Thank you. :-)

I've loved Ani Difranco for years. What an awesome article.

Another great Ani quote from the article:

"Either you are a feminist or you are a sexist/misogynist. There is no box marked 'other'."

i so love ani. thank you for posting this :)

It is a shame I loathe her music, her politics are great. Also, she hangs out with Billy Bragg (!!!!!).

Ahh, yes, I'm a big Ani Difranco fan. Little Plastic Castles, any one?

I totally recommend going to www.pandora.com ; basically you type in a specific artist and they will play a song by that artist and related artists.

As a side note, people who like Ani Difranco might like Dar Williams. She seems lesser known but is equally cool!!! Especially the earlier albums.

How does she always read my mind like that and word it all so eloquently??? Seriously!

Ani is my hero.

(Dar Williams is also super cool, as UCLAbodyimage said. I recommend the songs "The Christians and the Pagans," "Teen For God," "Empire of the Sun," and "All My Heroes Are Dead" for anyone who wants to give her a try.)

UCLAbodyimage -
Yes! Pandora is awesome for those of you who are into Ani.
She was the first concert I ever went to, and I absolutely love her laugh, her emotion, well - everything.

If we are giving out Dar Williams love, I recommend "The Babysitter"

I'm glad that she has her own label.

I'm also glad that she praised the music of the 1970s -- which was the best decade for music. DJs back then played real music -- many of which was over 20 minutes in length. Now, of course, the crooked corporations have taken over and there is nothing over 6 minutes 59 seconds on the radio. Jim Steinman was actually outraged over the corporate thugs' editing of Meat Loaf's 1993 12-minute epic "I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That)" just so it could be played on radio.

So Ani is totally correct. We have to drive the corporations out of our lives and we must support equality. So her views are very similar to mine.

And Priestess Sarah, I also love that quote of Ani's: "Either you're a feminist or you're a sexist/misogynist. There is no box marked 'other'." That is the quote I will use for those who oppose a woman's absolute right to abortion services without restrictions.

The posting a few days ago (yesterday?) asking what book go you into feminism left me scratching my head. It was definitely music, and Ani in particular, that got me into feminism. Love her!

INDEED.

Ahh, yes, while we are throwing around Ani quotes, that reminded me that two of the quotes on my facebook.com profile are Ani Difranco:

SONG LYRIC 1: When I was four years old they tried to test my IQ, they showed me this picture of three oranges and a pear. They asked me which one is different and does not belong; they taught me different was wrong.

SONG LYRIC 2: When I look around, I think, I think this is good enough, and I try to laugh at whatever life brings. Because when I look down, I just miss all the good stuff. And when I loo up, I just trip over things.

"Either you are a feminist or you are a sexist/misogynist. There is no box marked 'other'."

Sounds liker Ani is ready for a STALINIST revolution! Yea!

"Either you are a feminist or you are a sexist/misogynist. There is no box marked 'other'."

I wish that were true. I've met a lot of self-professed "feminists" who were seriously misandric.

I think that these women who are "misandric" are really just anti-sexist rather than anti-male, but when you are just realizing how sexist a society we all live in, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that there are in fact feminist men.

Thank you!

I'm suprised that this is the first mention of Ani I've ever seen on Feministing. I'm a huge fan.

Ok, I have respect for Ani DiFranco as an artist and I understand her general point but I feel parts of her statement are slightly (maybe inadvertently) flawed as concept. Obviously most of the ills of our global culture are an effect of particularly oppressive brands of Patriarchy. But in a way, her comment assigns another set of gender roles by insinuating that men are naturally thoughtless and violent. Also, does "balance" and gender equality truly guarantee us peaceful, environmentally conscious, non-discriminatory societies? I highly doubt it unless we intend to suppress the diverse social & economic viewpoints that people hold (even from those who consider themselves progressive and/or liberal). And lastly, how will feminism be the "prerequisite to...ending racism" when the issue of racism hasn't even been reconciled within the feminist movement?

Sounds like someone doesn't like to be reminded that the opposite of feminism (or even the absence of it) IS misogyny. If you don't like being branded a misogynist, maybe you should stop being one.

skippy hearts ani.

I just wanted to stop in and give some Ani love :* I love her, her music, her message, and her politics!

Sounds like Miss Modular could use 90 days at reeducation camp. Would you agree comrad sarahMC?

