Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

I dunno, fig…I feel your pain but have no good answers. I feel much the same when I matter of factly refer to myself as a feminist only to have people who allegedly know me well blink in confusion or call me out in disbelief saying something like “but you like porn/sports/men/stilettos/makeup/ballet/etc.” because that have that exact old tired “hairy man-hating lesbian” idea stuck in their heads as the definition of “feminist.”

I recently had a long and somewhat depressing discussion with a few friends about words that had been co-opted and twisted to resemble something so different and antithetical that they may be beyond rehabilitation…“liberal”, “socialism”, “marriage”, “Christian”, and “feminist” all came up. I don’t know what the answer is, but in the case of feminism, it seems like modern progressive people interested in liberation from gender roles and femininity/masculinity traps are handicapped by an outdated idea of feminism that the anti-feminists keep alive. Maybe we need a new word, something more obviously inclusive of men and women so we can stop arguing semantics and dragging around the baggage and put efforts into “getting shit done”.

Incidentally, the recaptcha words here were “elvis” and “visit”. Maybe a sign that the icon has left the building and it’s time to put the ghost to rest? :/

[I’ve got this very strong feeling, though, that any other word you come up with, as long as it’s got the broad outlines of the intentions of feminism, it’s going to wind up getting the same pejorative shellacking. But yeah, it’s kind of awesome how totally lodged in people’s brains that archetype of the feminist-as-harpy can be. It’s making me feel like I need to get out more, both to hear more about people’s fantasies of feminism and to do some re-inoculation. Thanks, Kaija. —fl]