For example, many women seem to feel that because another woman is privileged in some way, or because her lifestyle is different, or her actions distasteful, she is not deserving of the basic rights we as feminists demand all women have — namely, control over our bodies and the way in which our bodies are discussed. Celebrities are routinely slammed with decidedly non-feminist language when they exercise their right to alter their bodies, especially when said alteration is of a body part which is perceived as sexual in nature, like say, a boob job. They’re referred to as “plastic”, their choices derided as superficial and detrimental to women, called “bimbo”, “Barbie”, “slut”, “whore”. Do female celebrities exempt themselves from the protections of feminism because they have money and fame? Is it true that when a woman becomes famous, she’s traded in her right to not have her body denigrated and her choices regarding her body respected? I understand that being in the public eye puts you in the line of fire for snarky comments, but should we as feminists be the ones shooting? As I understand feminism, it applies to all women, and an attack on one subgroup of women puts the larger group equally open to attack. A woman should not be “Othered” because she’s overly privileged.

If it’s okay for people to comment negatively on say, Kate Hudson’s surgically altered body, then it follows that it’s fair game for people to comment negatively on Gabourey Sidibe’s body size. Most self-described feminists, or feminist refugees, would object to that comparison. But the fact remains that both women deserve the right to have agency over their bodies without judgment or condemnation. You can’t have your Kate and Gabby too. Either all women have that right or none do, if we believe in the basic tenets of feminism. Express your disappointment that women feel they need to alter their bodies to succeed in an appearance-obsessed industry, but don’t attack the woman’s choice to alter her body.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the example of Tina Fey’s classist, sexist attack on Bombshell McGee is a pertinent one because those kinds of feelings are expressed by many women on a regular basis, not just famous comedic writers/performers. In situations where an affair has taken place, the default is to eviscerate the mistress and not the cheating husband. Whether it happens to a woman in the public eye or to the woman down the street, wives are cast as the long-suffering madonnas and the mistresses as the home-wrecking whores. Why do so many women blame not their husband for cheating on them, but the woman he cheated with for “luring” him into that situation? One might answer that men are expected to be unable to control their sexual desires, but the other woman should “know better” or have some kind of sisterhood with the wife. Breaking that perceived bond of sisterhood means the other woman is no longer welcome to benefit from the protections of feminism — she is fair game. Her body, her morals, her values are all legitimate topics for public discourse. Once again, the woman is Othered by her distasteful-to-some actions.

I would think it would be fairly clear why selective feminism is a slippery slope. However, many women will fight tooth and nail for their right to body snark, or blame other women for a man’s actions, or look down on women who make choices they don’t agree with. Only when the tables are turned on them do they understand why we need to support even straight, able-bodied, cis-gendered, rich, white women’s choices in regards to their bodies. Yes, these same women have been responsible for the erasure of many marginalized groups’ lived experiences in the past (and unfortunately, sometimes in the present). But it’s a testament to the success of feminism and vocal, visible marginalized feminists that most of us now recognize and support the rights of women of color, trans women, queer women, and many other truly oppressed groups of women. However, it appears we need to again have the backs of those who feminism, in its nascent form, was designed for — the privileged. Because if we don’t, we’re all back at square one.

[Original post at Jezebel]

A popular (white) misconception is that fat is more acceptable in the black community. This is patently untrue. Hip-hop culture is often pointed to when one is making this argument. If you watch any hip-hop music videos at all, it’s clear to see that the fat on the women featured is in specific places. Booty, hips, tits. As the inimitable Sir Mix-A-Lot stated, “When a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist and a round thing [booty] in your face, you get sprung.” (emphasis supplied) There is definitely a line between acceptable fat and unacceptable fat. Those fat women who are fortunate enough to be considered “thick” are subject to an even more extreme hypersexualization of their bodies than average sized or thin black women are. As the features considered sexually desirable not only by black men but also white men are exaggerated on a fat female body, these women are often portrayed as more sexually available, yet can also be portrayed as ghetto princess or hoochie — “Jezebel” and “Sapphire”. But cross that line dividing “thick fat” and “just fat” and you quickly enter the territory of the desexualized fat black woman: the Precious, the mammy. Let’s take the recent example of Gabourey Sidibe, who portrayed Precious, and who basically served as a dumping ground for all the issues people have with fat, specifically, black female fat. This is the type of fat black woman continually mocked by black men in drag. Namely, characters like Eddie Murphy’s Rasputia in Norbit, Tyler Perry’s Madea in any number of his movies, Martin Lawrence’s Shanaynay and Big Mama, and Jamie Foxx’s Wanda on In Living Color. These characters are either considered too old to be sexual and are subject to the mammy stereotype, or their sexuality is portrayed as a joke, something disgusting to be avoided. Clearly the black community is not the utopia of body acceptance white America often believes it to be.

