Feminists

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113921#post44

Personally, I will be concerned about what you will "be okay with" if I believe that you are speaking as a woman and a feminist.

http://election.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1139&pid=249

"its also important to keep in mind that if you are white and middle class in this country and a women, you have only one oppression to worry about. therefore you can feel like all women should bond together. however, the more oppressions i have, my in groups maybe different. my allegiance to the lgbt community will always outweigh my allegiance to straight women. my allegiance to the south asian immigrant lgbt community will outweigh my allegiance to the larger lgbt community. these are all things we should keep in mind, when talking about movements/issues/politics/whatever"

From what I can tell, that allegiance will outweigh other individuals' interest in their reputation and your (presumed) interest in truth in public discourse, as well.

Are you speaking as a woman and a feminist in this post now? When you have said flatly that, where you assert a conflict of interests, presumably, you will abandon women? How could you ever claim to speak as a feminist?

I can't see how you could, since your primary allegiance is to a group or groups other than women -- and you can say "straight women" if you like, but that is just you asserting a divergence of interests that others, including some non-straight women, simply don't agree with. You might speak as a woman; but a feminist?

I have no intention of being in a group labelled "second-wave feminist". That is an ethnocentric label that has little to do with me and doesn't accurately represent the situation where I am even to the extent that there have been second and third waves of feminism here, outside the USofA, and a label that, as defined by you, would not apply to me even if I were in the US.

Second-wave feminists do not own the word feminism? Well, whatever group it is that you belong to and are speaking as a member of doesn't define feminism, let alone me.

Either one sees patriarchy as a source of oppression at least equal to the class structure, to homophobia, to racism, to all other sources of oppression, or one doesn't. Either one sees women's problems as at least as important as the problems of every other exploited or oppressed or victimized group, or subgroup, or one doesn't.

Either one chooses to dissociate one's self from, and not advocate in the interests of, some sub-group of women, in your case "straight women", or one doesn't. I don't. I don't elevate my interests as a member of any sub-group of women, or as a member of any other group, above the interests of women. By your actions in the rotten thread in the GLBT group, and your plain words in the other thread in this group, you have at least made it appear that you do.

Straight women as a group are not the oppressors of the LGBT community, or of Asian immigrants, or of anybody else. Second-wave or any other feminists most certainly are not. And I reject any analysis that says we are.

Certainly individual women belong to the oppressor groups -- women in the ownership class, women in the religious right. The same is true of African-Americans: they have their right-wingers and their gun militants. Does the LGBT community throw African-Americans under the bus because of Clarence Thomas or Kenn Blanchard? Those women are not feminists, and those African-Americans are not civil rights leaders.

I will discuss potential conflicts as well as confluences of interests with someone who recognizes the legitimacy of feminists' concerns and analysis. Not with someone who starts out by telling me they will always be at the back of her bus when, at least, she alleges a conflict.

My feminism has NEVER excluded race/class/sexual orientation analysis, so why would I need a statement telling me to include it? And quite simply, your race/class/sexual orientation analysis, or anyone else's, is not gospel.

Your views are shaped by multiple identities. Not everyone with any or all of those, or other, identities has decided that "woman" is the least important of them -- or that their own identities other than "woman" are what they will choose to govern their political analysis and action.

Pick and choose your identities as you wish, and assign whatever weight to them you will -- your choice is entirely your own and not for me or anyone else to judge in any way, not having your experience and perspective. But kindly do not tell me, once you have done that and woman/feminist is not at the top of the list whether alone or in company, that the purpose of the Feminists group should accommodate you and thus exclude those of us who do not wish to be defined as the oppressor or as less worthy of concern than some other group or subgroup.

I actually don't go around telling working-class men that their concerns as members of the working class are illegitimate and must give way to women's concerns in the event of conflict, or that the concerns of any other exploited or oppressed or victimized group must give way. I'll talk about why part of the wage pool in an enterprise should be allocated to on site childcare even if it means a slightly lower direct wage, and listen to the arguments against, and possibly ultimately agree to disagree as reasonable people of goodwill can do. I won't be told that the working-class interest in higher wages automatically supercedes women's interest in access to employment. And in a discussion of pornography, I won't be told that the LGBT community's interest in recognition of the legitimacy of their sexuality as essential to their human dignity automatically supercedes women's interest in recognition of our humanity as essential to our security and equality of opportunity. I might agree to disagree. I will not sit and have epithets (let alone lies) thrown at me to discredit me or to discredit feminists' concerns. Not here.

I think my proposal conveys the intention perfectly adequately, but others might suggest different ways of framing it:

This forum is for discussion of women's rights, concerns and interests, and discussion of issues as they affect women, from the perspective and experience of women.

Women come in all classes and colours and sexualities, but the prerequisite here is that a poster be a feminist and speak as a woman (or as a man who is speaking from the perspective of women's rights, concerns and interests) first and foremost.