Having stared into the possibility of my own fathers demise this week (yes, I know I am a drama queen), I have a great deal of sympathy for any family suffering a loss, particularly the sudden loss of a healthy and young person, a parent of young children. This post has nothing to do with a certain celebrity zoo keeper, this is about feminism.
I read with interest Mary Helen‘s post on being an older feminist. Many women of my age (36 and thereabouts) can be heard to spout such nonsense as “I’m not a feminist but…..(insert feminist statement here)”. As in, “I’m not a feminist, but I believe in equal pay for equal work”. Sorry dear, but you are a feminist, and there isn’t a thing Stan Zemanek can do about it, except make you revile the word, and corrupt the power inherent in taking ownership of the word. The word feminist has been taken by the new right, and been refashioned to mean only negatives.
My mother was a feminist. She worked outside the home, she studied, she had opinions, she had realistic (ie. high) ideas of her own self worth. I dare say that if she had had the same choices and opportunities that were available to women of my generation that she would have made different choices, but she fought for opportunities that we now take for granted. And any denial of feminism, any acceptance that feminist equals the talkback radio definition of the word is a betrayal of the women who fought for the privileges we enjoy today.
Complacency has no place in todays feminists. If we accept that the rights we have today are enough, and that there is no more to fight for, then we’ll keep living in a world where women are punished for having an opinion.
Nothing wrong with having an opinion. I understand that a time of grief is not the right time to put the boot in, and Ms Greer’s timing could have been better, but the invective that has poured upon this women for her comments is totally over the top.
By the same token, have you noticed the language that has been used to criticise her ?
I won’t clutter up this post (do your own goole search if you don’t believe this is a true sampling), but some of the people attacking her make her sound measured and reasonable.
“Why the bitterness, Germaine? Someone take a bite out of your gingerbread house? …”
“Inhuman: Leftist Hag Germaine Greer Celebrates Death of Steve Irwin”
“Suffice it to say that Greer, now in her declining years, is a malcontent and an iconoclast who decided, for whatever nonsensical reason, to turn her venom towards the chief icon of the cable television channel “Animal Planet.”
“After passing away from a stingray attack, Steve Irwin is denigrated by deranged feminist Germaine Greer.”
What she said may not be tasteful, or kind, or compassionate, but if it was said by a man, would the reaction be different?
I think it would.
A man died so Germaine Greer decided the time was right to express that thought . What a sweet girl she is.
Disco Knitter 