Of course, the way fat is treated in the black community only reflects how fat is treated in mainstream culture and the fashion community. However, as “curvy” — not too fat, now — is becoming more acceptable in the fashion world, it’s clear the main shade of acceptable curvy is white. When Glamour magazine featured 7 nude plus size models in their November 2009 issue, only one — Anansa Sims, daughter of straight size supermodel Beverly Johnson — was black or even of color. This despite the fact that there are many more black plus size models out there, and despite the fact that the fat fashion blogosphere — an engine driving the plus sized clothing industry — is filled with examples of fat black women interested in fashion and modeling their clothes. In fact, one of the first and most popular fat fashion blogs, Young Fat & Fabulous, is run by a black woman.

So why are black, female, fat fashion bloggers, many of whom drive considerable income towards the plus size fashion industry via their blogs, not seeing themselves adequately represented in this new curvy trend? The “fatshion” movement has made it obvious to the mainstream fashion establishment that there is a market out there for fashion-forward clothing in larger sizes. Any survey of the fatshion blogosphere will tell you that a great percentage of that market is black. Why are mainstream fashion mags so reluctant to include black plus size models in their spreads, and why do the “high fat fashion” retailers use all white faces as their representatives? It definitely has something to do with the aversion to using black straight size models on runways and in fashion spreads. Unless you’re Alek Wek and the photographer needs the color of the clothes to “pop” against your dark skin. If thin blackness is unwelcome, imagine a double-whammy of fat blackness. Since black women’s bodies tend to have an exaggeratedly feminine shape, it could be the tendency of fashion designers to pick androgynous shapes to model their clothes. Plus size white models don’t usually have a very exaggerated sexualized shape. So this goes back to society’s issues with black women’s bodies in general. Since black women are stereotyped so often as being loose or hypersexual, any emphasis placed on sexualized body parts due to their size compounds the problem. Better to leave that can of worms alone and just work with the non-black models.

Until the straight size world fully accepts their black models, plus size black models are unlikely to achieve any more success than their thin sisters. Unfortunately neither of these things seem likely to happen soon. We as plus size women are expected to be happy with what we’re given, sighing “At least we’re making some progress.” Yet in the fashion world progress is so often followed by regress. We as fashion consumers and drivers of commerce need to continue to work to represent our diversity in the hopes that mainstream fashion will take notice, and that this won’t just be another trend. Hopefully the increasing popularity of blogs such as Young Fat and Fabulous, Musings of a Fatshionista, and on the Latina spectrum, Fatshionable will send a message to the plus size fashion establishment that we want representation of all plus size women, not just the white models we see all too often in plus size spreads. Tokenism is not acceptable. Throwing one model of color in there to satisfy all people of color is unacceptable. Real diversity needs to occur before the typical plus size fashion model truly reflects those who drive the industry’s commerce. Retailers need to recognize the power these plus size blogging titans wield. Just by posting an outfit they threw on, these bloggers can inspire hundreds of fat women to go out and buy the exact same outfit.

This is an ongoing problem mirrored by the lack of meaningful inclusion of straight size black models, and like that problem, it will only be solved if we continually critique the fashion establishment and in the case of fat fashion, unpack the privilege that white plus size models (and white plus size women) enjoy at this point. Until the facts of the situation are laid bare, no work can be done to change it. With this, I’m attempting to lay down a foundation and start a dialog.

