i'm still not a feminist

[piranha]

dear anonymous -- i appreciate the gesture, because i assume you wanted to do something nice for me. thank you.

but...

i've never really thought that i was a person who cared specifically about "the plight of women everywhere". i think of myself as a person who has some empathy for the plight of living beings everywhere, in a sort of hare krishna sense, which doesn't go very deep -- i am sorry so many creatures are in pain, but since i can't do anything about it, i push it out of my mind rather than crusade for a million deserving causes. and women -- unless they're transgendered; that's a special case for me -- they're right in that same pot with everyone else. i don't speak up for them any more than i speak up for anyone. in fact i probably go out of my way to not let gender matter regarding whom i speak up for. i'm a member of amnesty international, not of NOW, see?

so i feel i am being praised for something i am not actually doing shit about, which feels ... undeserved. and i don't just want to accept the praise without pointing that out.

Comments

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Deciding which of the many, many deserving causes to speak up for is one of the hardest things, I think. I've been thinking about this lately and going through a sort of filtering process of taking out one-year memberships to various campaigning organisations and then looking to see which seemed to be giving me the most (or the most effective) opportunities to contribute. The Liberal Democrats (http://www.libdems.org) are the only organisation where I feel I have been able to contribute other than financially, so I've decided to focus most of my energies there. That encompasses a whole range of causes, obviously, and where there is a choice of things I can realistically do, my intention is to prioritise those where I have relevant experience or specialist knowledge.

I think I feel similarly to you about feminism, by the way, but in recent years I've started accepting the label, because the dictionary definition fits me and I generally find that given that, rejecting it distorts communication more than accepting it. It still isn't something I'm likely to volunteer about myself, though; I'm far more likely to conceptualise my experience and my political engagements in terms of being a Christian, a Liberal, a woman, a lawyer, a parent, a teacher, a Scot or a resident of East London than in terms of being a feminist.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that Lib Dems link should have gone here (http://www.libdems.org.uk).

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I assume this is referring to the same anonymous thing that's turned up elsewhere. Looking at the cause that's being sponsored (Women for Women International (http://womenforwomen.org/) -- an organization that helps women in war-torn regions of the world rebuild and develop skills and resources they need to put their lives back together), it seems like the sort of thing where women being a subset of people in general would have been enough to qualify you.

women for women international

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

not really. i mean, it's definitely a worthwhile cause, and more power to everyone who wants to support it, but there are two important points disqualifying me:

i'd never join something that calls itself "women for women". for one, i don't consider myself a woman, *snicker*. but more importantly, i dislike that sort of innately discriminatory gender-based terminology. what's up with that? there are no men who'd like to help women in war-torn regions? we don't need those men who'd like to help? they can go form their own separate organization? i know it's supposed to be bonding language, but i don't want to bond with people who use language like that. it just rubs me so the wrong way.

and secondly, "caring about" is something that i have defined as requiring some dedicated action from me, and more action than perpetuating a couple of links once in a blue moon. since i've never even done that, and based on the point above, am unlikely to do so, i don't think it's right to consider me to be "caring about" this cause.

Re: women for women international

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Well, I've noticed that a whole bunch of people posted that they got the same v-gift and all of them had the exact same text that you had, so it's likely a generic piece of text that was made up to accompany the block of them rather than something that the person really personalized for each recipient.

It's been mentioned that it's possible to remove them from your profile, although I don't know if you can remove them from the extended / full-info profile. You could probably contact the LJ support folks if you wanted it taken off.

Re: women for women international

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, now that i've read my flist, i see that. and other people's reaction varies from feeling flattered to being creeped out, *chuckle*. i guess that should be a hint to gift givers that they might not want to stick with whatever standard text livejournal offers, but that a bit of personalization is a good idea.

i don't think i want it taken off (i don't return actual gifts either); i just wanted to set the record straight.

Re: women for women international

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

I know I sent out about a dozen of those v-gifts, but since the generic text I'd made was "to a fabulous woman", and since I know that you are quite deliberately non-gendered here, I didn't send one to you.

I think that women in third world nations tend to have it worse than men, because gender discrimination is so rampant. Therefore, it's appropriate for there to be organizations that deliberately try to help women only. But you're right, it's discriminatory for the organization to imply that only women would help women, or that there's something wrong about men's help.

Re: women for women international

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

*nod* One of the big reasons why I lean towards women-focused charities is because in a lot of very community-focused cultures (not necessarily ours) that money will be spent on things that also benefit children, men and everybody else.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

How did you find that info? I was poking at the link, and maybe I'm being thick but it didn't leap out at me. (Also possibly at fault, Axe is using all our bandwidth for some music thing he's working on, so links aren't even showing up, never mind being able to connect to them. Not that I'm irked or anything.)

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Beneath the tag it has a link to livejournal's v-gifts page, which has the information.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

This (http://www.livejournal.com/shop/view.bml?item=vgift) page?

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It says:

"In support of National Women's History Month, LiveJournal will donate the net proceeds from "Rosie the Riveter" virtual gifts to Women for Women International (http://womenforwomen.org/). Find out more... (http://www.livejournal.com/shop/charity.bml)"

The first link points to the Women for Women International homepage, which explains who they are and what they do, and the second link points to livejournal's v-gift charity page, which talks about how livejournal's charity donations work and briefly touches on Women for Women International.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I swear on a stack of Ethical Lovers that text does not appear on my screen when I look at that page. That's a bit odd.

Thanks for the assistance.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

That *is* odd! Could it be a cache issue?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Hrm, possible. I do some house-cleaning.