But that doesn’t make us scary or humorless, it makes us fucking awesome.

I couldn't agree more.
The coolest, most intelligent, most interesting, and- as you note- most fucking awesome people I know are feminists (and proud of it).

Not many people want to be considered nasty and scary—especially young women.

Absolutely. And it's really upsetting, particularly when you see girls who have that drilled into their heads, and they end up feeling like they have to preface comments with things like "Well, I'm not a feminist, but..."

Damnit, being a feminist isn't something to be ashamed of.

As bad an idea as this sounds, I think we need a cheap way to popularize feminism.

Not saying inexpensive, but cheaply popularize. Get it in to the collective consious, at least for a while. Those who 'get it' will stay with it. I don't think it could be too conterproductive.

...perhaps a movie

That's why I love the "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" T-shirt

If it's any comfort, I am now at a point in life where my first thought is, "You think feminists are scary? Fine! Boogity boogity BOO!"

If anyone has ideas about how older feminists can use our indifference to this kind of sh*t to the benefit of younger women, (who have a harder time of it as they are pressured, more than anything, to be "nice and pretty" - whatever the hell that means), I am open and willing!

Man.

I WISH I was scary. Maybe then people might actually listen to me instead of interrupting and discarding my opinions like yesterday's garbage.

Oh but I forgot, we women really hold all the power in the world and are just pretending to be helpless little creatures to get sympathy. Riiiiiight.

I think this site does a good job of combatting this particular myth. I'm pretty sure it was a day of reading the sass before I fell head over heels with all of you.

...perhaps a movie

What sort of movie are you thinking about?

even in the places you wouldnt expect to find this way of thinking you do. ive had people that are pretttyy far from the "norm" try to tell me that all feminists are crazy. its like, ok, your an anarchist, your vegan for animal rights and your telling me feminists are crazy? its really depressing.

even in the places you wouldnt expect to find this way of thinking you do. ive had people that are pretttyy far from the "norm" try to tell me that all feminists are crazy. its like, ok, your an anarchist, your vegan for animal rights and your telling me feminists are crazy? its really depressing.

The Law Fairy,
No it's actually just YOU that holds all the power. Didn't you your wand yet? I hope it comes soon. For one, I will be much happier when you rule the world.

Hehehe

tink, they told me it was on back order! For now, Harry Potter is running things, but that kid can get himself into a heap of trouble every now and then...

for me it was the scary style that drew me to it. scary but sassy. it was definitely a way for a smart girl to actually enjoy being smart girl in texas (oh, god, flashbacks!)

What sort of movie are you thinking about?

I was thinking, and cringing at the same time, something like Farenheight 9/11.
It had good intent, and it had many flaws...notably, it turned a bunch of youth into crazy hardcore activists for about three weeks until the next fad came along.
:-/

So probably something not like that...maybe more like An Inconvienent Truth
That is, assuming we want to take the documentary approach.

The other way would be to make a fiction movie which makes feminism look cool (and since it is, that can't be too hard).

no need to apologize for being ranty.

a_human - Who would the narrator be? Would it be a woman? If she had camera time, would she be conventionally pretty?

Ah... I was thinking more along fictional lines, i.e. making a movie with a strong, so far unspecified feminist theme.

My boyfriend was talking to a friend of his about who he wanted to take to a formal event. Guy was reviewing his options of who to ask, saying that he didn't want to go with someone who needed "babysitting" or who would be clingy. BF informed Guy that I, as a feminist, am very independent at social events (and generally in life) and, what do you know, fun to hang out with. Guy recoiled as if BF had told him I was...well, had told him I was a feminist. "Doesn't she hate men?! How can you be with her?!" was his response. BF just laughed. As BF told me this story, he said "I hope that Guy gets it, some day. I'm glad I have." And my feminist heart was warm.

And we ARE awesome.

I think we need to find a way to be more visible and easily identifiable. Yes, it could backfire, but since we're cool and awesome, I doubt it will.

Three ideas:

(1) Cartman: "Say there'll be punch and pie!" // Kyle: "But we don't have punch and pie" // Cartman: "More people will come if they think we have punch and pie!"

(2) Find the cool cafeteria table and take it over in a bloodless coup. Or bloody, if necessary.

(3) Come up with an alternative collector card game; like Magic: The Feministing. "My Simone de Beauvoir casts a wounding spell of dry, ironic humor for +3 damage!" (Nerds, help me out here).

