Who Died and Made You The Arbiter of “Feminism”?
Today, a Washington Post reader calls out Jessica Valenti’s recent piece, “The fake feminism of Sarah Palin” for some flawed logic:
While claiming “there’s no grand arbiter of the [feminist] label,” [Valenti] nevertheless said that it is “absolutely” possible to exclude women such as Sarah Palin from the feminist camp — in other words, that there is a grand arbiter, and her name is Ms. Valenti.
There is room in Ms. Valenti’s feminist tent for racists and those who oppose same-sex marriage, but there is no quarter for women who oppose abortion. The “manipulated buzzword” of feminism is no more or less than a cover for that.
While we completely get why protecting women’s authority over their own bodies would be considered by many to be a touchstone of the feminist movement, we also get (from, ahem, some personal experience) why it’s vexing to see women accuse other women of “not being feminist enough.” And given what we know about running letters to the editor, that the Post published this letter likely means that it wasn’t the only one like it.
