Category Archives: Feminism

Discussion Concerning False Opinions Regarding Margaret Sanger

Christian 
Margaret gets cozy with her allies, the KKK.
Clifton 
Here’s the original:

[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/09/27/article-2434992-185184C900000578-612_634x471.jpg]

Christian 
Point taken — I should be more critical of photos. But do you have anything to say about the address – which did happen? Or anything about her views?
Clifton 
I’ve meant to explore her views in more depth, but, not having done so, I can’t comment on those views generally. However, I can let her speak for herself of this encounter:

 

All the world over, in Penang and Skagway, in El Paso and Helsingfors, I have found women’s psychology in the matter of child-bearing essentially the same, no matter what the class, religion, or economic status. Always to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing.

[…]

Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand.

In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York. Under a curfew law everything in Silver Lake shut at nine o’clock. I could not even send a telegram to let my family know whether I had been thrown in the river or was being held incommunicado. It was nearly one before I reached Trenton, and I spent the night in a hotel.

Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography

Continue reading Discussion Concerning False Opinions Regarding Margaret Sanger

Strong Female Characters

Favorites
Lisbeth Salander (Män som hatar kvinnor)
Frances Farmer (Frances)
Ripley (Alien)
Elizabeth Shaw (Prometheus)
Ellie Arroway (Contact)
Maggie Fitzgerald (Million Dollar Baby)
Mallory Kane (Haywire)
Christine Collins (Changeling)
Mattie Ross (True Grit)
Lisa Reisert (Red Eye)
Marge Gunderson (Fargo)
Clarice Starling (The Silence Of The Lambs)
Sarah Connor (The Terminator)
Ryan Stone (Gravity)
The Bride (Kill Bill)
Jackie Brown
Erin Brockovich
Karen Silkwood
Ree Dolly (Winter’s Bone)
Mildred Pierce
Marie Curie (Madame Curie)
Stella Gibson (The Fall)
Shosanna Dreyfus (Inglourious Basterds)

Need Further Exploration
Jordan O’Neil (G.I. Jane)
Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games)
Diana Guzman (Girlfight)
Gloria (Gloria, 1980)
Hanna (Hanna)
Jen (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
Bree Daniels (Klute)
Norma Rae Webster (Norma Rae)
Josey Aimes (North Country)
Temple Grandin
Tina Turner (What’s Love Got To Do With It)
Dian Fossey (Gorillas in the Mist)
Sabina Spielrein (A Dangerous Method)
Ada McGrath (The Piano)
Diana Christensen (Network)
Edna Gladney (Blossoms in the Dust)

Desperate Housewives Debate

From an article in Ms. Magazine:

Dear Jessica,

It’s no wonder right-wing culture warriors such as Carlson and Fields love a show whose worldview harks back to a time when two-parent, middle-class families could comfortably thrive on single incomes, women’s identities were primarily determined by the men they married and the children they raised, and husbands were not expected to trouble themselves with such pesky matters as child care and housework.

Dear Desperately Hating,

Its stealth feminism has not been lost on the “values” crowd, including Rev. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association (AFA), which predictably denounced the show as immoral. Not surprisingly, Wildmon’s group condemned its adulterous antics but not the murderous ones, singling out Gabrielle’s affair with a hunky teenaged gardener. Disgusting, isn’t it? Adult women finally get to ogle hottie jailbait without feeling like Mrs. Robinson — a visual droit du seigneur long enjoyed by men.