So many different levels of feminist thought/action these days, it's hard for me to keep track. Since Jan Haugland of Secular Blasphemy is generally accurate about setting off article quotes from his own commentary, I must assume that quotes like:

...nothing enrages militant marxist feminists more than a beautiful woman...

and:

Radical ...feminists get rid of some of the testosterone they obviously have in abundance.

are Jan's rather than quotes from the original article (I can't translate Norwegian, so I can't say for sure).

On first blush, it is easy to distance myself from the actions of these vandals, since I do not consider myself "militant," "marxist," or "radical." I do consider myself a feminist, but my concerns are more focused on things like "equal pay for equal work" than on "the 'commercialisation' of women's bodies." I mean, as long as we get to commercialize men's bodies, too, I'm game. ;-)

But I'm not surprised by the fact that the two phrases I called out above struck me personally despite the qualifications. I suspect that Jan won't be surprised by that either – ire is probably the single emotion most commonly ascribed to feminists.

I can't speak for Jan's political beliefs and experiences, so this is an examination of why his particular phraseology hit a nerve with ME, not a request for political correctness from HIM (anyone who wants to call me the P.C. police has never heard me speak!). My experiences come from the perspective of a woman living in the U.S. while Jan's come from the perspective of a man living in Norway, after all.

In this country, "feminist" has become more of an invective than even "liberal," even among many liberals. Oh, of course even we who define ourselves as liberal don't cluck our tongues at ALL feminists; only those with extra qualifications, like "militant, radical, marxist," maybe even "lesbian." The popular term on the right in the U.S. for this particular "brand" of feminism, supposing for a moment that it can be categorized in such a broad stroke, is the Limbaugh invention, "femiNazi."

Who is this creature? Why, she is the very embodiment of man-hating, unfeminine, bitter, unappeasable person of the female gender that harkens back to the first slams against women who refused to "keep their place." From the early suffragist movements, this uberfeminist has been set up as the "straw woman" to tear down for every anti-feminist argument that has ever come down the pike.  

If I identify too closely with phrases like "[over]abundance of testosterone" or envy of "beautiful women," it is because I have had similar dismissals applied to my own arguments, despite the fact that I am not radical, marxist, or militant. I don't even have any quarrel with the poster of Heidi Klum attached to the article!

And yet, I take issue with the way that the argument of the Norwegian feminists about the poster, whatever that argument may really be, is lost in the noise of the invective in the same way that all feminist arguments have been dismissed in so many circles since they were first posed. Sure, Jan's got as much right to his opinion as anyone, but it all sounds to me like a variation on the "she just really needs to get laid" theme. And I dismiss THAT as a valid argument. Hey, I may be FFF, but I am geting laid and I still have issues with the status quo. I suppose next I'd be told I'm not getting laid properly? B.S. :-)

4:47:35 PM    dish []  

I have been thinking about menopause lately. I have no family history on which to base my expectations since my mother had a hysterectomy and my grandmother would never have discussed such matters. And, let's face it, the literature is a little dry; it doesn't compare to having someone who's gone through it tell you about their own experience.

We don't have any children and were not planning to, so the timing of menopause doesn't really matter in terms of any last ditch fertility efforts for me. Still, it seems a momentous occasion and I'd love to know how near or far it is on my event horizon. 

Besides, while I'm not organized enough to be called a planner, I do prefer to be more prepared than not for things that are likely to happen in life, don't you? I want to incorporate this next stage of womanhood into the rest of my life as gracefully as possible. In order to do that, I'd like to have a better idea of what to expect.

I'll share any good net resources I find with you as I continue my search. I hope you'll feel free to share your thoughts and finds here, too. For now, I'm just reading through the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) literature and trying not to get too freaked out by some of the terms I'm encountering there.

3:47:17 PM    dish []