I just explain to my knuckle-dragging friends that if we lived in a feminist utopia EVERYONE would have more sex. That'll sell any guy. Then you have to explain the details.

I think it's the label.
Express a faminist attitude or concept, and people don't flinch.
Say you're a feminist, and they run screaming.

So maybe we need a new word to describe ourselves, one that hasn't been around long enough to have all sorts of negative connotations attached to it.

Alternatively, we could co-opt an existing word with more "positive" (but notably less feminist) connotations to describe ourselves, and subvert the whole scale. But what word? "Bimbos" maybe...?

It'd be very entertaining to watch the world scramble to quickly attach negative connotations to something previously lauded as appropriately "feminine"--trying to distance itself from all the suddenly "feminist" Paris Hiltons of the world...bwahahahaa.

I'm thinking it should be a game more like Pokemon, so a four year old can play. My nephews play for hours.

"Mary Wollstonecraft, I choose you!"

Actually, I think the idea of a funny feminist scares certain kinds of people -more;- humor can be a weapon too, after all...

I just explain to my knuckle-dragging friends that if we lived in a feminist utopia EVERYONE would have more sex. That'll sell any guy. Then you have to explain the details.

My guess as to why this meme doesn't get around more is patriarchy requires men have to sleep with the hottest females to be considered a "real man" so having lots of sex with average women won't cut it.

Isn't patriarchy dumb?

Shorter version to knuckle draggers who come across the site:

Feminism = Sex

The problem of movements and concepts getting commingled, confused, and corrupted isn't unique to feminism.

The labor movement, for example, now seems to focus exclusively on economic nationalism. Look at American support for things like Social Security and the graduated income tax - those views should make most Americans Socialists and/or Communists (the graduated income tax is in Marx's manifesto), but very few Americans would claim those labels.

The problem is that it's almost impossible to overcome first impressions, and the world's first impression of Feminism is somewhat confused. For example Feminism will probably always be tied to hippies and the anti-war movement for no good reason other than an accident of history. Again, to see that it isn't unique to Feminism consider Communism. Communists will probably always been seen as seeking violent worldwide revolution with a forcible redistribution of wealth, and when ostensible Communists don't conform we simply stop thinking of them as Communist (see China). Likewise when people don't conform to the Feminist stereotype it's assumed that they aren't really Feminists.

It is a problem for Feminism as a movement, but I think it's a problem that's somewhat independent of the advancement of feminist values.

On a different point, for people looking for mainstream fiction that carries a feminist message I'd recommend Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV show, not the movie). It's a good example of entertainment that espouses the feminist viewpoint without preaching it.

[Also, doesn't center alignment of text make long comments hard to read?]

To be fair, like Lennon, I disfavor someone who claims to be any kind of "ist." And since nobody owns the definition of feminism, people can define Paris Hilton as a feminist and get away with it.

I don't wave the feminist flag all the time, and perhaps I should. I do try to squeeze feminist concepts into conversations, and spice things up with radical interjections once in a while (women are not chattel? who knew?). When I do get down to defining myself a feminist, I'm not so much worried about being perceived as scary or humorless, as I am about being lumped in with loathsome people calling themselves feminists with whom I vehemently disagree on every possible point (e.g. FFL). Feminism is a big honkin' umbrella.

those views should make most Americans Socialists and/or Communists (the graduated income tax is in Marx's manifesto)

I suppose Tom Paine, who advocated a graduated property tax topping at 100%, was a communist, then.

Also, doesn't center alignment of text make long comments hard to read?

It does... why, does your browser center-align the comments?

Every feminist blogger I know is dead sexy.

China is not meaningfully communist any more; capitalism increasingly dominates its policies, even if it's often state-run in theory.

The perception of Feminists as scary and humorless comes out of the fact that it is essentially a protest movement which is fighting for social change. All such movements come off as humorless and scary from the outside because being confronted and told to make changes rarely comes off as friendly or funny. This is why non-Union members often see Union members as scary and humorless, why Democrats and Republicans typically see each other as over-sensitive, bullying, and having no sense of humor, etc, etc.

Take a look at a typical protest march. Do these people come off as friendly or funny? Generally not. Usually, they radiate being angry.

My own experiences with college feminists back in the eighties was that they were basically nasty, mean, and hostile. (Mind you, the frat boys I had to deal with were also nasty, mean, and hostile.) The only real exception to that was my advisor, who very friendly and easy to deal with, and also a feminist.

