Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Eeminism etc.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines feminism as "Belief  in or advocacy of women's  social political, and economic rights, especially with regard to equality of the sexes." Also '"the movement organized around this belief." Strictly speaking, that is so. But, not so strictly speaking, it may extend to any woman of great distinction who thus advances the cause of women. Whereby it may be argued that Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, Hypatia (the victim of a Christian mob), and Byzantiine empress Theodora were a kind of accidental feminists.

But as the old-time proclaimed feminists knew, the right to vote (i.e., suffrsge) underlies every kind of equality with men. and that is what activists like Susan B.Anthony and Emmeline B. Pankhurst, the so-called suffragettes. primarily aimed at.

Feminism takes on a different aspect according to the era and society in which it is practiced, and, to be sure, like all isms--patriotism, nationalism, certainly populism, but even rationalism--it can be exaggerated into fanaticism. I was surprised by even the worthy Maureen Dowd, in her Times column, claiming it was all right for a boss to compliment  a female employee on 'a short dress, but only if he had already praised the wearer as a human being.

This strikes me as peculiar, as if you could express respect for an elephant's being able to climb on a kettledrum only if you had previously exalted the entire species. The tiny bit of flirtatiousness does not strike me as being culpable as a prelude to attempted abuse.

But I do assent to feminism for having denounced sex for the sake of gaining advancement or keeping a job, as if the victim were always somehow complicit in a dirty business. And I consider it appropriate if people in high positions are fired or induced into resigning for some sort of sexual exploitation in the past. Altogether I have difficulties with the statute of limitations, as if, say, a murder only solved and acted upon twenty years later were less of a crime. The assumption is that the perpetrator has become a repentant, better person. But isn't the very sense of having got away with something thoroughly reprehensible for a long time encouragement enough to depraved others to follow suit?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     The poster boy, so to speak, for male dominance of the most odious sort is HarveyWeinstein, however instrumental he was as producer of deserving, often foreign, movies. A good deed does not justify other bad ones, and physical grossness is not exonerated by professional savvy.
An ugly man can be a good person, and a handsome one a bastard. But somehow I cannot help feeling, as I see Weinstein on television, that something about him was too unappealing not to be avoided. Or is that merely a piece of wisdom attained a posteriori? I have similar feelings about Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, Charley Rose, Matt Lauer, and several others, and think that I have disliked them from way back. But, in all honesty I cannot be sure that this is not all after the fact. Moreover, unlikableness is not tantamount to any sort of guilt.And yet, and yet. . .

Particularly divisive, and anti-feminist, is the anti-abortionist stance. It seems to me that any woman wanting an abortion should be accorded one. Wishing not to have a baby and going to considerable lengths not to have one, is almost certainly a guarantee that you would not make a good mother. But note that "almost." It can be assumed, as it is by many, that having that adorable baby in the hands would make the most hardened feminist turn into mush, But a baby is also a lot of work, starting with all that diaper changing, and good many babies end up abandoned or, worse yet, found in the garbage.So I can see both the pro and the con in this issue.

But where the feminists can do the greatest good is in battling the NRA. Whoever had to fight for equal rights can put her fighting spirit to good use in combating the gun lobbyists and the right-to-lifers. And as long as the glass ceiling still obtains in a good many places, we still need feminist warriors embattled. If that makes them, as others would have it, less feminine, so be it: a woman will  remain a woman no matter her politics, and what a wonderful thing that is.

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awaiting period

    To save my own life,
    If I can't use a gun,
    A retroactive abortion,
    No statute of limitation,
    The perp/vic snared,
    My new gender declared?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gender crisis

      To save my own life,
      If I can't use a gun,
      A retroactive abortion,
      No statute of limitation,
      The perp/vic vacuumed,
      My new identity assumed?

      Delete
  3. Surprised here reading Mr. Simon write admiringly of Maureen Dowd. She personifies the opposite of everything I admire in Mr. Simon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As he once criticized Neil LaBute, despite his impressive curriculum vitae, Dr. Simon commits numerous spelling and punctuation errors! (For a moment, I assumed “Eeminism” was an allusion to the chemically enhanced rapper whose mouth should instead be WRAPPED in Gorilla Tape.)

    One can only hope that after losing the patronage of Ms. Ono, our nonagenarian relies on an unlettered maid or medicare assistant for digital transcription! Even without an editor, a prime-time Simon would never have countenanced such solecisms.

    Careful readers familiar with John Ivan Simon's oeuvre will recognize this critique as a good-natured homage to the man who (at times, quite literally) wrote the dictionary!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. At 92 the fingers may not work perfectly. No big whup.

      Delete
  5. I couldn't think of much to add to Simon's essay here (yet). My brain won't get working. What are my thoughts on Feminism? I don't really know. I'd have to do a lot of research because I don't know the history or much of the particulars. I'm too lazy to get that done. I remember the cliche > "Women, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em." I don't know if I agree with that statement or not. I prefer to reside by myself. No people would be my druthers.

    Instead, I'll let you in on a little secret I've been keeping. I started a part-time job a couple months ago for some extra chicken feed. This requires me to go to stores and "covertly" (their word) check product prices on the shelf and then enter the price into an app on my phone. I started to get bored after a few weeks, so I decided to begin entering the wrong prices. I did this for awhile and then I slowly started to widen the gap between the real price and the price I entered. I've gotten to the point where a bottle of Heinz catsup costs $38.89. A lawn mower at Wal-Mart is listed at $2.67 (it's on "Rollback")

    I've been doing this for over two months and nobody has said a word to me. Now, does this mean I'm a bad person? They only pay me 10 dollars an hour.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Careful, UK, pulling pranks at work leads to disaster!
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJSey8HRUhU

      Delete
    2. So FUNNY! Was there any troupe better than Python? No!

      Delete
  6. "Now, does this mean I'm a bad person?" Well, Quentin Crisp said that whatever is done for money is sacred. For me, there is a divorce between non-working life (which I live morally) and working life (which is for me an almost-pagan devotion and service to a paymaster). So I wouldn't say what you're doing is immoral, but you are probably hurting yourself more than the company, esp. if they catch on to what you're doing and refuse to give you a good reference in the future.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Truthfully, I only did it once just to see what would happen. I expanded the situation to make a good story.

      I do that a lot. I get bored and I tell tall tales. You should hear some of the stories I tell my kids at bedtime. Classic.

      Delete