May. 2nd, 2008

jack: (Default)
Unsurprisingly, I think a lot of it comes down to definition of terms. Identifying as a feminist feels like a big deal, because it's often used in a heated way. But saying you made two related decisions:

1. "I have decided that some problems that affect women are important to me, and something I will do things about"
2. "I have decided that attitude is described by the word feminist"

Are two decisions that are hard to criticise.

Read more... )

footnotes )
jack: (happy/hannukah)
In the last post, I suggested a hierarchy of being pro-X.

1. Thinking that X.
2. Thinking that X needs campaigning for.
3. Actively doing something about that
4. That being a defining feature of yourself
5. Thinking that X is one of few most important issues in society.

It seems many people felt (5) was extremely wrong, I'm not quite sure how to phrase it differently. There's a continuum from thinking X is true/good and I'm an X-ist, to X is overwhelmingly important. Almost any cause has extremists, and they have to go somewhere on the scale, and they go in (5), but (5) also includes people who justifiably believe in the overwhelming importance of X.

Agh. Look behind you, a distracting Richard Dawkins! )

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