My experience in the nineties wasn't much better, what with UMCP's women studies classes doing things like putting up posters of male names randomly pulled out of the phone book and titling it 'Potential Rapists', then slathering it all over campus.

It was really only when in Graduate school I became exposed to various feminist historical writings, and then in the 2000s I began reading various feminist blogs that I became exposed to a friendlier side of feminism and was able to get past earlier negative experiences.

The big problem, really, is that most people have a rather poor understanding of what feminists stand for--lots of people hold many of the same opinions, but don't think of them as feminism, because what they're used to is the protest face that comes out in the protests which form the most public face of feminism.

The most important thing, I think, will be the point at which feminist ideas really infect the school curriculum down to the lowest levels, so that people aren't first exposed through angry women on the news or angry women in college and thus draw the conclusion feminists are always pissed off and angry. And so they understand they probably share more feminist ideas than they thought.

I'm thinking it should be a game more like Pokemon, so a four year old can play. My nephews play for hours.

haha i didn't see this.

If you want to go the card game/movie/TV show route, then, do you think it should be explicitly feminist, as in Norbizness's quips, or subtler in that it portrays women as no different from men?

Women are taught from birth to be nice, sweet, and caring. Such reasoning is not used against men, who are more impervious to "But that's not nice!"

"I can't tell you how many times after telling a guy I'm a feminist, he'll jokingly throw his hands up in defense as if I'm gearing up to attack him."
Miss Valenti, men have their weak spots, too - like being afraid of not being "manly" enough. Take him down to beta-male status and you've won the battle. ;)

I can't tell you how many times after telling a guy I'm a feminist, he'll jokingly throw his hands up in defense as if I'm gearing up to attack him. Now of course, this is tremendously stupid and annoying on a number of levels: first, it plays on the idea that feminists are scary and man-hating, but more importantly it’s meant to be mocking.

Have you ever tried mocking the guy back? Put on a sympathetic face and respond in your best talking-to-a-baby voice, "Aw, the poor wittle man is scared!" It takes a lot of the impact of the mock-cowering away.

It's easy to understand how feminists will be perceived as scary.

Take Andrea Dworkin, among the most widely read and assigned feminist authors.

Fact pattern: I have been working overtime, and my wife feels neglected. I come home, she wants to have a romantic evening. We have a romantic evening, resulting in the ultimate anti-feminist act: sexual relations. I am then, for Dworkin, a rapist and she a collaborator. Actually, for Dworkin, I was a rapist the moment I was born.

Dworkin is extreme but not an extreme example within feminism; other feminist writers - Catharine MacKinnon, Mary Daly, etc. - essentially say much the same thing.

The reality is that much - though hardly all - of feminist thought truly hates men. Since most men are neither rapists nor murderers nor arsonists, and most would prefer not to be hated, many men of college age do find feminism frightening. The more they have read about it, the more aware of the vicious hatred imbuing the writings of the likes of Dworkin. Many men find the hate fest a little ridiculous as well, so they mock it.

Most men and women, even most conservatives, support common sense "feminist" legislation like non-discrimination laws in employment, housing, finance, etc. But the reason that hard-core feminism has not taken off among American women is that, despite many examples of horrible behavior by some men, women really don't hate men that much as a rule. Even Dworkin declined to apply her own viciously bigoted theories rigorously against the few men in her life.

"The reality is that much - though hardly all - of feminist thought truly hates men."

Crab, what gives you this great insight into feminist though? Because I've been studying feminism for several years now and that study has in fact changed me from a "feminists-hate-men"-parroting anti-feminist into a feminist proponent for substantive equality. I'm in fact quite a fan of a number of men, and I can't think of a single feminist I know who hates men.

So whence this broad pronouncement? You surely must have something to back it up?

I even had someone, after telling him that I run a feminist blog, lift up my arm and peer into my armpit jokingly—looking for hair. Yeah, hysterical.

The next time some idiot does this, retaliate by grabbing his ear and peering into it. When he asks what you are doing say, "Oh I was looking for a brain. Too bad I can't find one."

Take Andrea Dworkin, among the most widely read and assigned feminist authors.

It may surprise you, but not every feminist likes Andrea Dworkin. Even the people who don't have a visceral reaction to her more often than not end up weaseling something like, "Oh, she's an important feminist thinker, but I don't agree with a lot of what she says."

