Hm. easternstandard’s dismissal of my posts has made me think a lot about what feminism means to me now, as I have aged into the struggle.
First: I am a 63 year old, white, woman who was born into feminism because my mother was an OG feminist, writer, and associate of the famous first wave feminists in the US.
Second: I am an ex anthropologist so I encounter the patriarchy, politics, and liberation from a multi cultural and anti colonial perspective which leads directly to an acknowledgment of the importance of racism, classism, and intersectionality if we are going to do work at all and be allies with younger women who are trying to liberate their communities.
Third: because of the historical connection between patriarchy, racism, slavery, and the cult of the white woman lots of political issues in the US overlap. Its hard to say where racisim, the interests of the ownership class, and oatriarchy end or begin. One often legitimizes the other. For example laws about Sundown towns (towns where black people can’t go after dark) were both forms of labour control and explicitly designed to “protect “ white women (patriarchy) from contamination.
Right now patriarchy is explicitly on the rise: in India under Modi, in Hungary under Orban, in the US under Trump. And political scientists have noted its overlap with fascism which is also an international movement.
The anti trans stuff here is both clearly deeply felt and sincere and also, to me, a tool of reactionary politics. Sadly that is often the case.