[Original post at Racialicious]

I don’t want to go all Calculon on you by saying I was filled with a large number of powerful emotions, but I actually was. I was unplugged and I could hear myself thinking without the background noise of the fan keeping my laptop from burning my palms as I type. I thought about how my whole life is in light; fiber optics transmitting my thoughts to people I’ll probably never meet, silicon holding my words only to be revealed by the tickle of electricity sent to circuits triggered by the touch of my finger to a button. Where do my words go when I’m gone? The frantic pace of the Internet makes me feel that if I don’t check in every few hours, or every day, or every other day, all memory of me will vanish. Do people read my blog archives? Or do they simply absorb the missive I’ve sent for the day, then dash off to some other blog, where they’ll read something else that scoots my words out of the way to implant themselves in their place? If I didn’t post for a month, would you remember who I was? All you know of me is light. My picture appears to you in pixels and photons, but you don’t know the flesh behind them. And this is true for all of us who inhabit this world, who put their words out for consumption in blog form or comment form or tweet form or e-mail form. When we’re all gone, — all of us, including you — what will be left of us to know?

I’m a realist, I don’t expect our current mode of civilization to last for a thousand years or even a hundred years if we keep doing what we’re doing with no major modifications. When the time comes that there are no more working DVD players to play our DVDs, when our infrastructure is so dilapidated that we can’t access what’s left of the Internet, when there’s no electricity being generated to power our communications towers and our orbiting satellites come crashing to Earth from lack of maintenance, how will we remember what we are? How will whatever civilization rises after us, comprised of whatever beings have replaced us, know who we were? Civilizations we consider ancient today used decidedly more low tech materials to share their information, and we can pore over them today. We only need other low tech writings to teach us how to interpret the strange symbols their society used to communicate. I can’t even begin to figure out what a shiny CD has on it without benefit of fancy technology that, in our future as it stands to become now, will no longer exist. I can’t take out my laptop’s hard drive and flip through the circuits to find that short story I wrote 2 years ago. I can’t tell you one damn thing about what’s on that drive except through the low tech method of retelling memories — what I can remember about what I had on there. It’s kind of frightening to me, this impermanence. It feels like the knowledge about this golden age of history is a mere electromagnetic pulse away from becoming nothingness. I know, I know, I’m getting all existential up in this piece. But if you sit with it, it leaves you cold.

That’s why I’m obsessed with notebooks and pens and paper and books, why I’m putting together an anthology telling stories of women of color on paper, why I’m not too keen on e-books and I still buy CDs — hey, at least the liner notes and lyrics will still be readable. I don’t advocate some kind of neo-Luddite existence. I don’t think we need to start carving stone tablets. Just write some. Papryus is still around, I have hope that archival quality, acid-free paper will be too. Write your memories, journal daily, write your speculative autobiography. Write your parents’ or your significant other’s biographies. Leave your story for the climate refugees of the 2100s to read. Go out with your friends and tell each other your stories and write those down. Don’t let the only ones remembered be the ones lucky enough to get their words in print before the clock runs out.

Now excuse me while I go finish reading that book I’m almost finished with.

[Original post at Feministe]

I’m sure you remember the “no hijabs in public schools” ban France passed in 2004 after almost a decade debating it, barring students from wearing a headscarf or any other piece of clothing that would indicate the religion of the student wearing it. To be fair, that does include Jewish yarmulkes and cross necklaces, however, the surrounding debate was particularly focused on the Muslim hijab. It just seems that since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Western countries have been not-so-subtly putting their Islamophobia on display.

Of course, this is not to say that all Muslim women disagree with the banning of the burqa or niqab. Some Muslim feminists have spoken out in favor of the ban. I fully support the right of Muslim women to not be forced to wear face-covering veils. However, I think banning religious clothing at the governmental level is taking the issue in a scary direction. I believe in choices, and banning burqas and niqabs eliminates the ability of women who actually wear the veils of their own volition to continue to make the choice to wear them, however few the women may be that make that choice. The author of the Huffington Post article, Caryl Rivers, makes a lot of good points, but I really do believe that in order to truly gain equal rights for Muslim women in their culture it’s going to have to come from changing Muslim men’s “hearts and minds” and not changing Muslim women’s clothing.

