dagblog - Comments for "Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching heels!"

My daughter just finished

Oxy Mora — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:50:18 +0000

My daughter just finished five hard years going back to school, studying Spanish and getting a master's in teaching only to discover although she loves school she hate's teaching--at least in today's environment. She is now working in a fabric store and told me proudly she had become an assistant manager. We laughed a lot about her 18 year old Store Manager. (Reminds me of Albert Brooks' "Lost in America".) The Manager says she is tired of "business" already and wants to go to college so another major promotion may be in the offing. My daughter is artsy-craftsy stemming from the days of modifying Osh Kosh wear and because many of the women who come in there are foreign, specifically Latino who have no English, it has unexpectedly become a neat experience and a place where she can be of great help to others. And there is a health care plan.

No the one she was wearing.

Donal — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:22:31 +0000

In reply to @wisedaughter.net?

No the one she was wearing.

@wisedaughter.net?

arc400 — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:10:48 +0000

In reply to I was gonna suggest that net.

@wisedaughter.net?

I've always disliked whiners,

Ramona — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:06:14 +0000

In reply to Thanks Ramona for your great

I've always disliked whiners, and had to work especially hard to avoid them when I was a young wife/mother in the 50s and 60s. They were everywhere. And when Betty Friedan wrote her book, every woman I ran into had an excuse to whine even more. Now they had reasons.

Betty herself later said, in so many words, she had created a monster. The true success of feminism was at the workplace. Things began to change, without a doubt. As your mother told you, we no longer had to answer interview questions that asked about our personal lives: Were we married? Yes? No? Why not? Divorced? Hmmm. Did we have children? Did we plan to have more children? What guarantee would we give that this job, no matter how piddly, would come first?

Then the 70s brought Kate Millett's "Sexual Politics" and Marilyn French's "The Women's Room" and we couldn't be feminists if we didn't hate men. (Or so it seemed.) I looked around at the men in my life, from father to husband to son to father-in-law and suddenly it became personal. I have always loved those men dearly. I was being told to choose (or so it seemed), so I dropped my Ms subscription and gave it a rest for a while.

It bothered me, too, that eroticism equated rape if it involved men (those bastards). Men were the enemy and having sex with them meant we were being submissive fools. I understood the basis for it -- too many women were treated like chattel or pieces of meat -- but on the whole, it was crap.

So, as with most passionate and necessary causes, feminism went too far, at least for me. I call myself a feminist today, but on my own terms, which doesn't involve denigrating an entire gender in order to make myself feel whole. (There's irony in there somewhere, but I'll pass on it.)

I remember the first time I saw the Virginia Slims ad announcing, "You've come a long way, baby". It was like a light bulb went on. Yeah! It didn't matter that I didn't smoke and didn't plan to. It was affirming and fun. Something that was missing from the then-current brand of feminism.

Now feminism is about where it should be, and I'm glad to see that men are calling themselves feminists, too. (And that women can accept that men want to call themselves feminists.) The battles are still there to be fought but they're no longer simply gender battles. That can only be a good thing.

I was gonna suggest that net.

Donal — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:43:16 +0000

In reply to Riddle: Hook, Line, or

I was gonna suggest that net.

Riddle: Hook, Line, or

arc400 — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:30:56 +0000

In reply to I'd suggest an afternoon of

Riddle: Hook, Line, or Sinker?

Wise Daughter to King: You choose.

Thanks G. Ditto yours.

arc400 — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:27:03 +0000

In reply to Fantastic piece, arc. Thanks.

Thanks G. Ditto yours.

I'd suggest an afternoon of

Donal — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:26:07 +0000

In reply to What do you see them as

I'd suggest an afternoon of fishing.

Thanks for the comprehensive

arc400 — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:24:38 +0000

In reply to Thanks for a great blog. I

Thanks for the comprehensive comment.

Maybe, with your grasp of Butler, you can help me sort something out.

One of my problems with the theory--if I understand it adequately--has to do with the fact that, while establishing clear lines between decentering and queering, it doesn't make space for the political possibility of re-centering, of claiming cogent identities and enlisting them in the struggle against the status quo.

In my other life, I write about Jean Genet. The disciples of Butler always interpret the strength of Genet's characters as being located in their distance from the center, how they upset and confuse categories, highlighting the fiction of centrality and order.

On some level, I disagree. I don't think the strength of those outlaw characters comes from being queer, but from having cocks that shamelessly and unapologetically desire what they desire.

It seems like, for Butler, it's only radical to wear heels if you're a guy, or a strap-on if you're a girl.

I think it can be equally important, from a political standpoint, to re-center as to de-center.

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts.

One thing is, when you've

arc400 — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:53:00 +0000

In reply to Nice writing. The image I

One thing is, when you've made a commitment to heels, it's hard to go back to wearing flats, so women who trade off like that are superbly talented!

I would love to have been a fly on the wall when your daughter showed up bare foot to the dinner party (as provocative as a fishing net any day). You sound like a great parent.

Thanks for the pang of conscience: I'm going to phone my own parents and apologize for the hell I put them through in the 80s, taking off on my bicycle, riding cross country before cell phones were invented.