Feminine-isting! It's what ladies do!
Posted at 11:12 AM Nov 09, 2009
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Today on Oprah.com, Karen Salmansohn explains, in an article called "Are You A Feminist or a Feminine-ist?" how feminists can get their real ladyhood back after all those unladylike things they do make them all sadfaced--you know, like when having a career and shit to do besides putting makeup on gets in the way of your "feminine, loving and sexy side."
This thing that I am doing here, it is not shitting you.
Almost from the introduction of the word "feminism" into our world, the definition has become corroded to mean something less than complimentary than its original intent. Somewhere along the line, to be a feminist started to mean a woman who's basically unattractive both in looks and spirit.Well, okay. I'm listening. I mean, it's pretty lame to assume that women want to be feminine in the first place, as if we're hard-wired to love nail polish, but .... Here comes the FAIL!
I find this negative connotation to be shameful and highly unhelpful. Women could truly benefit from finding a more inspiring word than "feminism" to stand by, as well as stand for, when seeking to become our most powerful and successful selves. We don't have to make a choice between feminine or powerful and successful. We can be all those things.
My goal is to inspire women to embrace being their fullest potential selves--feminine, sexy, warm, loving--everything the word "feminine" stands for, alongside strong qualities like powerful and successful.How is putting more responsibility on women to be everything all the time--powerful, "sexy" and whatnot--supposed to be empowering? It doesn't matter. This is not a place you should go if you're looking for SMRT, as we can see from this super-insightful metaphor full of poorly explained generalizations and borderline racism:
It seems that America has been fighting against the perception of being feminine for a while now--wanting to appear tough and strong, and afraid of appearing weak by admitting a need for help. If you compare America to countries in the East, you'll see what I mean. If America were to be personified, it would definitely be a real guy's guy--running around, talking loudly, smacking you on the back in greeting, occasionally belching--a lovable, rambunctious guy's guy.Oh, god. Hahahaha. Oh, dear. Man. Funny joke, Oprah.com. Fu-nny.
Now, imagine a country like India personified. It would embrace more feminine qualities like stillness, meditativeness and spirituality.
[Via Feministing/The Frisky]
Comments
Um.... wow that was one messed up closing line in the quote.
Hang on, I'm gonna go yell and belch at women.
Posted 11/09/2009 at 11:28:37 AMWhat ever happened to women just finding out who they really are without all this hogwash thrown at them? As a female myself this really gave me a good laugh.
Posted 11/09/2009 at 11:35:34 AM"Now, imagine a country like India personified. It would embrace more feminine qualities like stillness, meditativeness and spirituality."
In other words... "shut the fuck up and make me a sandwich, bitch"?
And if people have such a problem with the connotation of the word feminist, why don't we just... I dunno, CHANGE THE CONNOTATION rather than trying to appease everyone else by changing (drastically in some cases) ourselves?
Posted 11/09/2009 at 12:17:48 PMHow do people like Salmansohn even get their little toe into the spotlight?
Bet she definitely know a thing or two about putting her "feminine, sexy, warm and loving side" out there. Like every time she walked up to the professor's desk to hand in a college essay she may have kludged together from references possibly co-opted, over any original thought it's obvious she should have been working on. Somehow it keeps getting her by.
Posted 11/09/2009 at 12:41:06 PMThat's weird. I was just sitting here quietly meditating about painting my toes.
Also I was farting.
Yep. I JUST SAID THAT.
Posted 11/09/2009 at 02:02:42 PM