In the Salon article linked above, Eqyptian feminist Mona Eltahawy states:

I support banning the burqa because I believe it equates piety with the disappearance of women. The closer you are to God, the less I see of you — and I find that idea extremely dangerous. It comes from an ideology that basically wants to hide women away. What really strikes me is that a lot of people say that they support a woman’s right to choose to wear a burqa because it’s her natural right. But I often tell them that what they’re doing is supporting an ideology that does not believe in a woman’s right to do anything. We’re talking about women who cannot travel alone, cannot drive, cannot even go into a hospital without a man with them. And yet there is basically one right that we are fighting for these women to have, and that is the right to cover their faces. To tell you the truth, I’m really outraged that people get into these huge fights and say that as a feminist you must support a women’s right to do this, because it’s basically the only kind of “right” that this ideology wants to give women. Otherwise they get nothing.

I agree with her on basically every point she makes, yet I can’t reconcile my feelings about government-enforced bans on religious clothing. I just don’t think that simply legally preventing women from wearing burqas, niqabs, or hijabs is going to cause transformative change in Islamic culture. This is a crude analogy, but it seems like banning black women from relaxing their hair. Yes, black women would be unable to cowtow to the oppressive beauty standards forced on us by Western culture, but would their minds be freed as well? Would black men suddenly stop desiring women with long, straight hair? With the banning of burqas and niqabs, are sexist, oppressive Muslim men and the governments they run suddenly going to stop treating women like second-class citizens? I don’t see that happening. Western governments using women’s rights as an excuse to ban Muslim religious garments just smells like Islamophobia couched in “progressive” rhetoric. Some leaders in the U.K. have actually voiced their concern over the “growing threat of Islamism“.

So what can we expect this ban on face-covering veils to do for Muslim women’s rights in France? Eltahawy had this to say:

What I hope it will do is that it will create a situation where a woman can say to a man, look, you know that I have to go out and work so that we can continue to live here, and I can’t go out with my face covered, even though you want me to, because that’s what the law says. I hope the law gives women this kind of out. I have no idea if that’s actually going to happen or not.

I can’t get behind legislation like this when the only benefit for women would be that you get to tell your husband that you’re required by law to not wear the veil, and the many benefits for the government and Islamophobic French people include not having to be visually reminded there’s Muslims in their communities and also stopping the spread of “Islamism”. I don’t trust the women’s rights angle at all from Western governments when it comes to Islam. We continue to ally with countries that do much more than just expect women to cover themselves head to toe when in public — we’re in bed with countries that beat and jail women who have been gang raped and impregnated because the rape constituted the woman committing adultery. I personally don’t think her lack of burqa helped at all in that situation.

So I’m not exactly joining the cheerleading squad because France decided its Islamophobia was good for women’s rights. Of course I don’t want Muslim women to be forced to cover themselves head to toe. But I firmly believe true change in the Islamic world will never come via simply outlawing certain types of clothing, and I question the veracity of France’s reasons for doing so. The fact that they’re mentioning things like “defining and protecting French values” sounds eerily familiar and to me, is more of a nationalist concern than a concern for women’s rights.

There needs to be substantive change in Muslim men’s attitudes towards Muslim women rather than superficial change mandated by a government that seeks to erase those parts of immigrant populations they find distasteful.

[Original post at Feministe]

I’m not going to critique any of the above-referenced articles, nor am I going to offer an opinion of whether or not Olivia Munn is qualified to be on The Daily Show. What I am going to talk about is the fact that I’m tired of middle to upper class white cissexual Internet feminist all-stars dominating the debate over what is acceptable in feminism and what isn’t. I’m not saying these women aren’t talented writers; they are. But I want to see myself (not literally, although of course that would be nice — a chick’s gotta eat) and other marginalized feminists represented in the feminist all-star constellation. I want to read articles in WaPo and Slate and Salon and the NY Times by marginalized women dealing with issues that actually affect us, and don’t involve pot meeting kettle. I want to see articles on the big woman-oriented blogs that deal with intersectionality, that talk about deeper issues, and that inspire me to think and take action other than reaching for the Tylenol.

