{"id":263,"date":"2003-07-10T14:24:15","date_gmt":"2003-07-10T22:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/07\/10\/feminism-and-liberalism-and-why-feminists-should-support-kucinich\/"},"modified":"2003-07-10T14:24:15","modified_gmt":"2003-07-10T22:24:15","slug":"feminism-and-liberalism-and-why-feminists-should-support-kucinich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=263","title":{"rendered":"Feminism and liberalism (and why Feminists should support Kucinich)"},"content":{"rendered":"

B.J. of StoutDem <\/a>criticizes “Feminists for Kucinich<\/a>” for failing to distinguish feminism and liberalism. BJ exaggerates to make his (her?) case. For example, B.J. claims the Feminists for Kucinich document “does not say a single thing about feminism until point number four”; he apparently missed point one, which discusses how women are disproportionate victims of the “war on the poor,” and how “women on welfare are forced into low-paid jobs.”<\/p>\n

Even ignoring B.J’s inaccuracy, I still disagree; I think B.J. is assuming a clear division between “feminist” and “liberal” issues that doesn’t always exist in real life. For example, most feminists correctly see issues such as (for example) poverty as feminist issues, because the majority of poor folks are women (or children being cared for by a female guardian). There isn’t a single issue “feminists for Kucinich” talk about that I couldn’t recast in terms of how women in particular are especially affected.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, from a feminist perspective, Kucinich (despite his too-recent conversion to pro-choice) arguably would be better for women – especially poor women and women of color – then the other Dem candidates. Of the Democratic candidates, for example, Kucinich is the one most likely to be sympathetic to the need for government-funded childcare; for not just keeping abortion legal, but for supporting funding programs to help poor women who cannot afford an abortion; for providing more real<\/i> reproductive choice to poor women by supporting government aid to single mothers; to support unionization of female-heavy workforces, such as retail workers; to fight to raise the minimum wage (most minimum wage workers are women); etc, etc..<\/p>\n

On all of these issues, Kucinich is the most likely candidate to act in a way that – in the view of this feminist, at least – best supports the interests of women’s equality.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, that sort of argument is not, by and large, the approach taken by “Feminists for Kucinich.” Does that mean that they’re wrong to self-identify as feminists? I don’t think so.<\/p>\n

B.J. falsely assumes that the only legitimate statement from “Feminists for Kucinich” would focus exclusively on issues that B.J. deems (based on criteria he never explained) to be legitimate feminist issues. But that’s not the approach this statement takes, nor is there any reason it should be required to take that approach.<\/p>\n

Instead, this statement says, in effect, “Look, we’re a group of feminists who most feminists find credible. Based on that, we’re asking feminists to consider supporting Kucinich. Here’s why…” The point isn’t that the arguments for Kucinich are particularly feminist, but that the speakers are particularly credible people from a feminist P.O.V.. And despite B.J.’s foolishly mean-sounding rant (when a speaker disparages Barbara Ehrenreich’s <\/i>commitment to women’s rights, it doesn’t exactly enhance the speaker’s credibility), that’s a perfectly legitimate approach for them to take.<\/p>\n

A lot of feminists will take Barbara Ehrenreich’s endorsement seriously – because she’s earned being taken seriously by feminists, with her work and her lifelong feminist commitment. There’s nothing wrong with that.<\/p>\n

And, finally, B.J. points out that Kucinich – due to his recent conversion to pro-choice – needs the support of feminists (“cover,” as BJ puts it) more than other candidates do. From a feminist point of view, why on earth should we consider this a bad thing? As far as I’m concerned, the more pressure a candidate feels to court feminist support, the better..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

B.J. of StoutDem criticizes “Feminists for Kucinich” for failing to distinguish feminism and liberalism. BJ exaggerates to make his (her?) case. For example, B.J. claims the Feminists for Kucinich document “does not say a single thing about feminism until point … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-site-and-admin-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}