Kinds of Feminism

Liberal Feminism

This is the variety of feminism that works within the structure of mainstream society to integrate women into that structure.  Its roots stretch back to the social contract theory of government instituted by the American Revolution.  Abigail Adams and Mary Wollstonecraft were there from the start, proposing equality for women.  As is often the case with liberals, they slog along inside the system, getting little done amongst the compromises until some radical movement shows up and pulls those compromises left of center.  This is how it operated in the days of the suffragist movement and again with the emergence of the radical feminists. [JD]

[See Daring to be Bad, by Alice Echols (1989) for more detail on this contrast.]

Radical Feminism

Provides the bulwark of theoretical thought in feminism.  Radical feminism provides an important foundation for the rest of "feminist flavors".  Seen by many as the "undesirable" element of feminism, Radical feminism is actually the breeding ground for many of the ideas arising from feminism; ideas which get shaped and pounded out in various ways by other (but not all) branches of feminism. [CTM]

Radical feminism was the cutting edge of feminist theory from approximately 1967-1975.  It is no longer as universally accepted as it was then, nor does it provide a foundation for, for example, cultural feminism.  In addition, radical feminism is not and never has been related to the Maoist-feminist group Radical Women. [EE]

This term refers to the feminist movement that sprung out of the civil rights and peace movements in 1967-1968.  The reason this group gets the "radical" label is that they view the oppression of women as the most fundamental form of oppression, one that cuts across boundaries of race, culture, and economic class.  This is a movement intent on social change, change of rather revolutionary proportions, in fact.  [JD]

The best history of this movement is a book called Daring to be Bad, by Alice Echols (1989).  I consider that book a must! [JD] Another excellent book is simply titled Radical Feminism and is an anthology edited by Anne Koedt, a well-known radical feminist [EE].

Marxist and Socialist Feminism

Marxism recognizes that women are oppressed, and attributes the oppression to the capitalist/private property system.  Thus they insist that the only way to end the oppression of women is to overthrow the capitalist system.  Socialist feminism is the result of Marxism meeting radical feminism.  Jaggar and Rothenberg [Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical Accounts of the Relations Between Women and Men by Alison M. Jaggar and  Paula S. Rothenberg, 1993]  point to significant differences between socialist feminism and Marxism, but for our purposes I'll present the two together.  Echols offers a description of socialist feminism as a marriage between Marxism and radical feminism, with Marxism the dominant partner.  Marxists and socialists often call themselves "radical," but they use the term to refer to a completely different "root" of society: the economic system.  [JD]

Cultural Feminism

As radical feminism died out as a movement, cultural feminism got rolling.  In fact, many of the same people moved from the former to the latter.  They carried the name "radical feminism" with them, and some cultural feminists use that name still.  (Jaggar and Rothenberg [Feminist Frameworks] don't even list cultural feminism as a framework separate from radical feminism, but Echols spells out the distinctions in great detail.)  The difference between the two is quite striking: whereas radical feminism was a movement to transform society, cultural feminism retreated to vanguardism, working instead to build a women's culture.  Some of this effort has had some social benefit: rape crisis centers, for example; and of course many cultural feminists have been active in social issues (but as individuals, not as part of a movement).  [JD]

As various 1960s movements for social change fell apart or got co-opted, folks got pessimistic about the very possibility of social change.  Many of then turned their attention to building alternatives, so that if they couldn't change the dominant society, they could avoid it as much as possible.  That, in a nutshell, is what the shift from radical feminism to cultural feminism was about.  These alternative-building efforts were accompanied with reasons explaining (perhaps justifying) the abandonment of working for social change.  Notions that women are "inherently kinder and gentler" are one of the foundations of cultural feminism, and remain a major part of it.  A similar concept held by some cultural feminists is that while various sex differences might not be biologically determined, they are still so thoroughly ingrained as to be intractable.

Eco-Feminism

    This branch of feminism is much more spiritual than political or theoretical in nature.  It may or may not be wrapped up with Goddess worship and vegetarianism.  Its basic tenet is that a patriarchal society will exploit its resources without regard to long term consequences as a direct result of the attitudes fostered in a patriarchal/hierarchical society.  Parallels are often drawn between society's treatment of the environment, animals, or resources and its treatment of women.  In resisting patriarchal culture, eco-feminists feel that they are also resisting plundering and destroying the Earth.  And vice-versa.  [CTM]

These definitions are selected  from a longer list of terms (compiled from a feminism news group) at http://www.landfield.com/faqs/feminism/.  The initials in parenthesis are the people who contributed the definition to the news group.

