Problem Chylde: Learning & Writing

(originally published May 13, 2007 on The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum)

Consider this post evidence of me being a hater. I fully acknowledge my complicity in hateration of Jessica Valenti, on mainstream white middle class feminism, and on the entire advertising and book selling industry. I’m not capable of any deeper thought than what flows in this long and winding lava flow of pent-up hatred for it all.

You know what? You’re right.

This book does appeal to every vapid assumption out there about the cognitive abilities and decision making skills of white middle class and upper class women who would decide they didn’t need feminism. The audience that would get pissed about nipple tinting, Quiznos commercials, and stars with overexposed clavicles rather than indigenous women of color lacking access to adequate domestic violence protection, immigration officials finding it perfectly acceptable to chain away and to deport mothers for taking jobs that someone has to be offering them to provide for their children. And I guess my interactions with young white women should let me know that saying, “Hey, feminism is diverse” is enough for a lot of white women to just let other women be run under the bus.

Hell, it happens on the blogosphere often enough with women of color issues and class issues and sexual orientation issues and disability issues, doesn’t it? The quick lip service to our pet issues, and then the brush-off to the pro-life/pro-choice/mostly-fetus centered debate of women’s reproductive autonomy? Why should I expect anything different from a book from someone on this blogosphere or from anybody else, for that matter? Especially when it’s geared to a niche. Most especially when intersectionality is only an academic theory with the substance of an average cloud. There aren’t cloudy days forever! On the clear days, why prepare for the rainy season? Just stick with the problems of tanning and deal with the downpour when it’s flooding the basement!

Any criticisms I could possibly have is my trying to police or take over feminism. My minimizing feminism. My misunderstanding of the grand awesomeness that is white middle class popular feminism. I’m obviously a sex-hating anti-abortion freak if I point out there’s more than one issue, or that there’s likely a good reason women think feminism isn’t important, and talking to them like they’re harlots on the pier isn’t necessarily the best approach to explain what awesome things feminism as a movement has to offer. I’m obviously talking a whole bunch of bullshit. Hell, maybe I’m one of those ugly crazy bra-burning lesbodykes. Sylvia is kind of a weird-looking name when you stare at it for a while. Granted, it’s a pen name, but I’m sure if you knew my real name you’d poke it with the weirdo stick as well. What nerve do I have to open my mouth against such a daring attempt to bring more women into the fold.

As I’ve been attacked before on other issues for bringing a criticism about anything, it’s not like I’m doing shit, right? What’s the point of sharing an opinion, even if I’m not expecting anyone to agree with me? Especially if I’m not expecting people to agree with me? Particularly if I’m not running down my resume and tacking up my autobiography sharing with the world what I’m doing and not doing for whichever of the concentric circles of shit I’m caught up in right now. You know. My life. I don’t have the perspective to speak for any groups because I’m a member of too damned many, and that’s shaped my view of things. My anti-essentialist perspective.

Maybe I shouldn’t expect better of Jessica’s target audience; I mean, it’s not like they have anything to do with me, right? What the fuck do I know about these “young women,” and why should I give a flying fuck about what they choose to read? Granted, those lines might bring them here to read this, but, heh heh, they won’t be reading for long ’cause I doubt they’d agree that perhaps people should expect them to understand basic ideas of feminist theory and find some relevance for their lives. It’s just like a young woman told me after I took that Philosophical Issues in Feminism class, and I raised my hand to ask what about us? What about young black women and Latinas and Asian women and Native American women and lesbians of all colors and poor women of all colors? I said, there’s likely not going to be any great advances for “women” until we tackle the system that makes all these other things possible. What are we supposed to do in the meantime if these issues of cosmetic surgery and choosing stay-at-home motherhood over white-collar jobs really don’t include us? And this young woman — one of the ones who proudly told the class the first day that she thought feminism was irrelevant and she felt like she didn’t need it because she felt empowered, human, and whole — this young woman told me, “Yes, that stuff is important, but you see, we have to deal with these issues first.” And she didn’t say it maliciously; she said it in a really nice way to try to placate me. And I’m not sure I could have explained how it felt like a total slap in the face, but it did. I remember that was our last day of class, and I wrote my class evaluation, furiously shaking and on the brink of crying, writing in big letters, “PLEASE INCLUDE WORKS BY WOMEN OF COLOR AND LESBIANS AND OTHER TYPES OF FEMINISTS. IT HELPS.”

I misunderstood who I was speaking to — an audience that’s as likely to listen to me and that audience and take us seriously as it is likely to ally with the “patriarchy.” And I also misunderstood what subject I chose to speak about — when I figure out how to think like one of these white middle-to-upper class, likely college educated, likely bursting with disposable income, foul-mouthed, liberal-minded young women who just think feminism doesn’t matter, I’ll send out a memo. I’ll put it on pretty paper, and I’ll use big letters and small words. And then I’ll paste a picture of my boobs on it to grab your attention, ’cause you’ll think, “What are brown breasts doing on a book about white middle class feminism?!” And you’ll open it, and I’ll razzle and dazzle your minds with it.

But until then? Psh. Fuck it.