I just saw Ani live on Sunday night, and she gave most of this same speech. It was so emotional - I had tears streaming down my face.

I've said it before, it is like that woman sings my whole soul.

That comment has nothing to do with whether the absence of feminism is misogyny. Keep avoiding the point though.

Though it's not as thorough as I would have liked, I took the time to carefully flesh out my argument point by point so I could avoid using one-liners. If you'd like to do the same, it'd be nice to have an actual discussion. I am obviously not questioning the absolute necessity of gender equality, I'm am only wondering aloud if:

A. Ani is reaffirming certain gender stereotypes.
B. the end of Patriarchy and the achievement of gender equality guarantees solid environmentalism and the end of all war/conflict.
C. "feminism ending racism" is loaded with a few historically blind assumptions of it's own.

Thank you for your thoughtful post, Miss Modular. Ani's quote also struck me as another version of the simplified claim that "if women ran the world, there would be no war." I call BS.

How many female senators and representatives voted for the Iraq war? Are they all misogynists?

How about the women serving in the Armed Forces? Are they misogynists?

Or are those women just in need of "reeducation" too?

Give me a fucking break.

There's a little bit more to war than allegedly biological sex-specific urges. I can't see how it's misogynist to recognize that.

Once more, for the cheap seats. The over-simplified claim that, "If women ran the world, there would be no war," is just that: over-simplified. It's a piece of rhetoric constructed to provoke an emotional reaction. A more accurate expression of the claim that is more in keeping with actual feminist thought would proceed, "If our culture did not associate aggression, competition, chest-beating, violence, and dominance with a concept we call 'masculinity,' and if our culture did not then go out of its way to constantly glorify all things 'masculine,' wars would not be fought nearly so often as they are, and then only when absolutely necessary."

If the concept of Patriarchy is dismantled, then the impetus to casual war is dismantled with it, no matter whether the person behind the big desk has a penis or not.

Ani's statement asserts that you can't really solve most of the other problems in the world until you dismantle the structure of dominance/competition/aggression that is glorified as "masculine." For ease of reference, we call it Patriarchy.

Hmmmm...This reminds me of the original 1870 Mother's Day declaration by Julia Ward Howe: "Arise then...women of this day!...Say firmly: 'We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy an patience. We the women of one courntry, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.' From the voice of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: 'Disarm! Disarm! 'The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.'..."

I don't think that Darwin66 knows the definition of feminism (the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men) or he would see that being anti-feminist or non-feminist is obviously sexist. Saying that someone who is non/anti-feminist is sexist is a tautology.

Miss Modular-

I don't see Ani "insinuating that men are naturally thoughtless and violent" in this article. In fact, she says that:

"We need to understand that feminism is not for women, it's for humanity. Patriarchy does not work for men - they go and get killed in wars. Patriarchy hurts all of us."

As Twilight Jack says:"If our culture did not associate aggression, competition, chest-beating, violence, and dominance with a concept we call 'masculinity,' and if our culture did not then go out of its way to constantly glorify all things 'masculine,' wars would not be fought nearly so often as they are, and then only when absolutely necessary."

She isn't saying that men are naturally aggressive or war-mongering, just that this patriarchal society encourages and rewards these sort of socially constructed behaviors.

She also doesn't say that feminism, as you say, "guarantees" a warless, environmentally friendly, non-racist society, just that it is a "prerequisite" (which means required beforehand).

I personally think that feminism (which I defined earlier in this post) does help to end racism, because it strives for equal rights for all women and men, no matter what race they are.

BTW, great comment Twilight Jack. I couldn't of said it better myself. :)

I couldn't agree more with the sentiment of your definition of feminism as: "advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men". Moreover, we’re all likeminded that these equalities should be granted to all genders and orientations. If this was the primary focus of feminist efforts, I would never hesitate to wear the banner. However, feminism has a very serious publicity problem that needs to be remedied (IMHO) by a focus on just the thing you identify--equality. I see this excellent, basic definition of feminism get lost on people because it becomes conflated with the pronouncements of gender theorists--like the fantasy that tendencies towards "aggression, competition, chest-beating, violence, and dominance" could somehow become from male brains and divorced from what we identify as some of features of masculinity. I don’t think this is a realistic goal. Unless you want to lobotomize all male babies, it's not going to happen. In the meantime, we establish and maintain laws so that violent acts, etc., are too costly to flippantly engage in, and we protect ourselves from those that would do so.

