Sunday, January 14, 2018

What Kind Of Feminist Am I?

I've long said that I'm a feminist of the Camille Paglia mold, believing that women have the same legal rights as men because they have agency, that they shouldn't be or act like victims, that they share responsibility for how they are treated in society, that they're entitled to no more and no less than they earn.  That seems pretty fair to me.

It seems I'm also a Margaret Atwood-style feminist:
My fundamental position is that women are human beings, with the full range of saintly and demonic behaviours this entails, including criminal ones. They're not angels, incapable of wrongdoing. If they were, we wouldn't need a legal system.

Nor do I believe that women are children, incapable of agency or of making moral decisions. If they were, we're back to the 19th century, and women should not own property, have credit cards, have access to higher education, control their own reproduction or vote. There are powerful groups in North America pushing this agenda, but they are not usually considered feminists.

Furthermore, I believe that in order to have civil and human rights for women there have to be civil and human rights, period, including the right to fundamental justice, just as for women to have the vote, there has to be a vote...
She seems perfectly reasonable to me.

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