Folks may recall that there was some discussion of my appearance on Air America’s “Majority Report” show; so I should point out that Jessica of Feministing appeared on “Majority Report” last week. To listen to Jessica’s segment, go here, download the second half of the show, and start listening 35 minutes into the recording. (Alternatively, you could just listen to the whole show, of course.)
Janeane’s guest-sidekick was blogger Bill Scher of the excellent Liberal Oasis. I would have preferred to hear less Janeane and Bill and more Jessica, but on the whole it’s a good segment, and Jessica does a wonderful job discussing some of the current battles in the abortion war.
Later in the segment, there were interesting bits of disagreement between the three speakers. Bill derailed a good Janeane rant about “which feminists hate men?” by suggesting that Catherine MacKinnon is a man-hater (a charge I doubt Bill could support). Janeane and Jessica disagree – very gingerly – about pro-sex feminism, which Janeane calls “thong feminism.” (Janeane thinks that underwear like this trivializes the issues involved, whereas my – possibly mistaken – impression was that Jessica thinks it’s cool activist fun.). And some tensions between second-wave feminism and third-wave feminism were apparent, as well.
Anyhow, it’s fun to hear feminists on the air.
Firstly, thanks for linking to my segment!
–you aren’t mistaken in my take on orgs like axis of eve and other kinds of nontraditional ways of motivating young women. Like I said on the show, at this point I think that whatever is going to appeal to people is cool with me. I think that it is possible for young women to fun with our activism; but we need to have the political awareness and info to back it up when questioned on our beliefs (which tends to happen a lot when you’re a young woman)…
it seems to me no matter what feminists do, we get shit. if we’re all serious then we’re humourless feminazis, but if we’re funny and/or sexual then we shouldn’t be taken seriously…
Jessica, first, congratulations on your appearance! Second, you are right in that feminists get flak whatever we do. So after careful thinking over the issues I tend to go with what I believe in and what is fun. One might as well.