mochibuni:timemachineyeah:mochibuni:timemachineyeah:mochibuni:paintwithwords:andreagoldston:CAN WE S
mochibuni:timemachineyeah:mochibuni:timemachineyeah:mochibuni:paintwithwords:andreagoldston:CAN WE STOP PITTING WOMEN AGAINST EACH OTHER? THAT WOULD BE NICE.BUT WHAT WE CAN DO IS NOTE THAT THE WOMAN OF COLOR SOLD ALL OF THESE RECORDS WITHOUT ACCESSING THE NEOLIBERAL ORDER IN THE SAME WAY AS THESE WHITE WOMEN; SHE DID SO WITHOUT BEING A RACIST, A TOKENIZER, OBJECTIFYING OF OTHER WOMEN’S BODIES, OR PURPORTING TO SPEAK FOR OTHER GROUPS OF MARGINALIZED, OPPRESSED-IN-WAYS-SHE-IS-NT GROUPS OF PEOPLE; SHE CREATED THE FEMINIST ALBUM OF CONTEMPORENEITY BY HARVESTING BUT NOT DAMAGING TODAY’S SALIENT CULTURAL CAPITAL, WITHOUT HAVING TO SHAME, DEGRADE, OR REJECT ANYONE FOR LIKING AND BEING ATTRACTED TO POP CULTURAL PHENOMENA AND EPHEMERA.Has Beyonce retracted her statements about feminism? That she refuses to call herself a feminist because she doesn’t want to be associated with “those” kinds of women?The interview is at least a year old and people can certainly change their tune quickly, and I hope she has.Edit: Oh wait, it was the interview where she clarified she’s a “good feminist” because she loves her husband and is happily married. Yeah. My memory is bad.She wasn’t hedging though. She had been insulted by feminists for calling her tour the Mrs. Carter tour, because some feminists felt that was dis-empowering, and she handled that criticism with a lot of grace. In that context this quote isn’t “I’m a feminist, but I don’t hate men.” It’s “I’m a feminist and I love being married too and I fuck the people who think those things are mutually exclusive.” But you know, nicer. Because she has more tact than I. See also.That still doesn’t sit well with me. I think an argument could be made that it’s a magazine interview and who knows what was omitted, but even with context that wasn’t even addressed or presented in the interview, it still reads as needing to justify or explain. Especially since she hesitated to associate herself with the term at all when initially asked in the interview, according to the interview anyway.If anything, I’m uncomfortable labeling someone and their work feminist when they are clearly uncomfortable with the label.1) Beyonce does call herself a feminist, though. And given the unfair hate she’d received from people who held that label themselves and the fact that she’s a WOC and mainstream feminism has often done WOC disservice, her hesitance is understandable. After getting lots of genuinely extreme flack from people who label themselves feminists, it completely makes sense that she’s see that label as extreme. Notably, she applied it to herself anyway.2) Click the link, listen to the song. SRSLY.3) “I’m uncomfortable labeling someone and their work feminist when they are clearly uncomfortable with the label.” Someone? Sure. Their work? If someone’s work can be racist or misogynistic unintentionally, then it can damn well be feminist unintentionally as well. Note, though, that in Beyonce’s case it documentably intentional.If you’re going to be judging in your tags and attack me, at least address them to me directly as you know I’m going to see them anyway. It’s passive aggressive and incredibly rude as it moves the conversation from us discussing and hopefully clarifying, to backhanded shit talking.If you can’t bring enough respect to the conversation or me, then why bother explaining anything to me? Because your tags show you’re not actually interested in discussing with me, but rather trying to make a spectacle of me.If this is how you want to continue, then just tell me upfront and I’ll bow out and unfollow.I put stuff in the tags when they are side thoughts or parenthetical to the main discussion, not to hide them. Genuinely sorry that my way of using tumblr came across as passive aggressive. Those thoughts were my thoughts, but not meant to be hidden, and also not meant as an attack. It does genuinely seem weird to me that you are willing to dismiss every feminist success of Beyonce’s across the board because she wasn’t enthusiastic enough for your tastes when applying an understandably contentious and problematic label to herself. Especially as she nonetheless did apply it, despite there being both good historical and personal reasons for her not to. I mean, those tags were meant genuinely. I do think you’re going to have a hard time finding a radio station to listen to if those are your restrictions, and I do think it’s problematic to dismiss the influence and success of a woman, a woman of color no less, based on her personal experience with a label you like.I wasn’t talking shit, though. I didn’t call you any names. I expressed genuine confusion at your argument and standards. And yeah, I used glib language. But being glib isn’t the same as attacking, and the points being brought up were legitimate.IDK, I just think Beyonce’s accomplished something really objectively good here. She released an album to huge success without trading on oppression that wasn’t hers or misrepresenting or tokenizing (like Gaga and Cyrus, et al), without using the problematic media promotions available, and while actively promoting feminism and female empowerment. She did it all in secret, managed to keep it from being leaked, and it was groundbreakingly successful. And she did this as a WOC.It seems weird to say that none of that can be feminist because she once took a moment before calling herself a feminist to mull it over for three seconds before deciding that yeah, she was. But definitely not one of the ones who said she was destroying feminism for naming her tour in celebration of her marriage. -- source link
#beyonce