Our first class reading assignment is the first 200 pages of Rosemarie Tong's Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction. In these pages, we learn about the history, premises, and critical authors of liberal feminism, radical feminism (including libertarian and cultural perspectives), Marxist and socialist feminism, psychoanalytic feminism, and care-focused feminism. I have done prior reading on all these schools of feminist thought, but Tong's book is an excellent resource that places key names and ideas into context and provides a good general overview. I can honestly say that every page of the book is fascinating to me.
When I was first learning about feminism as an undergraduate student, I remember approaching it with my mind already locked into a very specific paradigm. I embraced the feminist label but was afraid of anything that could be termed "radical." As I learned about individual theories within feminism, I would hold them up alongside my preexisting paradigm; if a theory fit neatly into my paradigm, I would absorb the new idea, but if they did not fit together, then I would reject it soundly in order to preserve the paradigm. I think I felt a lot of pressure to decide how I would and wouldn't define myself. I wanted labels. I wanted to say, "I am this kind of feminist and I am not that kind of feminist." I wanted to align myself firmly or else craft decisive distance.
These days, my brain feels like it has a different kind of shape to it. I no longer feel pressure to self-label or to make decisions about whether I am or am not personally/intellectually aligned with a particular school of thought. I am becoming more capable of embracing diversity of thought, of marveling at the creativity of ideas that would have made former-me deeply uncomfortable, and of considering--really weighing and considering--what people from all walks of life have to say. I think that with time I will choose to take sides (and on certain debates I suppose I already have), but in general this does not feel like a side-taking period in my life; it feels like a time of liberating openness.
Missy, your journey with feminism sounds so much like mine! When I started in college, I was only open to learning to the extent that it didn't clash with my beliefs, but I have since expanded my viewpoint to include a lot of different ideas, including many that conflict with each other. The Universe is beautifully complex, and I love that!
ReplyDeleteI agree. I just want to consider all ideas and not feel pressured to accept or reject anything on the basis of an assumed knowledge of right or wrong, true or false. My only comment from this point on will be "That's interesting!" Period.
ReplyDeleteI respect your maturity in the learning process. Like you once did, I also found myself wanting to classify my Feminist identity as a particular label as I was reading. But, I began to feel it was a limiting factor to my belief system. I kinda have ideas that reflect all the feminist theories, in some way. And, I don't want to limit myself to a particular stance or conclusion based on a particular label. I suppose, one reason I craved identifying a particular theory that fit my ideas best is so that I could describe my feelings easily to others, and feel a sense of community. But I can still feel that sense of community, AND hold a conglomerate of ideas that differ from others. Of course, right?!
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