so what is feminism anyway?

All right... I'm jumping in here (since I miss Kerrilynn's video rants and raves :( ) with some random thoughts gleaned over the past few weeks...

I've been thinking alot about the various bits and pieces of conversation i've either overheard or had with many WS students over the past few weeks about 'what is feminism/who is feminist'... and, as per my usual follow up questions, about what's at stake - and for whom - in those questions. This seems especially relevant and in the air these days, as even Sarah Palin has taken to using the term to describe herself - in addition to several other people, including (according to feministing.com) "Oregon NOW Vice President Linda Klinge and former Ms. magazine editor Elaine Lafferty" (wow...) supporting her and using the term to describe her. And while i certainly don't subscribe to the 'feminist checklist' school of thinking (and even if i did, i'm not sure that my checklist would be the widely adopted one :)), i - like everyone else i imagine - have my 'ok that's going too far' moments... and i have many of those about her! But i add in there too people like Laura Doyle (of The Surrendered Wife fame/infamy a few years ago), or groups like 'feminists for life' -- as example of where the term is mobilized in ways i can't get on board with.. even if i also believe in 'there are many feminisms' and 'feminism is always contextual' (historically and culturally specific, etc), and 'big tent feminism' approaches...

So i find myself wondering about how to talk about those borders to 'feminism' - for myself... for others... and how to argue against particular versions/renditions without falling back on essentialist ideas about the definitions/identity of 'feminism'... without falling back on hauling out a checklist of some sort....

But.... i also think that the fact that this term can get used for beliefs and positions that seem so problematic (backasswards even - to me at least) speaks volumes about not just the tensions around the term itself -- but about the social tensions [that was for you Kerrilynn :)] both generated in and by and around some feminist ideas and changes - and by the failures to address those. I may not agree with Laura Doyle's use of the term, but i think that she points to some very 'real' issues about hetero relationships that remain everpresent - and more than nagging in many people's/women's lives.... I may not agree with Sarah Palin's politics around reproductive rights or making women pay for rape kits (and a whole bunch of other issues!), but i think she points to the ways in which 'the public and the private' (to haul those terms out again) remain stubbornly gendered/raced/classed etc in ways that too often have remained unaddressed and even disavowed by much 'liberal' feminism....

so no conclusions here :)... but i find myself thinking that at least those popular mobilizations of the term allow us to talk about what is being (necessarily?) excluded in the stories 'we' (self-identified feminist types) tell about 'what is feminism/who is feminist'.... and surely that's a good thing??


Ann