Academic attainment and feminism?

[suwoo]

I have wanted to start this thread all day but have been scared that it is stupid or I will be flamed. I want to ask if people feel there is a correlation between academic attainment and feminist principles. Is that a valid question?
I had no idea that I was a feminist. I knew I had these thoughts and principles but didn't know what they were or the significance of them until we did feminist literary theory this semester- it was like an epiphany and my whole world made sense

Had I not gone to uni at the grand old age of 35, maybe I would never had these revelations.

What do you think? Those of you that identify as a feminist, what level of education do you have?

sorry biryani but you've missed the point.

I'm talking about the word "sex" as society sees it , by law etc. Not as what it means to individual women

sorry biryani but you've missed the point.

I'm talking about the word "sex" as society sees it , by law etc. Not as what it means to individual women

how do narratives give you a structural way of understanding patriarchy?

For example if I'm raped because I'm a woman existing in a violent rape culture encouraged by misogynistic media and porn, how can any narrative help me? All you have to do is analyze the crime figures, see the connection between porn and rape, and work from there

In what way work?

But that is a narrative, sakura, surely? How is it not a narrative to look at crime figures and connect those two things? It doesn't mean the experience is not real or the situation is open to interpretation, it means you've related the two things together instead of assuming they have no causal link and you have no voice to object.

I want to understand this.

work to eliminate the porn industry. Work to eliminate violence from our screens. Work to stop teenage boys turning into monsters by eliminating violent rape fantasy porn from the internet? work to make sure rapists are sentenced (right now most of them are not).
These are just a few off the top of my head. THe fact most of those goals seem impossible right now is because so few women realise how important they are. Porn and prostitution are the cornerstone of the patriarchy.

LDR. please read the previous page (about the definition of sex) to understand.

LDR, I am arguing for the point you've just made

What I'm thinking is, it seems to me that in Dworkin's 1989 book on pornography, what she is doing is showing that the women whose experiences she describes at the beginning of the book are real people with real experiences, and that people insist on ignoring the causal links and disowning responsibility. So, she says that people will sneer about the relationship between abuse and pornography by saying 'how do you know it's the porn that's the cause?'. And she's saying, yes, look, there is a cause-and-effect pattern here, I am showing you, these are real people living lives, you cannot pretend they are somehow objects to be discounted. By telling about it, and making a narrative, she is communicating that there is a causal link, there is real abuse and violence caused by the patriarchy that supports porn.

Yes, but DO what to do that work?

Is not showing male and female students that the images with which they are bombarded every day encourage them to think in certain ways that are not natural, that are constructed, that are constructed by a patriarchy, and that if their own work does not challenge this then it supports it - is that not this work?

I don't understand this antagonism to the word narrative. To me it doesn't mean "story", it means "structure", and applying structure to the understanding of how patriarchy harms everyone - well I don't know how that's wrong. And just because I work in arts and not politics doesn't mean that I think this is ineffective. It takes longer, granted, but I've gone with what I can do and what I'm good at, to try to make a difference.

sakura, I did read the previous page, but we'd cross-posted. I was replying to you asking how understanding narratives helps.

Perhaps I've misunderstood, sakura, but I don't seem to "get" what you're saying. I had no idea I existed in "a violent rape culture"!!

I never said she didn't tell the truth. But she does tell the narratives of several women right at the beginning of her book. What's the problem with that?

Then we agree. My old contextual studies tutor works with accountancy students, who hate learning about this stuff even more than arts students.