thetammyjo
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quote:
ORIGINAL: NeedToUseYou
Well, I'm not that interested to take a course on it. As I said in my little world I've known I've never encountered unequal treatment of women as in being condoned by the government or society. Individual cases aren't really what a social movement is about.
But I find it hard to take a "movement" seriously that is so fractured in thought that it doesn't even agree on core principles anymore. As you are saying there are so many schools of feminism that it'd take a couple of semesters to understand them all. But doesn't a movement need unified goals in order to be called a movement? All the other social movements had defined goals they were working towards. So, wouldn't that imply the movement doesn't even really exist anymore in a practical way, as the different elements can't even come to a consensus on what they are trying to achieve.
If one can't define what you are working towards as in specific goals as a group, then there is no group, or unified school of thought for that matter. It would appear that "modern feminism" is just attaching itself to valid social movement of the past in order to gain credibility.
I'm not slamming feminism as I really see that as being a thing that had it's need, did it's thing, and then the name got hijacked and used to a large degree to promote unrelated philosphies(female supremacy) and paranoia(male conspiracy to dominate). So, when people are talking of modern day feminist, it has little to do with the true feminist movement of mid last century as that movement had goals and objectives. To put it plainly there were identifiable points inarguably the vast majority of the women identified as feminists agreed upon. Now, if that doesn't exist then it's just alot of little groups attaching to greater name.
It is very fragmented though I'd say the core principal is there just dealt with in an amazing number of ways. The "liberal" branch is the most organized and stable of them all perhaps because dealing with the law and with politics lends itself to requiring higher levels of organization. In a lot of ways feminism has become more philosophical and personal.
I think many social movements do fragment over time, as the decades tick away things change and new people come into the movements and have different agendas.
Feminism is at last two centuries old so I'm not surprised by the fragmentation.
How unified is the civil rights movement or even the much newer gay rights movement?
The "conservative" movement that gained a lot of power in the 1980s and continues is fairly unified but then it has a very interesting history. A history of very focused and purposeful organization which then tried to reach out to more people. In general social movements begin in much less organized ways. While I may be personally annoyed by some of these "conservative" causes (I could never claim to know all of them) I must confess I am impressed with their organizational level and the degree to which they fight to maintain a unified face.
Just a note: If someone said "Conservatives" do this or "Christians" do this or "Blacks" do this I'd be raising the same issues I have with comments about "Feminism". It is very tempting to make such generalizations (I do it and I feel horrible for it when I realized what I've done) but it isn't what I consider beneficial either on a personal or a social level.
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Love, Peace, Hugs, Kisses, Whips & Chains,
TammyJo
Check out my website at http://www.thetammyjo.com Or www.tammyjoeckhart.com
And my LJ where I post fiction in progress if you "friend" me at http://thetammyjo.livejournal.com/
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