Tangentially, but also related in a way, I want to raise a concern I’ve had for a while about the name of the Slate woman-oriented blog “XX Factor”. Titling your blog after a set of chromosomes that not every woman has and not every man does not have is, to me, extremely transphobic and also ignores intersex folks with varying sets of chromosomes (because it ain’t just XX or XY). It completely erases trans women as women, and it is really appalling to me. Why should I take a woman-oriented blog seriously that clearly doesn’t understand or apparently doesn’t care about intersectionality or exclusion of certain women? Cutesy names don’t make up for erasure of identities.

Examples like the one given in the above paragraph are what I mean when I say we need representation of marginalized women on the big, ostensibly feminist, woman-oriented blogs like Jezebel, Salon’s Broadsheet, and Slate’s XX Factor (well with them, we need a name change as well). The discourse is controlled by women for whom sexism against white cis women seems to be their main focus. We need to stop looking to these white middle/upper class cissexual feminist role models for instructions on how to interpret feminism or on how to apply feminist principles to media critique. We need prominent marginalized women who have more than paid their feminist/womanist dues to offer a fresh and very much needed perspective.

What’s interesting to me about these large woman-oriented sites is that when you look closely, they’re actually not explicitly feminist. That’s why I keep referring to them as “woman-oriented” or “ostensibly feminist”. Writing articles that appeal to women does not mean that they’re feminist articles. For example, Jezebel’s tagline is “Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing.” XX Factor’s tagline is simply “What Women Really Think.” Salon’s Broadsheet just doesn’t say anything, as far as I can tell. Basically, these sites can simply fall back on the fact that they never said they were feminist. So maybe we shouldn’t be expecting representative feminist content from these blogs. When questionable content pops up on these sites, like Hanna Rosin’s critique of Al Gore’s accuser (which, to be fair, she did later follow up with a sort-of “I was wrong” post) on XX Factor, or the Emily Gould anti-Jezebel article, also on XX Factor, what standard can you hold them to? Emily Gould is a woman, and she wrote what she “Really Thinks”. I guess that’s all you can ask for when they’re not specifically identifying themselves as a feminist site. These sites are simply woman-oriented. Not all women are feminists.

Marginalized feminists/womanists need to have the door unlocked so we can finally kick it down and get some actual representation alongside the current white cis feminist all-stars. Unfortunately, those same white cis feminists are holding the keys to the door. The only way we’re going to get that door unlocked is to continue to point out the lack of meaningful diversity among the feminist gatekeepers and insist that our voices be heard. We need to make it their problem. We need to “show our color”.

[Original post at Feministe]

Oh, and don’t forget pantiliners to catch that oh-so-bothersome inter-period discharge. Because sometimes underwear just doesn’t do the job. And remember to wash with those special cleansers from Summer’s Eve and Massengill. Your nether regions deserve their own kind of cleansing. Then you can finish off both the harmful and helpful bacteria with a nice douche from one of the leading douche brands. Ah, I love using the word “douche”. If that douche left you a little itchy, reach for the Vagisil and hope you don’t actually need the Monistat.

If I were to buy all the “feminine hygiene” products I apparently need, I’d go broke. Interestingly enough, unless you count Axe body spray (which I don’t), there’s no equivalent market for male-identified folk. People, if you’ve come close to a male-identified person’s junk at any point in time, you know that they are not devoid of “intimate smells”. In fact they can be quite rife with them. Which is fine, apparently, because I don’t see a lot of say, “Autumn’s Night Men’s Personal Wash” on the market. Something tells me society doesn’t care if a male-identified person’s junk stinks. Or at least, no one shames them into worrying about their junk stink.

Apparently the extreme concern over unhygienic female-identified people’s genitals goes as far back as 22 C.E. And I’m sure we’ve all heard the stories about those who menstruate being isolated in their own abode until Aunt Flo had left back in the Middle Ages (and still today in some cultures). In the ’30s, Lysol started advising through advertising that vagina-possessing individuals should douche with their product to avoid losing their (presumably) man’s interest. I’m not sure what Lysol was made out of in the ’30s, but if it’s anything like what it’s made of today that sounds like a Bad Idea. And yet the concern over “feminine odor” overshadowed any dubious feelings people may have had about shooting an industrial disinfectant up their cooters. Lysol also claimed that douching with their product would act as a contraceptive. Significantly, douching with Lysol went out of favor once the birth control pill was introduced to the market. Something tells me it was more pleasurable to simply swallow a pill than douche with a hospital-grade disinfectant.