Even Susan Brownmiller, an anti-porn feminist who was one of the prime movers behind the original schism between liberal and radical feminists, felt the need to distance herself from Dworkin's "revival tent rhetoric" (her words, not mine).

Dworkin is among the most widely read and assigned feminist authors in academia. The fact that her writings are not universally "liked" does not make her less than a major and central figure in feminist thought. It would not surprise me to learn that most feminists reject Dworkin, because feminists are people, most people are decent and decent people reject the sort of separatist radicalism and hatred that would equate heterosexual sex with felonious violence. Nonetheless, Dworkin and other extremists are a core part of the feminist "brand" and are probably the reason why most non-tenured American women would be grossly embarrassed to be called a feminist.

An academic (or non-academic) writer need not be "liked" to be a core part of the canon. Not every socialist "likes" Marx but one can criticize socialism by pointing to the flaws in Marx's reasoning or common sense.

It is even a matter of debate among feminists whether a man - per se - can be a feminist. While I suspect I know where Alon stands on the question, Dworkin, MacKinnon, Daly want him to go pound sand - away from women (MacKinnon less virulently so as she has aged and - to the shock of many - wound up marrying one of the enemy.)

Frankly, I can think of no one more deserving of a brutal critique for damaging women than Andrea Dworkin herself, for attempting (and to some extent succeeding) to infantilize over half the world's adult population and in so doing giving rhetorical armament to every retrograde anti-sex theocrat in the United States. But equal malediction should flow to the women's studies academicians who have built her Dworkin and company shrine when an asylum was needed.

Please pardon the poor typing the last line - I mean to write - "...built Dworkin and her company a shrine..." I apologize.

While I suspect I know where Alon stands on the question, Dworkin, MacKinnon, Daly want him to go pound sand - away from women (MacKinnon less virulently so as she has aged and - to the shock of many - wound up marrying one of the enemy.)

Honestly, I've never cared much for what Dworkin and MacKinnon would think. Seriously, I didn't consider myself a feminist until I read Avedon Carol. But apparently, hardly anyone who engages in real life activism cares much for the radical wing, either.

Obviously, gender studies professors may disagree. There are various milieus where it's appropriate to bring them up, but not one where the executive editor went on record saying, "Feminist theory is really interesting, but incredibly dense. It’s totally geared towards academics which I always thought went against the idea of feminism as being for everybody—not just the uber-educated."

Not every socialist "likes" Marx but one can criticize socialism by pointing to the flaws in Marx's reasoning or common sense.

It depends on which socialist group you're talking about. Groups that believe in living Marxism, apologize for Lenin's crimes, and so on are fair game, but the more moderate socialists, like Canada's New Democrats, have nothing to do with Marx.

"Fact pattern: I have been working overtime, and my wife feels neglected. I come home, she wants to have a romantic evening. We have a romantic evening, resulting in the ultimate anti-feminist act: sexual relations. I am then, for Dworkin, a rapist and she a collaborator. Actually, for Dworkin, I was a rapist the moment I was born."
Crab, can you please guide me to where Andrea Dworkin says all those things about you being a rapist for having a romantic evening with your wife?

It all depends on interpretation, really. The Snopes page quotes Dworkin as clarifying, "Penetrative intercourse is, by its nature, violent. But I'm not saying that sex must be rape." Personally I think it's on the same level as coded racism in Republican politicians' statements, but my opinion of Dworkin is based more on facts on the ground - i.e. the political activism she engaged in - rather than on words.

There are radical feminists who eschewed sex with men entirely, typically called political lesbians. Belledame has a lot of stuff on Sheila Jeffreys, who considered heterosexuality among females to be sleeping with the enemy.

Those are the most extreme feminists. They are fun to read but their ideas are hard to implement in real life. One could say the same thing about leftist politics. Daly is a lesbian separatist but they are rare. Dworkin was married too to awesome feminist author John Stoltenberg.

By "married too" I meant in addition to MacKinnon (who I didn't know was married).

Crab, I can see why extreme feminists scare men. The left scares the right-wing too. It is made up of "left wing lunatics" or "moonbats". But when you read progressive blogs you find progressives aren't scary at all. They are mischaracterized from the outside. People read feminist blogs and find feminists aren't scary at all.

"Fact pattern: I have been working overtime, and my wife feels neglected. I come home, she wants to have a romantic evening. We have a romantic evening, resulting in the ultimate anti-feminist act: sexual relations." . . .