Source: http://www.uah.edu/woolf/feminism_kinds.htm

About Racism

Racism has existed throughout human history. 
It may be defined as the hatred of one person by another -- or the belief that another person is less than human -- because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person. It has influenced wars, slavery, the formation of nations, and legal codes.

During the past 500-1000 years, racism on the part of Western powers toward non-Westerners has had a far more significant impact on history than any other form of racism (such as racism among Western groups or among Easterners, such as Asians, Africans, and others).
 The most notorious example of racism by the West has been slavery, particularly the enslavement of Africans in the New World (slavery itself dates back thousands of years). This enslavement was accomplished because of the racist belief that Black Africans were less fully human than white Europeans and their descendants.

This belief was not "automatic": that is, Africans were not originally considered inferior. 
When Portuguese sailors first explored Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries, they came upon empires and cities as advanced as their own, and they considered Africans to be serious rivals. Over time, though, as African civilizations failed to match the technological advances of Europe, and the major European powers began to plunder the continent and forcibly remove its inhabitants to work as slave laborers in new colonies across the Atlantic, Africans came to be seen as a deficient "species," as "savages." To an important extent, this view was necessary to justify the slave trade at a time when Western culture had begun to promote individual rights and human equality. The willingness of some Africans to sell other Africans to European slave traders also led to claims of savagery, based on the false belief that the "dark people" were all kinsmen, all part of one society - as opposed to many different, sometimes warring nations.

One important feature of racism, especially toward Blacks and immigrant groups, is clear in attitudes regarding slaves and slavery. 
Jews are usually seen by anti-Semites as subhuman but also superhuman: devilishly cunning, skilled, and powerful. Blacks and others are seen by racists as merely subhuman, more like beasts than men. If the focus of anti-Semitism is evil, the focus of racism is inferiority -- directed toward those who have sometimes been considered to lack even the ability to be evil (though in the 20th century, especially, victims of racism are often considered morally degraded).

In the second half of the 19th century, Darwinism, the decline of Christian belief, and growing immigration were all perceived by many white Westerners as a threat to their cultural control. European and, to a lesser degree, American scientists and philosophers devised a false racial "science" to "prove" the supremacy of non-Jewish whites. While the Nazi annihilation of Jews discredited most of these supposedly scientific efforts to elevate one race over another, small numbers of scientists and social scientists have continued throughout the 20th century to argue the inborn shortcomings of certain races, especially Blacks. At the same time, some public figures in the American Black community have championed the supremacy of their own race and the inferiority of whites - using nearly the identical language of white racists.
All of these arguments are based on a false understanding of race; in fact, contemporary scientists are not agreed on whether race is a valid way to classify people. What may seem to be significant "racial" differences to some people - skin color, hair, facial shape - are not of much scientific significance. In fact, genetic differences within a so-called race may be greater than those between races. One philosopher writes: "There are few genetic characteristics to be found in the population of England that are not found in similar proportions in Zaire or in China….those differences that most deeply affect us in our dealings with each other are not to any significant degree biologically determined."

Source: http://archive.adl.org/hate-patrol/racism.html#.VLU1JBZ7nks

Soulmate

Do you believe in Soulmate?

Do that even exist?

People said “you will find your soulmate”

Some said “when you are 16, you probably already met your soulmate”

The theory that people said cannot even proved only by words

And there’s people said “soulmate is a God’s secret”

Well, I imagine soulmate is a person who is really willing to spend his life time beside me.

Whether he likes it or dislike it, he will stay no matter what.

I imagine he is not that perfect but he is all I need.

That kind of imagination only makes me wonder about it even more.

Do that really exist...?

Even when I ask people who already married, they are not so sure to answer this question, not because they don’t believe their partner is their soulmate but they just can’t explain it through words.

Soulmate is something that cannot be explained or said with the words itself. It’s kinda similar to love, isn’t it? You can only feel it.

Yeah, maybe some things can only be felt rather than said.

PETRICHOR

I still capture it in my mind

The place, the view, the vibe

It looks so beautiful

It was a place where there’s so many green colors,

And the air was cold and misty,

The athmosphere around us was delicated

There was only a few couples,

With sound of birds and winds,

A peaceful place

There was an ethereal rainbow after the rain

It brought a petrichor,

The smell of the earth after rain,

Which scattered every edge of the place

SKY

I look at sky and wondering

Thinking about the life I’m living in

My mind is flying to the place I dreamed

My mind is remembering the place that I’ve ever been

It’s showing every details of it

I feel lost into the deep of my own illusion

The sky brings back all the memories and dreams

That I’ve ever been and hoped

The sky makes me wondering of something

That I’ve never done

The sky lets me sinking into the reality and hopes

Deep down in the blue color and the sunshine

My mind still imagine what could and could have done

While looking at the ethereal sky