What with all the new extraneous grooming products available to the male-identified today, I have trouble understanding why no one has entered the untapped market of “masculine hygiene”. Maybe a pre-oral wipe to make it easier on the one performing the act. Or a special wash that can be used when a wipe just isn’t cutting it. And why not add some special powders to keep the genital area dry and smelling like Old Spice. If no one gets into this business soon I think I might throw my hat in the ring. In the day and age of Axe, Tag, and Swagger, male-identified folk seem ripe for believing they need special products just for their nethers.

But enough with the wry humor and sarcasm. The fact that the female-identified alone are thought to be the bearers of such bad scents while those who are not get a pass just underscores the deeply rooted sexism and body-negativity in our society. That we wouldn’t even think twice while passing an aisle in the store SOLELY dedicated to the eradication of “feminine” odor shows how ingrained in our culture it is that when you are female-identified, you have a responsibility to God and country to keep that sewer under wraps. We get it in jokes involving a fish smell and some female-identified person needing to close her legs. Honestly, I’ve smelled fish odor emanating from all manner of junk. Basically, ALL JUNK STINKS. Period. So we really need to get over the idea that only female-identified people need to worry about it.

[Original post at Red Vinyl Shoes]

Naturally, the major controversy brewing around her has to do with Fakih’s Arab Muslim heritage, which she actually has barely discussed, and she in fact stated that her family celebrates both Muslim and Christian holidays. But what ideologue cares about facts? Conservative radio talk show host Debbie Schlussel actually charged that Fakih’s bid to win the pageant was financed by Hezbollah terrorists. Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin charged that the contest was fixed, because Fakih made a number of perceived mistakes, such as almost tripping over her gown and, in the Q&A portion of the competition, referring to birth control pills as a “controlled substance”. “Fox and Friends” host Gretchen Carlson suggested that runner up Morgan Elizabeth Woolard (aka Miss Oklahoma) was robbed of the crown due to her answer to a question posed during the Q&A section on the Arizona immigration law. Woolard stated that she supported the law.

That these kind of accusations are being leveled at a Miss USA pageant winner, of all people, highlights the extreme bigotry towards Arabs and Muslims that has been allowed to fester unchecked since September 11, 2001. Any Arab or Muslim who does something “suspicious” like, say, wearing a trench coat, is immediately assumed to be a terrorist or associated with terrorists. Some members of Congress (I’m looking at you, Joe Lieberman) want to enact a law that would strip any American citizen thought to be associated with anyone remotely involved with terrorism of their citizenship. This is a drastic step, and it’s clear which ethnic group would be primarily targeted by the law.

In Edward Said’s Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, he states: “It is only a slight overstatement to say the Muslims and Arabs are essentially covered, discussed, apprehended, either as oil suppliers or as potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab Muslim life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Islamic World.” That was written in 1981, and it still resonates today. Images of Muslims/Arabs in mass media conform to stereotypes — the woman rescued from her oppression by the Muslim religion, the terrorist, the angry academic bordering on terrorist, the oil sheik. Representations of Muslims/Arabs are mostly two-dimensional caricatures. Comedians and television writers decry their inability to show cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, crying censorship and pointing to offensive portrayals of Christians’ Jesus as proof that Western religion is so much more tolerant. To prove that tolerance, instead of mocking another religion’s revered prophet, you could promote positive representation of members of that religion in media.

Immediately dismissing an Arab Muslim Miss USA pageant winner as having ties to terrorism, as if Islamic terrorists are interested in who wins the Miss USA pageant (when they clearly despise any Western artifice) proves Said’s point. Even a beauty queen is a potential terrorist threat. Insinuating that she only won not because of her performance but because of a form of “affirmative action” dismisses Fakih’s participation in the pageant as mere puppetry, since the contest was already decided in her favor the minute she entered it.

