Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Random Musing

Sometimes I think if modern feminists stopped focusing on children's toys, women's fashion, chivalry, and how middle-class white Western women like themselves were being oppressed, and directed their collective energy completely towards fighting domestic violence and countries where girls cannot walk to school without being raped, the latter problems might not be so prevalent-- and might even be abolished.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ummmm... can't they focus on both? And aren't they all sort of interconnected? Boys toys teach aggressiveness, physical violence, etc. Many girls toys teach passivity. Ignoring how boys are socialized doesn't help the whole domestic violence situation

Basiorana said...

There are many, many ways to help people who are actually oppressed without insisting that you yourself are also oppressed simply because you don't like a toy commercial or a sexist novelty toy.

A truck doesn't teach a boy to be violent. Parents and peers and television teach a boy (or girl) to be violent. You can't blame violence on toys, because then you are avoiding the real source-- repressed anger, bullies, emotional abuse, or peer pressure.

Anonymous said...

Basiorana, hi. I use the name raginfem at feministing.com and have loved the way you stand up to some of the people on that site, so I thought I'd say hi...

Anyway, I absolutely love the way you were saying that "sexist" toys aren't actually oppression. It just kind of hit me that you're right. I mean yes, socialization and social pressures to act a certain way due to gender are very real concerns, but a little girl isn't going to be brutally murdered for playing with Tonka trucks. And as a child I had a play kitchen and a play washer & dryer...and now I hate cleaning. Go figure, right? I actually just loved the noise the play washer made, the way you spun a handle around to "wash" the clothes.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but my point was that your point is a good one. I don't agree with everything you say, but sometimes those girls on feministing are just HARSH, you know? Their minds are as closed as some of the very men they criticize when it comes to this stuff. I'll be on your blog more probably...hope you don't mind. :)

Basiorana said...

I'm glad you understand, lately the Feministing group has been making me despair about feminism and it's good that there are still feminists out there who are more focused on what feminism was traditionally about-- enabling women to control and choose their lots in life.

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