[kelkello]

There was an article in Glamour magazine a few months ago about this topic that also focused on the position of choice (cross threading here). Okay, Glamour is not exactly a feminist magazine, but it does discuss women's issues, often with a feminist slant. Anyway, the article discussed how many young girls today have lived in a world where "equal rights" has been more of a reality than it ever has been. Most of the young women today have seen women working and being moms and doing basically whatever men do (outside of shooting sperm out of an appendage) all of their lives. The article interviewed many of these young women, and their responses about feminism was that the fight was over. Equal rights are here! EGAD! Granted, things are not like they were in Tesao's day, but we still have a ways to go. If nothing else, last year the male basketball team in the town where I teach went to the State finals and everyone went to see the game and it was front page news and on the television. This year the girls' team went to state, and it barely got noticed. It's shit like that that gets me ready to do some slappin.'

That article also discussed choice young women, and they seemed to think it wasn't such a big deal because girls "know how to avoid pregnancy" now. They considered abortion not a viable option because only an "idiot" would get pregnant. Yeah, wait until your method fails, sweetie. Then see how you feel.

[girltrouble]

i guess the thing that bugs me about celebs (or most women) who aren't feminists is that they usually haven't given it much thought, and they haven't had anyone push them to question that.

i sit here slack jawed at tes' last post (and really tes, you've always impressed me). showed women how to build their own vacuum aspirators. i think too often we forget that that wasn't that long ago. i think too often we forget how much this country has changed in the last 60 years. in the last 120 years. so many people fought so hard for so many things we take for granted. for brown kids, for women, for the middle class and working class, for the handycapped, for queer kids. and that the benificaries would take that struggle so lightly as to deny it?

somebody needs to be slapped.

it should not be ok that there are kids raised to think that they [i] don't have to take a stand on these things.

it should not be ok that there are kids raised without knowing enough history to know about those fights to get all the things they can so easily blow off.

really. someone needs to be slapped.

[tesao]

i think that someone else touched on the issue a few posts back. i was in university (undergraduate) during the early seventies. i read simone de beauvoir and had a subscription to the original MS Magazine and marched for the Equal Rights Amendment and got arrested because i wouldn't leave the area surrrounding the capitol grounds and was involved in all of this PRE roe v wade and our woman's center offered "menstrual regulation" and showed women how to build their own vacuum aspirators.

there was a lot of radical feminism going around in those days. i lived in a lesbian women's collective with my female partner and was told that i couldn't have male friends visit me (unless they snuck in the back door). i got harrassed by my bisexuality a LOT back then.

it never made much sense to me. if we as women were ignoring men and refusing to let them be in our lives in any way, how was that better than what they had been doing to women for so many centuries?

i like third wave feminism. it isn't so boxy, so strict. i don't have to give anything up to be a feminist. i can still wear makeup and like cocks and i don't have to feel obliged to justify it.

what makes me a feminist? the fact that i can be hired for a long term higher management position by a well known organization and sent to africa without anyone even question the "female" issue. i have that choice now. i have LOTS of choices i didn't have when i was younger. when my sister applied to vet school in the 60's, no one wanted to accept a GASP!!!! WOMAN!! now, most graduates from vet schools ARE women! okay, we still get paid less overall. and we are still the ones looked down upon for deciding to have careers instead of children.

i like the freedom to be who i am, without having to apologize for it.

[candycane_girl]

I've always found the issue of being called a feminist interesting. One of my guy friends once made some stupid remark about me not being a feminist because I want to get married and have kids someday. wtf? I told him that I totally consider myself to be a feminist and he seemed a bit surprised by it.

I don't know why so many women are afraid of the word. It's like...feminism got some kind of bad reputation along the way as being crazy radicals that hate all men and want to take over the world. That's definitely not what I believe in but unfortunately, I think that's how a lot of people have come to view feminists.

[octobersky]

No Plastic - if you want I found some of my back issues of BUST when I moved - I can always scan articles and email them to you if you want. Just PM me if you want.

