Recently, in the last midterm elections, the USA has seen an increase in the number of women running for political office. Usually this would be considered a good thing from the feminist position, unfortunately a lot of these female politicians are women that are against certain basic women’s rights and support ideologies of overt sexist conservative males. This problem for women has cropped up not only in the US, but also in countries like Iran and Costa Rica. However, the increase of Anti-feminist women is most notable in USA.
The political blog “The Daily Kos” has published an right-on analysis of this phenomena by Kaili Joy Gray titled, correctly enough, “The Year of the Women That Wasn’t”. It is interesting to see so many women politicians with such strong colonized-consciousness’s! But luckily women voters aren’t being fooled by these faux-feminist women: Check out the article here.
Since so many women politicians are holding these strong right wing views that cut back on women, I think it’s time we coin a word to describe this kind of phenomena: I, simply, suggest the term, “Manwashed”. This term is coined from “Whitewashed“, which means a black person who is propagandized and internalizes the views of whites, which makes him/her want to go against his/her better interest, and the interests of her/his group, and help the dominate oppression of a certain white class. “Manwashed” is a good term to use on women who have internalized ideologies of essentialisms and dominations of a certain men’s class (and one which still runs strongly through-out our society) and their oppressive views on women. A typical Manwashed woman in my eyes would be typified by Sarah Palin, who is against abortion even in rape/incest cases and made women pay for the Rape Kit when she was governor of Alaska.
Interesting post and links.
Thought you may be interested in this video by Gloria Steinhem (from the series Big Think) called: “Mama Grizzlies Are Actually Pro-Choice”.
Summary of video below is this –“When Sarah Palin branded herself as a “mama grizzly,” she was unaware of the supreme irony: grizzly bears are the animals that most embody reproductive freedoms, even reabsorbing their own fetuses if conditions are not ideal.”
Fun video of a deadly serious affront to feminism through the stripping of individual control of the body:
If video does not embed check the video and transcript out here:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/24764
Good old Gloria Steinhem! At times she’s just right on.
And go REAL Grizzly mamas! Thank you for the informative link :-).
Thanks, and also fitting right into your notion of Manwashing, is this video by Gloria Steinhem called “Right-Wing Women Have Accepted Their Own Subordination”.
Gloria Steinhem thinks you can understand the right wing women as manwashed as they are a group of “people that (have) been subordinate (because they) absorb the idea of our own subordination and that it is natural and (so they) come to think that the only way to survive is to identify with the powerful.” For her this is “what has happened to many right-wing women who vote Republican” in the US. Fits right into this group of manwashed conservative women leaders.
Video (also at Big think) and transcript are here: http://bigthink.com/ideas/24765 .
And read the comments for this video. Lots of attacks, but, to state this up front, aren’t reproductive rights and autonomy at the core of an assertive and corrective (to authoritative paternalist management) feminism? If we take this seriously, we will, along with Steinhem, see the individuals own control and self-determination of the body as entailing a fundamental stance for any progressive Genderism.
See this essay and comments on Feministing which asks and answers the question Can you be a feminist while not believing in reproductive rights (with Palin as the foil)? Though she doesn’t, in this essay, want the abortion to be a litmus test for feminism, reproductive rights and its control for women are one of the core issues for feminism to look at. http://feministing.com/2010/05/24/once-more-with-feeling-sarah-palin-is-not-a-feminist/ .
(and then what about Dilma Rousseff? https://maaretta.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/brazil-elects-their-first-woman-president/ and your take on her?)
Sorry about the long post, but your post and this issue is fascinating!
I can understand Steinhem’s analysis. I think some people like to identify with the powerful because they, the “less powerful ones”, want to think that they also have power, or as much as the “more powerful ones”.
I agree with you that reproductive rights and autonomy are basic feminist stands. Feminism is all about women having the right to choose, to decide for themselves and to have power over there own lives. As Mary Wollstonecraft put it: “I do not wish women to have power over men, but to have power over themselves”. This quote, to me, explains what feminism is all about; having power over your own life. So: every feminist should, by all means, fight for womens reproductive rights, for women should have to chance to decide if they want to wait until they have children, how many children they want or if they want to have children in the first place at all!
Ah! Good ol’ Feministing! Love that blog. Very good post on Sarah Palin! I have to say, to answer the question if you can be a pro-life feminist… I don’t think it’s possible. Because you take away a womans right to choose over her body. As my take on Rousseff, who I recently wrote about: I don’t see her as a feminist that’s going to improve the Woman’s situation in Brazil, but she still does at least stand for certain good things. She has shown that she might legalize abortion, even if she is against it. Some say that she change her mind about abortion because of the attacks of religious groups! Read about it here in: http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/feministkritik-mot-dilma-rousseff-1.1198812
And don’t worry, I like long comments! I just couldn’t answer right away because of some exams I was working on. 🙂
Thanks for the clear and informed answer. Maybe you should make this into a “front-page” post as your points are well thought out and extremely interesting.
Would be of interest to many.
Your welcome! And that’s not a bad Idea. Maybe that will be my next post! Could use it to explain what feminism means to me, since I use the term often in other post.
Thanks for the tip!
Bra ny term du hittade på. Det är verkligen en besvikelse att det är sådär. Först blir man ju så glad att så många kvinnor går in vid politiken, men när man sen får veta det där blir man verkligen förundrad och besviken.
Ja, det är inte så lätt med politik och kvinnofrågan. Jag brukar alltid tycka att mer kvinnor borde gå med i politik, men glömmer att inte alla kvinnor vill se efter sina systrar. Om man bara skulle kunna få mer smarta kvinnor som inte skulle gå emot sin kön i politik… Ack, dessa kvinnor som sviker sina systrar!
Yay! Glad att någon gillar min nya term! Jag hoppas den har en framtid 🙂
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