In a country where Arab Muslims are so reviled, Fakih’s success in the pageant was somewhat of a milestone. Of course, having an Arab Miss USA doesn’t really help the situation of Muslims or Arabs in the country overall, and the conservative backlash against her win is disheartening. But for a population so marginalized, it does offer an all too brief glimpse of inclusion.

[Original post at Red Vinyl Shoes]

Carly Fiorina is running for the Republican nomination for one of California’s two Senate seats, currently held by Democrat Barbara Boxer. A self-made multimillionaire and former CEO of HP, she’s earned the right to play the big money game with the men running against her. Endorsed by Sarah Palin in her oddly admirable but entirely misguided quest to elevate conservative women candidates, Fiorina is now the favorite in the Republican primary. If she wins, she will run against Boxer, who has nowhere near the amount of money Fiorina has.

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman is the former CEO of eBay, and also came into her wealth through business. Her main opponent in the primary is state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who also gained his wealth through high tech business. Both Poizner and Whitman have spent masses of their personal fortunes battling it out — $80 million for Whitman, $23 million for Poizner.

These women are part of a new wave of conservative feminism, which apparently views women’s advancement in the workplace and politics to be the most important tenet of actual feminism. Basically, these conservative feminist leaders have decided that the advancement of women to the upper echelons of business — something they have already achieved — is what feminism should really be about. Behind the complicated, self-invalidating beliefs pairing the “right to life” with an exhortation to protect women and children and their token glorification of the homemaker is just the basic white feminist desire to finally reach that level of equality with men in regards to power and most importantly, privilege. Once the smoke clears, wealthy conservative feminist candidates will likely discontinue the rhetoric exalting homemaking as one of the most important things a woman can do. By opposing ideas like subsidized child care, access to birth control, and legal abortion, these women will actually make things worse for any homemaker not privileged by race and wealth.

Sarah Palin has cited Margaret Thatcher as a conservative feminist hero, even though Thatcher made it clear she did not desire to be called such, stating “I owe nothing to feminism”. This illustrates an important point: feminist does not mean “strong woman”. Conservative feminists conflate the two entirely, which is why they feel they can get away with calling themselves feminists while holding beliefs and supporting causes antithetical to feminism. By labeling every female Republican primary candidate “feminist” when they mean “strong woman” they seek to redefine the word so that they can appropriate it for their own benefit.

Being that the apparent leaders of the burgeoning conservative feminist “movement” are extremely privileged, it’s hard to believe they will advocate for anyone but those at their own level of privilege. If you take a look at those calling themselves conservative feminists, the vast majority of them are white. Their complete lack of focus on issues concerning women of color combined with the lack of representation of women of color in their movement belies their populist claims of “sisterhood”. As with families, in this movement your sister tends to look a lot like you. In that sense, conservative feminism hearkens back to the days when more liberal feminists sought to marginalize women of color, lesbian women, and poor women. This is not surprising, as conservatism tends to look backward rather than forward.

The conservative feminist movement desires to reap the rewards of the strides made by actual feminists without actually having to agree or support the whole of feminist ideology. By taking feminism and removing the tenets that are disagreeable to them, which happen to be the most important tenets, their message basically amounts to a sophisticated exhortation of “girl power”. But this girl power is solely available to those it benefits the most — wealthy, white, cisgendered women. Poor women, working class women, women of color, trans women, and other traditionally marginalized groups cannot see themselves in this movement because it is not designed for them. Real inclusive feminism sees the struggles of all women to be important, internal or external, as evidenced by the oft-quoted feminist refrain that “the personal is political”. This conservative feminism wants nothing to do with the personal unless it’s used as bait to reel in less privileged conservative women who will ultimately not be served by the movement at all.

Feminists who believe in actual social justice for all women, who work towards advancing related causes, must be vocal about the appropriation of the term “feminist”. As Kate Harding pointed out, “words mean things”. Working for, not against, women’s basic rights, including the right to choose, is a central tenet of feminism. Conservative “feminists” seek a redefinition that excludes that which is most important about the movement they are co-opting. We need to force them to come up with their own word.

[Original post at Red Vinyl Shoes]