History of Feminism
In reply to the discussion: Um, did you see this in GD? [View all]Squinch
(53,721 posts)ESPECIALLY THIS PART which made me want to cheer:
Their notion of "liberalism" is one produced by corporate capitalist culture. Porn is liberal. Rape porn is liberal. Big corporate media magazines that sell commodified images of women are liberal. Liberalism to them hinges on women as objects rather than citizens. They insist objections to a thread in GD of Sports Illustrated images is "conservative." In defining liberalism as they do, they reveal a conception of the term that includes men only. Women are not part of the body politic. Women exist as objects of commodity fetishism, not as political allies, not as presidential candidates, not as equal human beings. Women should not compete with them in the workplace. White men as college drop outs are entitled to earn more than women with advanced degrees, and the fact that a woman or person of color anywhere on earth makes more than them, they claim, shows they are not privileged---a comment that reveals they believe themselves entitled to more by virtue of being white and male.
If we object to women and people of color being treated like shit, we are "right-wing." So tell me, when did white male supremacy become "liberal"? When did telling LGBT Americans to keep their concerns about equality quiet become "liberal'? When did it become liberal to openly advocate returning to a time period before discrimination in the workplace was illegal, before LBGT Americans had the right to openly love, work, or marry anywhere? When did opposition to equal rights, like EEOC laws, become "liberal." When did promoting a hostile environment become "liberal." How is it liberal to work so diligently to align oneself with the rich and powerful--whether Woody Allen or corporate pornographers and media tycoons--over survivors of child abuse, rape, and women and people of color in general? Since when is it liberal to insist on maintaining an openly and deliberately hostile attitude to anyone who thinks like they are part of the 21st century instead of the past? When is it liberal to be so hostile to progress and try to restore a mid-20th century haven online, where women and people of color and told to shut up and keep in their place, where women are valued only as ornamental or enablers of misogyny?