Reclaiming Lesbian Pride

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I see a great deal of this. The construct, within gender studies, is that if a woman likes, for instance, trucks, baseball, fishing, beer and power tools that person is 'masculine of center'. If said person then goes ahead and transitions, this is supposed to be transgressive and demolishing the gender binary. How is it though since it appears to recapitulate the existing gender construction of male = trucks, sports, fishing, beer and tools?

I would argue, like you do, Cheryl that I am transgressing gender boundaries/roles because, even though my passions lie in typically 'male' things such as the physical sciences, Linux and the Free/Open Source Software movement generally, skepticism and a certain holding to living my life rationally none of that makes me 'male' or 'masculine'. The problem, in other words, does not lie in my being a woman who is a geek rather, it lies in society defining certain things which are not really gendered as having gender traits. I don't 'think like a man', I think like a scientist.



This is merely to say that feminism is a movement made of people who came to feminism with their own predilections and cultural baggage intact. Given the time period where NOW was formed, it would have been remarkable if feminism had *not* had a non-trivial amount of racism, certainly, and homophobia. This is not to excuse anything, it is merely to remind that people are products--to some greater or lesser degree--of their time and the movements they spawn are also products of that time.
Cheers
Aj

Concerning racial variables with the Second Wave, I continue to be baffled at how our historical minds stop at these initial flawas instead of going further-

Many women of color took issue with the white, middle-class influence at that time with the movement and were very outspoken. They then brought issues of women of color to the discussion and widened (thankfully) this discussion and have since been a major force in feminist theory. This brought brown women to the table as well.

Social movements do exactly this- bring all of the variables out that need to be addressed. They are not static, nor are they perfect- just like individual people. Consciousness at one level gives rise to consciousness at other levels. Growth happens this way.

Yes, given the times (as was true of the First Wave), it was an imperfect movement. Yet, it gave rise to all voices because those voices realized there was a space in which to speak.

I get so tired of historical cherry picking. History needs to be studied with a fluid and open mind. I stood with many WOC "back then" that needed to add to the conversation and give it breadth. Actually, there were many WOC in the early days that spoke up.