Tuesday, December 5, 2006

The Big P and Sisterhood

Patriarchy, yes.

(Or perhaps even C-apitalism?)

Not a word I particularly like to use either, as it easily becomes this all-encompassing abstraction on which we can blame all our misery as women. As though we took no part in oppressing each other, or ourselves.

I was, and continue to be, wary of stereotypes, and lumping all of these women into one stereotype and criticizing them knowing that, really, I have no idea what’s going on inside their heads, in their lives. I guess this comes from my hearing people criticize the stereotype that I fall into, and all that time, my wanting to defend myself and say, “That’s not what it’s like at all.” I guess it is a reaction to the snobbishness and the smugness I see too much of around me.

I do realize a drawback to this wariness—and it is that it often paralyzes me, makes me unable to make any sort of criticism at all. And so I realize now that one has to begin somewhere, and I will have to agree that “making those stereotypes, and seeing ourselves within and beyond them,” is a pretty powerful place to start.

I wonder, though, what she has to say, Ms. Cosmo chick. And amidst all this criticism, I wonder how it is possible to find affinity with her, how sisterhood is possible.

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