Brands of Feminism

This post is going to be centered more on the Goldstein: War and Gender reading than what we discussed in class. What we discussed was really helpful, though! Breaking down the relationship between gender and conflict in to those five perspectives made it a lot easier to see how they interact, rather than attempting to attack the whole concept at once.

But what I really want to pick apart are the three feminist perspectives Goldstein talks about. Much like he says, I had never thought about the various views of feminism before - it was always just FEMINISM and that meant believing women were just as good as men and deserved better than they got. So these perspectives really got me thinking as to what I like to focus on and my own perspective on feminism and gender.

Starting with Liberal Feminism. The very quick summary of what I think Goldstein was saying about liberal feminism is that it focuses on the sexism present in our cultures. (Most) all of the differences between genders are culturally made and women, in fact, are just as capable to go to war, run countries etc. as men are. Now, at first glance I very much agreed with this view. But when Goldstein brought up the common criticism of this perspective I had to pause. This view tends to conform to the masculinized ideal of what makes a person valuable (their physical strength and political power, for example) rather than changing the negative views on traditionally feminine characteristics and roles. Very good point!

On the opposite end of the spectrum there is Difference Feminism. This view seems to emphasize that there are, in fact, differences between men and women (whether they are biological or cultural) and that this is not all bad and should be used to our advantage. The focus here is to validate the characteristics women possess and the roles women traditionally play - rather than insisting women can go outside those roles. I like the idea of bringing value to things like motherhood, emotional knowledge, interpersonal relations, care-taking, and other "womanly" traits. However this set off my "not all women are like that!" response, too.

Lastly, Postmodern Feminism. Which had more of a focus on the fluidity of gender, which I like, and instead used sets of contrasting words to define male and female characteristics, which I didn't like, no matter how accurate it was. I think my main aversion to the typical female characteristics is that I strive to be a very logical person. Possibly because I also am very emotionally-driven, but I also just tend to have a logic-centered world view. So my hackles tend to come up when words like "emotional," "irrational," or "unpredictable" get assigned to my gender (all of which Goldstein uses in this description of postmodern feminism). But that might just be a personal problem.

So what do I think? Well I don't know. But one of the main things that came up for me while reading this is how much I dislike attempts to define MAN and WOMAN separately. I think the more effort spent saying "well women do this when men do this" is more effort spent of dividing people who really don't need to be divided. Now, I understand that a lot of that is necessary, especially when discussing something like gender and conflict. But I don't have to like it!

Okay, I really wish I wasn't so obnoxiously verbose. I apologize for the small novel I have apparently written on this topic. Whoops!

Until the next 10-page essay,
-Sara


Also, fun fact: The book War and Gender is categorized in "Gay and Lesbian > History" on Amazon. Huh... not the point. Not from what I read, anyway.