Thanks for the intelligent response, Darwin66, but I am a little confused by this statement:

"like the fantasy that tendencies towards "aggression, competition, chest-beating, violence, and dominance" could somehow become from male brains and divorced from what we identify as some of features of masculinity."

Did you mean that "aggression....and dominance" could somehow COME from male brains, divorced from what we identity as some of the features of masculitity?

Are you saying that you think that the tendency toward aggression, dominance, etc. are an essential feature of male (and not female) brains, which makes it impossible to change with different, non-patriarchal social conditioning?

If so, I guess it is possible you are right, but we'll never know unless we try to teach our young boys not to act out these negative, harmful characteristics of 'masculinity.'

Sarah,

Oh, sorry--I'm a sloppy typist.

I meant to say "excised" from male brains (as in a lobotomy-like thing).

We don't really have to run the social conditioning experiments--we can instead turn to the social and behavioral science literature and read about grand experements like attempting to raise little boys as if they were little girls (Colapinto’s The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl). The results of these unfortunate experiments are varied, of course, but center around disastrous. Other social experiments, like the Kibbutzim communes in Israel attempted to abolish the nuclear family and raise children cooperatively. It was a disaster, and they abandoned this approach. There are a lot of species-typical expressions of brain architecture that are going to constrain what can be learned or socially conditioned. You're not going to socially condition a kid to LOVE to eat Eucalyptus leaves, because humans don't have the wiring to support that information. Likewise, a 10x elevation in testosterone for male fetuses cannot fail but to have an effect on the range of social conditioning that a boy can be open to versus a girl. Both sexes are enormously flexible, and, there's lots of individual variation—but these don’t dispel the underlying trends.

Yes, I’m a feminist who thinks sex differences are both real, interesting, and a source of support for the social value of equality. Equality does not equal sameness.

Darwin,

Thanks for the clarification. As I said in my previous comment, you could be correct, there may be some "underlying trends," of difference between the sexes, but it is hard for me to believe that young boys being given GI Joes to play with (for example) and young girls being given Barbie dolls doesn't further reinforce the *possibly* natural differences between the sexes.

Even in the first example that you give, you say that people attempted to raise boys "like little girls."

Couldn't we just raise children like children and see how they turn out? Does there have to be a gendered socialization process (i.e. raised as a "girl" or "boy")?

If I were to have a son I would not encourage him to base his identity of traditionally "masculine" virtues (aggression, dominance, etc.), but human ones -- the same ones I would stress if I had a daughter.

So only men are being killed in wars? Frankly that's quite a disservice to our women in arms who are serving this country too.

Feminism will eliminate racism, or is prerequisite to it? How so? I don't see the logical connection. Women can be free and equal and still be racist, just like men.

And as for the whole environmental aspect, maybe Ani should see the figures on women driving SUV's in the US.

Nice rhetoric, little to back it up.

So only men are being killed in wars? Frankly that's quite a disservice to our women in arms who are serving this country too.

Feminism will eliminate racism, or is prerequisite to it? How so? I don't see the logical connection. Women can be free and equal and still be racist, just like men.

And as for the whole environmental aspect, maybe Ani should see the figures on women driving SUV's in the US.

Nice rhetoric, little to back it up.

@Twilight Jack:

Your post included an articulate response to my point. Thank you for that portion.

I could, however, do without the condescending, pedantic rhetoric ("once more, for the cheap seats"). If you are unable to respond to other viewpoints without insulting people, perhaps you should refrain from responding altogether.

This is a public forum about feminist issues. Not every single person posting here has the same educational background/awareness of feminist theory. That awareness can be promoted through intelligent discussion, or, people (not just Twilight Jack) can resort to belittling, petulant, patronizing comments that will just about ensure that the person runs in the other direction from feminist theory.

I understand that it can get annoying to have to explain the same thing more than once. However, anyone who feels that way can always opt not to respond. That way, people with more patience and a genuine interest in engaging in intelligent discussion - even with [gasp!] people who don't already agree with them on everything - can respectfully exchange ideas.

Back on topic: Twilight Jack gave a pretty good answer about war, but I'm still not seeing how dismantling patriarchy would eradicate racism or stop humanity from trashing the earth. Anyone care to offer their thoughts?