A question to my fellow feminists : Do I have to make a choice?
This is not a rhetorical question. Betty Friedan passed away a little over a week after Coretta Scott King's passing. With Rosa Park's death, we can comfortably say the golden age of activism is over, done, and buried under the sands of time.
Picketing will never be effective as a social tool for political change. Ever.
There is something else that their deaths bring up for me. In looking at archival pictures of these two women, and revisiting some of Betty Friedan's writing, I have to ask : Is social justice and equality and either/or proposition?
Do I have to choose this?
Over this?
And I picked these pictures deliberately. Look closely at these pictures and tell me what's so obvious about them.
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Activism | Feminism | Marriage | Parenting | Race | Reproductive Rights
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There's no difference in my mind.
Submitted by Morgaine Swann on 9 February 2006 - 6:48pm.
We're either all equal or there is no social justice of any kind. If one of us is oppressed, we are all oppressed in some way, and the idea that women should subordinate our rights for the greater good is bullshit. If it doesn't include us, it isn't enough. Not now, not ever.
Click on that link there and read the whole page. Then tell me what you think.
Support the Women's Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements!
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so, so wrong here, Liza
I enjoy your writing in general, and this piece, but here:
"Picketing will never be effective as a social tool for political change. Ever."
You're so, so wrong here. People are people. We understand the world through our bodies and through physical power. Amassing people outside a place of business or government office not only a) scares the shit out of those entities, but b) creates a "spectacle", and people love spectacle. Hence the news coverage of these types of activism.
Have I actually misunderstood you? As long as we live and breathe in these bodies, we will be impressed by the same physical presences that have always impressed us: height, weight, and sheer volume of people gathered together for one purpose.
These things don't change. Or, as I like to say in my corner (Sour Duck):
Culture, Not Technology
But overall I liked this piece.
Best,
SD
P.S. - If you've written before about how picketting isn't an effective form of activism, please point me to it (much appreciated); or, write more explaining why you feel this way. Or neither.
