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.


liza's picture

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Sour Duck's picture

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. Laughing out loud Eye-wink


Morgaine Swann's picture

There's no difference in my mind.

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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Poverty is an act of love and liberation. It has a redemptive value. If the ultimate cause of human exploitation and alienation is selfishness, the deepest reason for voluntary poverty is love of neighbor. Christian poverty has meaning only as a commitment of solidarity with the poor, with those who suffer misery and injustice. The commitment is to witness to the evil which as resulted from sin and is a breach of communion. It is not a question of idealizing poverty, but rather of taking it on as it is-an evil-to protest against it and to struggle to abolish it. As Ricoeur says, you cannot really be with the poor unless you are struggling against poverty. Because of this solidarity- which manifest itself in specific action, a style of life, a break with one%u2019s social class- one can also help the poor and exploitated to become aware of their exploitation and seek liberation from it. Christian poverty, and expression of love, is solidarity with the poor and is a protest against poverty. (Fn46) This is the concrete, contemporary meaning of the witness of poverty. It is a poverty lived not for its own sake, but rather as an authentic imitation of Christ; it is a poverty which means taking on the sinful human condition to liberate humankind from sin and all its consequences.


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