Final project summary
For my final project I delved into the topic of why it is difficult to realize a directed response known as "feminism." Searching around some I found some branches of feminism which attempted to imagine the manifestation of feminist theory. One of the most interesting activists of the early public onset of gender issues in the political realm in America was Emma Goldman. Today seen as one of the founding thinkers in the roots of feminism, at the time she did not consider herself a supporter of the suffrage movement, what today is referred to more generally as an aspect of first-wave feminism. Emma from the beginning, while obviously and ardently a support of women's rights, she noticed immediately the irreconcilability of it with hierarchy in general. As she put:
"Needless to say, I am not opposed to woman suffrage on the conventional ground that she is not equal to it. I see neither physical, psychological, nor mental reasons why woman should not have the equal right to vote with man. But that can not possibly blind me to the absurd notion that woman will accomplish that wherein man has failed. If she would not make things worse, she certainly could not make them better. To assume, therefore, that she would succeed in purifying something which is not susceptible of purification, is to credit her with supernatural powers. Since woman's greatest misfortune has been that she was looked upon as either angel or devil, her true salvation lies in being placed on earth; namely, in being considered human, and therefore subject to all human follies and mistakes. Are we, then, to believe that two errors will make a right? Are we to assume that the poison already inherent in politics will be decreased, if women were to enter the political arena? The most ardent suffragists would hardly maintain such a folly."
Just as true as in 1911, American politics remain a garbled mess that have hardly done anything noticeably different since women gained the right to vote. In Emma's eyes to recognize your place in culture's hierarchy and to fight for a better position within this merely displaces the rights of others. One can only get to the next rung of a ladder on the struggle of the rung below it. Only when one questions this very model, until we fight against or give up the things we benefit from for our discrimination (a whole longer discussion) the system will recreate itself in a new way.
My research helped me realize that feminism is incomplete if it does not recognize the role that hierarchy in general plays into the theorems. If it misses this subtlety then the reckless system it wishes to depose will only manifest itself in another way, which will further serve to discriminate against some classification of people. For these reasons Feminist needs to study and establish a position on hierarchy in general in order to successfully become a powerful subversive and liberating force.