[No_Plastic]

There are quite a few girls who consider themselves feminists there, but it sure does boggle the mind when I meet so many that don't.

It is an amazing campus. I love being there (especially in the fall.. nothing better than the Woods in the fall), but what I expected and what I found are completely different. Our women's studies department is tiny. I've heard girls say, "She's such a dyke and I hate her," about one of our women's studies professors, just because she's hardcore old-school feminist (she was around in the 70s, and she was fighting for equal rights then, so I respect her for that).

I don't know. This could be an overreaction, but my journalism professor (a Woods alum) feels the same way I do.

[octobersky]

My friend goes to St. Mary's - we are talking about the one in IN, right? I was just there last week visting. The campus and buildings are beautiful. My friend is a senior and she was commenting on how much she has enjoyed being at an all women's college and how it has given her a sense of empowerment. I know she identifies herself as a feminist. But yeah I'm always shocked when I meet women who don't consider themselves feminists, how can you not be? Boggles the mind...




Oh yeah check out Backlash by Susan Faludi, you can skim it for material.

[pollystyrene]

Hey, my boyfriend's mom went to St. Mary of the Woods! It was one of the few women's colleges at the time that had a serious science program.

[No_Plastic]

That is the EXACT point I want to make to the women at my college. I wonder if Sara D. Bunting would mind me quoting her... thanks for linking me! I can't believe I've never seen that.

I'm trying to organize a discussion. I want to get a large group of Woodsies (we go to St. Mary-of-the-Woods, so we call ourselves Woodsies) in a room.. with snacks.. to discuss feminism, what they think of whne they think feminist, and whether or not they consider themselves one. It's going to be hard to do, because it's difficult to tear some of those girls away from House reruns, but I think that's the best solution in this case.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I hate being the newbie that posts the day she gets her account, but I just needed words of wisdom that I knew the BUST community could give.

[roseviolet]

I think this was probably posted recently on The Lounge, but I think the famous "Yes, You Are" essay will make you feel a bit better, No Plastic. It'll certainly provide food for thought to your classmates.
"Yes, You Are" by Sarah D. Bunting

[No_Plastic]

Wow, those are really great ideas! I wish I had all those old issues.. I have the Rose McGowan and the Susan Sarandon ones, but I may have to order the back issues of the others.

The three parts of the article are a background issue piece (very general), a bio of someone who has a lot to do with feminism and feminist issues (still working on finding someone), and one about why this is relevant to the college community (and that's an easy one, because where would it be more relevant than a women's college?).

[bunnyb]

Also, if you can, use the evidence of BUST's own cover celebs who distance themselves from feminism in their interview, as if it's a dirty word (I'm thinking recently Gwen Stefani and in the last couple of years Rose McGowan and PJ Harvey, to a lesser degree.) I don't have it to hand but Susan Sarandon's answer was interesting, if I remember correctly she discusses it being deemed a dirty word.

[tesao]

welcome, no plastic!

sounds to me as if you have a perfect article on why feminism is a dirty word in the making. 3 parts, hmmm?

background, why you wanted to write this particular article, what you expected to find

students who don't think feminists should have boyfriends or wear makeup

interview the NUNS!! see what THEY think!

lastly, interview young women outside of campus, older women who have jobs, interview MEN. young and old.

hell, interview US.

you would have a wealth of material!

best of luck!

[No_Plastic]

I'm an 18 year-old journalism and digital media communications major at a small Catholic women's college in the midwest, and I'm a feminist. Also, not catholic. I thought coming to a women's college would be a great place to go when you aspire to be a powerful, outspoken woman, and so far I've been very wrong. There are a few exceptions (for example, my academic advisor and journalism professor.. she and I are both longtime BUST readers), but for the most part I've found women that are going to college to get a degree in trophy wifery so they can marry one of the boys from the nearby engineering school.

For my Advanced Reporting class, I was told to choose an issue that I felt was important and do an in-depth, three-part article on it. I decided on "Why is Feminism a Dirty Word," because from what I've seen, on this campus it is. It's not just because this is a Catholic school... I know many nuns who are feminists. I have to wonder if it's just this generation.