Actually, The Crab, most self-identified feminists would probably hear of a scenario like that and say/think "How nice for you both. And what an utterly boring, too personal story. Um, what's your point and why are you telling me this?"

Dworkin is read in college Women Studies 101 classes mostly because it's extremist, thus interesting and 'fun' to debate, sort of how Singer is brought up in ethics classes. I've never actually met a woman who identified herself as a feminist who espoused the idea that all sex is rape. Hell, even Dworkin didn't say this.... and even in my college days, where I travelled in social groups who discussed gender issues and all political issues ad nauseam, her name didn't come up in every conversation about gender roles. The people who seem most obsessed with Dworkin tend to be men.

So, feminism is scary to men because of a feminist theorist many men (and women) have never actually heard of, let alone read? So I guess more education on the wide spectrum of feminist thought, theories, and ideas will make less men have a kneejerk reaction to feminism? Good idea - keep reading this blog for a plethora of different opinions by women about feminist issues. Maybe you won't be so frightened. Or maybe you will - it's probably even scarier when you discover that most feminists are mostly concerned about basic human rights for women as well as men - unless you discount any evidence presented here that suggests that perhaps women do face obstacles that men do not.

Well, as someone who greatly admires MacKinnon and her work, I'm very interested, Crab, that you seem to understand my feminism better than I do. Thanks for letting me know that I hate men because I agree with MacKinnon... I'll be sure to inform my numerous male friends and family members that I've been fooling them (and myself) all along.

I'm not afraid to be called a "feminist" or a "radical" and guess what -- I like men and I like sex. I accept that we live in an imperfect world. I don't see why an idealist has to live in an ideal world in order to be consistent... seems to me like a syllogism concocted with the specific purpose of discrediting idealists. Which makes it sophistry rather than geniune argument.

I don't mind that MacKinnon is an idealist. I mind that she's the feminist version of Joe Lieberman when it comes to civil liberties issues.

Law Fairy - I don't know you, so I would not presume to know what you think. What MacKinnon thinks is published, unless she lied in her books, which I seriously doubt. Frankly, I do agree with MacKinnon myself in her theory that sexual harassment is a form of sexual discrimination, though her disdain for civil liberties is troubling on a lot of levels. In a Women and the Law class 12 years ago, I wrote about her and about Richard Posner, the author of some really retrograde economic analysis of sexual violence.

But what you think and what/who you like is your business.

Alon's point about various streams of feminist thought is a very good one. By analogy, the Marxists who were early heroes in the pre-NAACP civil rights movement in several southern states are not the Marxists who ran the Gulag. But it's reasonable for someone acquainted with but not marinated in Marxism to give its mention the cold shoulder if he or she knows about Soviet oppression, not about Marxists getting run out of town in Arkansas for teaching racial equality.

Ksamas - am not frightened - revulsed by Dworkin's place of honor among feminists - but it's always good advice not to fear debate so thank you.

am not frightened - revulsed by Dworkin's place of honor among feminists

I'm not sure she's honored among feminists. Most make fun of her as an extremist. Not many have read her but the few that have find she's not that unreasonable.

Extreme feminists are like anarchists in left literature. They're fun to read for a jolt of inspiration or ideas but hard to implement.

"I can't tell you how many times after telling a guy I'm a feminist, he'll jokingly throw his hands up in defense as if I'm gearing up to attack him."
Miss Valenti, men have their weak spots, too - like being afraid of not being "manly" enough. Take him down to beta-male status and you've won the battle. ;)

There's an article in Marie Claire this month (or last month) that says the trendy new couple is the alpha female and beta male with diagrammed pictures and everything. It's a little tongue in cheek.

am not frightened - revulsed by Dworkin's place of honor among feminists

I'm not sure she's honored among feminists. Most make fun of her as an extremist. Not many have read her but the few that have find she's not that unreasonable.

No doubt. Dworkin always struck me as being a pretty controversial figure amongst feminists. Interestingly, I sometimes think of her in similar terms to Freud. It's almost like she's the Freud of feminism- an important figure who broke new ground, but also espoused some questionable views, and who few people really seem to take that seriously, anymore. If you're interested in feminism, you're almost sure to read her, but you're almost just as certain to shake your head at some of it.
That's just been my experience, but I know that she's pretty controversial amongst popular feminists. MacKinnon was friends with her, but Cathy Young was certainly not a fan.
The fact that someone is important doesn't mean that she's the voice of the movement.