Good quote from "Who Stole Feminism?"

[errantember]

"The evidence that women have been excluded, and their abilities as thinkers and writers demeaned, is everywhere. But once a woman appreciates the extent to which culture and civilization have been male-dominated, two roads like before her. She can learn what she can be learned about womens' past achievements, and learn as well the reasons that their contributions to the larger enterprise were not greater; and she can then avail herself of the freedom she now has to accept the challenge to join with men on equal terms in the making of a new and richer culture. Or she can react to the cultural and scientific heritage as "androcentric" and move consciously to reconstruct the "knowledge base." It is at this juncture that equity and gender feminist academics begin to go their separate ways. The former stay within the bounds of traditional scholarship and join in its enterprise. The later seek to transform scholarship to make it "women-centered."

Who Stole Feminism by Christina Hoff Sommers, p. 55



I mentioned recently my belief that "life is less about finding your truth than it is about choosing your lies." This is a good illustration of that principle. Within the bound of women getting less press historically than men, it's very easy to support *either* of the two viewpoints above. And the responsibility for the worldview that results *and* the actions taken belongs to the chooser and the chooser alone. In this particular regard, "gender feminists" as Sommers dubs them, are creating a reality in which genuine inequalities are amplified to create a distorted worldview in which female oppression is far worse than it really is. No one is forcing them to do it. They choose it themselves.

Comments

[spottedvasa.livejournal.com]

I think it's fun and interesting to hear stories about certain amazing people we haven't heard much about because of their race, sex, etc. I don't think we should skip over important acheivements made by white men to meet some kind of race or gender quota, however. There's a sensible middleground somewhere.