"MRAs often blame feminism as a philosophy for their woes, while feminists blame patriarchalism as a philosophy for theirs, and even less helpfully, feminists in turn don't believe that the woes assigned to feminism are remotely legitimate and MRAs in turn don't believe that there even is such a thing as the patriarchy."

The purpose of The Feminist Dissident is to give feminists a chance to speak directly to my audience, and my audience to debate the issues with them in a civil manner. To read previous entries, click here.

The Feminist Dissident column below is penned by Lisa Kansas, a feminist and a chemical engineer in Maryland. To visit her blog, click here.

If you are a feminist and are interested in submitting a blog post, please email me at glenn@glennsacks.com.

An Introduction
By Lisa Kansas

An Introduction! Hi. My name is Lisa, and I am a "feminist," which specifically means "I am a person who self-identifies as a feminist." Seriously, that's almost all that can be said about that label nowadays. For instance, not only do I say I am a feminist, but Sarah Palin also says she's a feminist, and Maureen Dowd says she's a feminist, and Catherine MacKinnon says she's a feminist, and Wendy McElroy says she's a feminist...

Now, I can speak quite eloquently on what I believe feminism to be, both in the abstract and practically speaking, and on my opinions about how it is framed and/or practiced by other self-identifying feminists and/or self-identified feminist organizations. But one thing I can't do is divulge The One True Feminist Agenda™ because, as you can see above from just the small sampling I listed of the madly diverse folks that swear up and down that yes they ARE feminists!!, there actually isn't one.

So, while I am always happy to provide my opinion on the expressed feminism of others--and God knows I'm loaded with opinions!---what they may or may not state is a part of their One True Personal or Organizational Feminist Agenda™ may or may not have a thing to do with anything I believe in, practice or advocate practicing.

In short, if I'm asked about it and I say it ain't part of my Agenda™, and am subsequently importuned in any way to somehow stick up for it or adopt it anyhow, I will likely tune the importuner out. So what is my definition of feminism? Well, I don't want to be typing for the next six hours---this is just supposed to be an introduction. For now, the most relevant thing I can plagiarize is the Declaration of Independence, updated to ensure that no confusion is rampant due to English gender pronoun conventions and the fact that I do not believe in a "Creator:"

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. — That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

This is a fine beginner's definition of my feminist agenda. Actually, I do not consider this most basic ideal a debatable point--any point of view held by another that women are not included in any way, shape, form or fine detail in said above definition of "people," is of course the right of said holder to possess, but is of no interest to me whatsoever. My response to any such attempt will either be nonexistent or, if I'm feeling playful, an embedded HypnoToad video clip.

Other than the above caveats, and possibly intimate details of my personal life that I'm positive nobody really wants to know anyway, there is no topic I won't discuss, no matter how earth-shaking, controversial, lame or disgusting. (Though if I really am disgusted, I might not be too eloquent---I admit to having trouble thinking deeply about a few topics because I get distressed to the point where I lose the ability to regard them dispassionately---"child porn" is one example.)

I believe Glenn has this particular blog category up and running because he really, truly is interested in having feminists have real, meaningful discussions about gender issues with men's rights activists (though I strongly suspect that his ideal imaginings involve feminists shifting their worldview and priorities as a result much more so than they involve men's rights activists shifting theirs).

Given that the overwhelming majority of interaction I've seen to date between feminists and MRAs consists of troll raids on each other's websites, I don't see how attempting to do so could make things any worse!

However, one thing I do know about both feminists and men's rights activists is that they often have a lot of personal feelings, based on personal life experiences, riding on their respective self-identifications---it isn't like convincing most people to think more open-mindedly one way or the other about offshore drilling, for example.

It is very, very hard to talk about abstracts that have actually impacted one's own life intimately, and even harder to do so in a way that avoids either the appearance of dismissing someone else's real life experiences (for instance, trying to discuss false rape accusations with a rape victim) or with believable impartiality (for instance, trying to argue for changes in child custody presumptions based upon philosophical fairness and psychological studies of the benefits to children when you yourself are in the middle of a vicious child custody battle).

Another strong barrier to mutual understanding and communication that I perceive is that MRAs often blame feminism as a philosophy for their woes, while feminists blame patriarchalism as a philosophy for theirs, and even less helpfully, feminists in turn don't believe that the woes assigned to feminism are remotely legitimate and MRAs in turn don't believe that there even is such a thing as the patriarchy.

Naturally, dedicated feminists are not going to listen to an argument that frames their cherished ideology as the root problem, and MRAs aren't going to bother debating or even really considering a concept that they believe is imaginary. Well jeez, I've practically talked myself out of even trying now. Seems a hopeless case! But I am here, and a few feminists and MRAs actually do want me here, so that's gotta mean something. Maybe we can find a starting point together?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Feminist Dissident. You can trackback from your own site.