Equality is equality, and doesn't need another name. If a man is treated badly for his gender, does he have less right to justice because he is a member of a group less often treated badly? Maybe not in theory, but in many people's actions, yes. I believe in equal rights, but I don't believe that is accomplished by focusing on one group of people.
Chuckk, while I can sympathize with this, I would also suggest that the goal of many feminists is not equality in the limited sense of "we get the same things as men." I hope that you don't take this as any kind of attack, because certainly this is not a reflection on you, but I am almost a little bored by that idea. After a certain point, doesn't the question become - how long will we keep chasing and catching up with men?
I think it depends when and where you are. I worked for 6 years with almost all women coworkers (data entry), and the us vs. them mentality was strong and loud. I told a coworker once about a woman in Thailand who had severed her husband's genitals because she suspected he was cheating; her response: "Well I guess he won't be cheatin no more." It was a hostile environment at times, and this was acknowledged and perfectly okay in some of my coworkers' minds because so many women at different times had been subjected to hostile environments by men. My point about equality is that we're not teams that need to even some score; maybe that's obvious to most of us, but I suspect we can't help sliding into that mentality sometimes. Else genital mutilation would be equally horrifying in all circumstances.
In my opinion (as a man though), the more interesting varieties of feminism also encompass a celebration (or expansion) of femininity.
Well said. That aspect I enjoy, but I still recoil from -isms.
The "feminine" does not have to be a static, rigid entity either - see Donna Harraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto", or feminist responses to Deleuze/Guattari's "rhizome". Economic justice does require some attention to the idea of equality, but it must an equality that is aware of difference, never turning a blind eye to it.. otherwise, how to address inequality? By turning back to some abstract enlightenment ideal, or by attending to the differences?
I think the best way is by understanding where it comes from (understanding is not the same as sympathizing, mind you). Something so universal throughout human history can't possibly be coincidence? Throughout most of history, survival was something people clung to desperately. The idea of sending women on a raid, or to hunt, or to sail across the ocean, was tantamount to slaughtering the next generation of infants. On the other hand, they could send all of the men except one and still have the same number of young born.
Obviously this is no longer the case in some parts of the world today, and, even more obviously, most of the disadvantages/horrors brought upon women based on gender were/are completely irrational if inspired by this line of thought; but I still think it's the main factor that has caused society to do these things since forever. A woman can have one baby a year, a man 365, and for that baby to be born the woman must be kept from physical danger. Or whatever else our superstitious, slime-worshiping ancestors thought might hurt their societies.
Anyway it remains to be seen whether humans can ever live peacefully for any length of time, and who knows if we'll last another 100 years. Here's hoping we all get the same rights as long as we do survive.
Also I am not a computer science type either (as much as I often wish I was, my degree is in art, so we are related in the $0 market), but I've been on an interesting ride so far in large part because of pd and this list/community, for which I am very grateful. You can tell by my ridiculous newbie questions from last summer :)
Also I found the mistake over Patrice really beautiful.
km
Heh, thanks. I'm male, by the way.
You know, the public transit between Philly and Jersey is called Patco, and at first I thought I had found another Pd user and Zappa fan in Philly.