Monday, March 14, 2011
Hammad
Hammad shows love as resistance in many of her poems. She talks about lovemaking but intersperses images of violence and struggle throughout the poem. In my group in lecture last Wednesday, we all had different ideas of what feminism meant. Thus I'm not sure how I would define it, but I think of feminism as a conscious effort to resist patriarchy. This means fighting for gender equality, ensuring that women are not discriminated against, and empowering women to believe that they deserve the same things men do. However, the idea of feminism becomes harmful if it is something that holds a negative connotation. For example, if feminists are seen as ugly women without boyfriends or significant others, then certain women may be less inclined to define themselves as feminists and may actually try to go against what feminists are fighting for just so that they do not get associated with feminism.
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I agree, for me feminism can involve a conscious effort to resist against patriarchy. I used to think for the longest time that it was only a conscious effort until I realized that some womyn I know practice feminism, are resisting against patriarchal expectations without even knowing about terms like patriarchy, feminism, or misogyny. Also, feminism has had a bad reputation, but I feel like there has been negative stereotype that feminism is about "man bashing." I don't feel like feminism is about "man bashing" or the hatred of men, but for me it's about critiqing patriarchy, gender roles, talking about how men and womyn can internalize oppression, and male privilege in society. I believe it is about preaching self-love, ending queer oppression and resisting against standards of beauty. There can be so many layers to feminism. Yeah, I felt the same in class, there were so many different versions of feminism! -Preyanka
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