Forum / A Statement

Ann Bogle
Jul 02, 01:37pm

Samuel, I am still a feminist. Reading of feminism allowed me to get through adolescence and high school following various attacks on my body. I was a very high scoring student, among the country's highest in math. All of this is of no importance now because I live on disability that pays at the poverty level despite three earned degrees. I feel that reproduction should not be political. For myself, I am in favor of easily reversible birth control (condom) and natural families, denied to me, alas, by sterilizers who think of themselves as feminist. Their practice in stopping white births has little to do with choice or human rights. They stop everyone they can as doctors of government-condoned contraception programs. I see fits directed at "white feminists" in defense of simple anti-racism that faults whites. The idea that Americans are a people is lost to us. I do not understand why talent in women is paid at the poverty level, why work is not found for us, why sufficient income is denied us, why there is decay over a lifetime. Sartre expected de Beauvoir to abort their child. She complied unhappily. Her writing is among the best about women's position. A feminist is not a supremacist. There are people of color who talk of striving for it who write. Maybe one has to say a loving feminist is not a supremacist or a separatist. Separatism is a fearsome practice, no matter who is behind it. ♥

Chris Okum
Jul 02, 06:45pm

I am a huge fan of Virginie Despentes. King Kong Theory is a great book.

Adam Sifre
Jul 03, 02:24pm

Feminists who can cook and write poetry are the best.

Samuel Derrick Rosen
Jul 06, 12:49pm

I just don't see absolutes, there must be some out there swimming around like amoebas, it is better than if they were sharks.

Samuel Derrick Rosen
Jul 06, 12:51pm

Ann, I plan to write a poem using De Beauvoir as the basis.

Ann Bogle
Jul 09, 04:42am

I just read in the NYTimes an editorial supporting Hillary Clinton as a feminist seemingly without cause or logic. Katha Pollitt wrote it. I just picked a nit with her on Facebook about men's right to choose. There is an argument coming up to rephrase abortion based on equality not privacy. So I quoted my deep friend's idea that one "no" is a "no" and two "yeses" are a baby. Recourse to intercourse, I call it. I promise I will leave this political thinking behind very soon in favor of my real thinking that fertility is not political or governmental. I hope. Anyway, Pollitt says today's feminists describe "whorephobia" and cisgender and other coinages as required of feminists all. Perhaps I'll forget everything and thank goodness that I had a chance in adolescence to survive as a scholar and musician and even in young romance that I wouldn't have otherwise had or enjoyed without feminism.

John Riley
Jul 09, 12:29pm

The arguments against feminism are nonsensical. At what point does a woman go from being independent and strong and self-reliant or any of the other virtues endorsed by feminism to being a feminist. I guess what people usually mean by feminist is someone who speaks up in support of the ideas of feminism. What is it about publicly supporting those ideas that differs from someone supporting the idea of not supporting feminists? Seems to me that if one is obnoxious so is the other. It's a wash. That leaves the only question that matters outside of superficial personality conflicts. Do I support the ideas of feminism? Do I believe women have to make an effort to be recognized and valued that men don't have to make? If I do then I'm a feminist. If I don't I'm not.
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