anarchism and Women's Liberation page found at www.geocities.com/Paris/2159/anrfem.html it is put this way: "Interesting enough Emma Goldman and many of the Spanish women anarchists were quite hostile to being described ‘feminists’. To them feminism meant the struggle of middle class women to be equal with middle class men, while to them women's liberation entailed the struggle of men and women for a freer society for all."]

WC, I hope that helps with where on earth Thatcher/Rice etc get linked to 'feminism'?
I hadn't read either the above linked essay or what Black or Emma Goldman had to say about the matter before I started this thread, yet they know what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about only a very small and bitter minority that are the kind who want to cut your cock off soon as look at you.

You could, take any and many small minorities and look at how they make a part of the bigger picture. That's what Thatcher is, women protesting for the right to vote, young ladies that have door holding issues, 'stuck at work' mothers (which if they really have to do, I think they should at least get milked. Give the poor cows a break, who actually do have no choice.) man-hating feminists, stiletto wielding shoe designers, they are all small parts to a bigger picture.

Call me irrational if you want, I've been called much worse, I've been called a feminist.

[workerscommunes]

AT, if feminism is the struggle of middle class women trying to gain equal footing with middle class men then I'm no feminist either. However I'd only ever viewed feminism as the struggle for gender equality and that's the meaning I've been attactching to the word throughout this post. Again I think you are criticising feminism because of the actions of certain supposed feminists (the middle class one) and that this is slightly unfair.

I think you are actually talking about the suffragettes rather than 'feminists' when you speak of these middle class women who wanted the same rights as middle class men (ie. suffrage). These women were hardly feminists, infact their 'leader' Emeline Pankhurst was an arch conservative. I can definately see how you could draw a straight line from women like her to Thatcher and Condoleeza Rice but none of these women were or ever claimed to be feminists.

[Anarchic Tribes]

WC, with no disrespect, I really can't comment on your last post.

I bring this topic back up, once again, because, this pisses me right off: check this out for the damage done by 'feminists':
forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=389373


(for 'anarchist feminists', I'm probably not referring to you)