At the same time, I stopped identifying as "feminist" when a combination of gender essentialists and nit-picky academic types took over the label. It was the gender essentialists who drove me out, seeming to be actively opposed to my existence. (A woman who doesn't want to act "feminine". The horror!) But it's the more esoteric than thou types that have kept me out most recently - I can't figure out what they are trying to say without the equivalent of an undergraduate course, thanks to jargon etc. I don't need to affiliate myself with people who claim social activist credentials, but would rather write for an in group than be comprehensible to potential supporters.
The good feminist material is coming from people like the one you cited - mostly random blogs. The material in print is pretty much all arcane dreck. And I still privilege the print world - it gets to set the standard meaning of a word, when usage differs.
It's time for a new term, like "gender equality" or "women's rights". Preferably presented as self evident except to dinosaurs, fundamentalists, and nut cases. Enough of applying different standards based on gender.
No need to let the gender essentialists and overly jargon-ridden own the term "feminist." There are plenty of gender essentialists on both sides of the divide who are all too happy to see us not own the term. It belongs to us, too.
After all, some people would see our use of the term "gender essentialist" as overly academic as well. While there is plenty of dreadful academic writing that over-uses jargon, and academic editors who allow this to persist, some of the jargon is handy enough to become part of more general usage in time. And there are fewer gender essentialists in feminism now than a few decades back.
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At the same time, I stopped identifying as "feminist" when a combination of gender essentialists and nit-picky academic types took over the label. It was the gender essentialists who drove me out, seeming to be actively opposed to my existence. (A woman who doesn't want to act "feminine". The horror!) But it's the more esoteric than thou types that have kept me out most recently - I can't figure out what they are trying to say without the equivalent of an undergraduate course, thanks to jargon etc. I don't need to affiliate myself with people who claim social activist credentials, but would rather write for an in group than be comprehensible to potential supporters.
The good feminist material is coming from people like the one you cited - mostly random blogs. The material in print is pretty much all arcane dreck. And I still privilege the print world - it gets to set the standard meaning of a word, when usage differs.
It's time for a new term, like "gender equality" or "women's rights". Preferably presented as self evident except to dinosaurs, fundamentalists, and nut cases. Enough of applying different standards based on gender.
no subject
After all, some people would see our use of the term "gender essentialist" as overly academic as well. While there is plenty of dreadful academic writing that over-uses jargon, and academic editors who allow this to persist, some of the jargon is handy enough to become part of more general usage in time. And there are fewer gender essentialists in feminism now than a few decades back.