At the start of this project, I interviewed a few of the girls from the college. I wanted to know what they thought of when they thought of feminism, and if they considered themselves to be feminists. The answers I got, for the most part, were disappointing. I even had one girl criticize me for calling myself a feminist. "You have a boyfriend! You knit and sew, for Christ's sake." Poor choice of words for a Catholic girl...

Sorry about the rant, but I'm suffering from some severe feminist outrage right now. I'm beginning to think that this article is going to blow up in my face. I was hoping to find that the majority of the women at this college consider themselves feminists, but so far.. nada. If you have any suggestions, I would really appreciate them.

[kelkello]

Yeah, the stories sound overly dramatic when you first hear them. When I heard the stories about what was going on at my school, I thought, "No fucking way." But just do a little research, talk to a girl who didn't make it through hell week, and you start to believe. The guy I mentioned who had to kill an animal was on a talk show telling his story. The campus police made all the freshman watch it as a "stern warning" about the no hazing policy at the university. Yeah, right. All that did was make the sororities and fraternities get more creative and insidious when creating their "rituals." After all, nothing says sisterhood like some good old fashioned mental abuse, huh?

I don't know much about the black Greek system, either. I do know one at the university here brands their pledges with their letters. It is supposedly a voluntary thing, but ALL of the guys do it. I'm not sure how truly voluntary it is.

[octobersky]

I dunno about the black Greek system, I had a couple of guy friends who said they went through some pretty tough hazing, but that's the fraternities. I think alot of times it depends on the personalities of the members whether there is hazing or not. But if the sorority helped calm your wild child cousin then it was good for her.

Yeah, I didn't believe the whole "sexual favors" thing until there was a Greek blood drive on my campus and the sorority and fraternity that were the subject of the rumour, were found to have multiple cases of HIV between the two. Nice, huh? Pledge a sorority or fraternity, get HIV. Lovely.

[aviatrix]

i'm tempted to say that the black greek system is better cos i had a cousin who i adore was a kappa-- in a black sorority-- the AKA, but i don't know if it is better. she was a wild child when she was in hs, but wore the colors way too much when she was in it. but she was always pretty independent. who knows

[culturehandy]

Because nothing says sisterhood like sucking a frat brothers cock.

[octobersky]

Somehow that doesn't surprise me that Delta Zeta or any sorority kicked out members 'cause they didn't fit an image. There is a really good book I read recently titled "Pledged" quite interesting. The author has a chapter on alternative sororites that have been forming, they allow anyone and everyone to join, give students a support network and do various charity-type stuff. Nice.

The Greek system wasn't huge at the school I went to but I did see how girls were encouraged to conform to a certain image. I knew a girl from HS who was smart, funny, kind, brunette and normal body size and when she pledged after the whole process she was snotty, blonde and emaciated. I had seen other girls who pledged as freshman, thinking this was a good idea, but then later morphed in an "undesirable" image for the sorority such as punk, goth, hippie etc. and was then told to leave or completely stripped of her letters. I knew a girl this happened to because apparently having pinked streaked hair wasn't the sorority image. A black friend of mine heard through the grapevine that she wasn't extended an invitation to a couple "white girl" sororities because they didn't want to integrate yet - this was the mid 1990's -WTF!?!?!?!!!!!!

At my alma matter the Tri-Delts were kicked off campus in the 70's because they were dealing drugs and sex. As a result the sorority is banned from ever being on the campus again.

Kelko - I think I know exactly the sorority you are talking about. A friend of mine was an RA in a freshman dorm and was woken up one night by a drunk, sobbing pledge who related a very similar story. Had my friend not had first hand experience with, I'm not sure I would have believed it, because it sounds so horrific and dramatic. I knew of another sorority that required the pledges to perform certain "sexual favors" for their brother fraternity as part of the pledge process.

[culturehandy]

I agree, sororities could do a huge amount of good.

I (for shame too) equate them with this cult like thing or girls gone wild. Ugh.