Comments | pastels_badge: question

pastels_badge

question

Dec 11, 2006 15:31

I've been doing some thinking (as a result of some research for school as well as some stuff I've been reading on my own) about feminist guilt. Guilty pleasures, but also guilt about our fears and weaknesses. I'm sure there are other kinds of guilt that people experience that are similar but not just about feminism--other types of political guilt ( Read more... )

Comments 8

14icedbear December 11 2006, 21:26:40 UTC

hm, things i have feminist guilt about. well, it does really suck feeling bad because you have a little extra pudge and then feeling bad about feeling bad, but not in such a way that it lessens the original bad-feeling ( ... )

14icedbear December 11 2006, 21:27:52 UTC

p.s. sometimes i have twinges when i read one of the many pkd books he wrote while feeling bitter about marriage. i'd definitely hesitate to call him a misogynist or anything like that, but you could make a case for something along those lines (i'd make a case against it, but still).

pastels_badge December 13 2006, 20:31:33 UTC

Yeah. I feel ya there. In regards to PKD but also other authors, filmmakers, etc.

pastels_badge December 13 2006, 20:30:11 UTC

Also, from a scholarly standpoint, the fact that sex-positive feminism actually A) acknowledges the guilt and B) is willing to discuss how the guilt may have come about in addition to C) discussing how we might be able to counteract the guilt means that it is more descriptive of realitythis guilt or accept it uncritically as our penance for being crappy feminists.

I keep chuckling about the "inherently sexist sexual position." But it's true that thoughts like that have occurred to me too.

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pastels_badge December 13 2006, 20:38:40 UTC

Sometimes when I consider the hypothetical possibility of having a baby I get scared thinking about my body changing and what my belly would look like afterwards and stuff. And then I feel guilty about that, because what kind of thing is that to worry about compared to whether I might want to start a family someday? It's not like I'd give up having kids to maintain my girlish (ha!) figure, but I feel bad just for having the thought. So I can definitely relate. I think more people should talk about what happens to your body after pregnancy. It seems like a lot of women think their post-pregnancy body is really weird and unusual when it's really not. It's this thing you never hear about, when it should be a normal thing people can be comfortable with. One thing that really freaks me out lately is I keep seeing ads for this cosmetic surgery clinic talking about the "mommy makeover" which I know is just code for "post-pregnancy tummy-tuck" (and possibly "post-breastfeeding boob job"). That really gives me the willies ( ... )

nomichelle December 11 2006, 21:43:23 UTC

For the past several months, I've been feeling very conflicted over the realization that, ideally, I will be a stay-at-home mother when I eventually have children. I *want* to stay at home. I want to bake cookies and make a home and take care of babies and have dinner on the table when my husband gets home... I just have to keep telling myself that I don't want these things because of some societal concept of what it means to be a woman, or because it's what my mom did (because she didn't... she always worked outside of the house).. I want those things because... well, because I like taking care of people and things. Maybe it's my being a Cancer?

But I feel like a bad example of a liberated woman... As if, because I have the freedom to choose, unlike women of past eras, that I somehow owe it to them to choose the business world, but I don't. I owe it to myself to choose whatever will make me happiest.

...right?

pastels_badge December 13 2006, 20:40:23 UTC

Well, the point of feminism isn't to subject women to new and different normative standards of behavior, it's to challenge gender normativity itself. At least, that's how I look at it. So anything that makes you think doing something that would make you happy is bad is not my kind of feminism.

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pastels_badge December 13 2006, 20:41:22 UTC

I'll let you know if I end up doing something with this idea. It's related to a bunch of other stuff I've been reading that I should pick your brain about sometime. I hope we get a chance to get together one of these days before I leave for xmas so I can talk your ear off about all of it.