In a
recent interview for Queerty , feminist icon Gloria Steinem says that feminism and gay rights are "completely the same thing." She goes on to explain:
“On campuses, people will say, ‘why are the same right-wing people against lesbianism and birth control?’ They find that bizarre. It’s not bizarre. It’s because the right wing is against any form of sexual expression that can’t end in conception. So we have the same adversaries and the same allies.”
As cliched as this sounds by now, I have a love/hate relationship with second-wave feminism: I acknowledge its influence as well as its failures. I can't really disagree with her -- I mean, it's true: the same groups fighting against gay marriage are the ones forcing laws that deny women access to birth control and safe, legal abortions, but to imply that feminism is arm-in-arm with LGBT rights is ignoring an entire history of feminism's transphobia.
Hm, it comes across to me, not that she's saying the movements are the same thing, but that the problem they are trying to address is the same thing. That negates neither trans/homophobia among feminists, nor sexism displayed by persons on the QUILTBAG spectrum.
ReplyDelete