Does Feministing Present an Intersectional Overview of Feminism

Feminist Blog Analysis: Feministing While described in the assignment details as a blog, the website Feministing actually seems to go beyond the expectations of a mere blog. It considers itself an "online community run by and for young feminists,"[footnoteRef:1] and instead of offering just the social commentary one might expect going to a blog site, it actually offers a significant amount of reporting or, at least repackaging, of news, making it easily consumed by potential readers.

Its stated goal is to provide an intersectional overview of feminist issues and to provide a way to connect emerging feminists with other activists and organizations. While the blog is not inappropriate for other people, its target audience is young feminists and one of its goals is clearly to help young people understand why feminism is still so critical to social equality, although this is not overtly stated in the blog's promotional materials.

It attempts to achieve this intersectional approach by using a broad group of authors from a diverse set of backgrounds, to give the reader an opportunity to incorporate multiple personal perspectives into their understanding of feminism. While the blog appears to be comprehensive, there are some recurrent topics or themes that they consider hot topics: reproductive rights, sexism, activism, and sex.

In short, Feministing takes an intersectional approach to feminist issues and frames those issues within the broader context of civil liberties, making it clear that feminism is a human right's issue. [1: Feministing. About Feministing.

Retrieved October 21, 2015 from Feministing website: http://feministing.com/about/] Even prior to this course, Feministing has been one of my favorite Feminist blogs, in part because it exposes the reader to perspectives that go beyond the traditional upper or middle class white female centered perspective that American feminism has seemed to embrace for such a long time. Yes, the blog does grapple with issues that are known as typically identified as feminist issues, such as reproductive rights, sexual violence, and domestic violence.

However, it also seems to offer a more comprehensive analysis of some of these issues than one would expect from a blog. One way that Feministing embraces an intersectional approach is by looking specifically at how stereotypes and perceptions impact women who do not fall into the dominant group. For example, one blog entry focused on Muslim-American women and the issues that they feel are critical to emerging feminist discussion. This is a very significant approach.

Anyone with exposure to the modern feminist movement knows that the wearing of hijab is surprisingly controversial among feminists. Some feminists believe that wearing hijab is a tangible sign of underlying sexism and misogyny in Muslim culture.

Other feminists, many of them hijab-wearing Muslim women, argue that the desire to dictate what type of clothing a woman should or should not be able to choose to wear in support of her own religious choices is, in and of itself, a sign of the underlying sexism and misogyny in the broader culture, as well as a symbol of racism and religious intolerance. The reality is that both arguments probably have merit.

It is undeniable that, in those contexts where women are forced to wear head scarves or face criminal or social sanctions, doing so cannot be considered a free choice. It is equally undeniable that, in those contexts where women are not forced to wear head scarves but choose to do so, and then face criminal or social sanctions for that choice to do so, they are facing discrimination.

However, while both sides of that debate may have salient points, the focus on that debate and the exclusion of other issues impacting Muslim-American women has the potential of leaving those women without a voice in the feminist community. Feministing's article directly addresses that issue, not by rehashing the same tired hijab arguments, but by focusing on other issues that impact Muslim-American women.

While not an entirely new perspective, it is fresh for a blog to acknowledge that feminists are going to disagree about some fairly significant issues, but that those disagreements should not shut down discussion. This article also helps frame how cultural and religious perspectives can inform a person's view of gender issues. In fact, Feministing's articles do much to explain the role that culture plays in gender norms.

When looking at blog entries, the topics seem to capture a really broad range of topics; teenage female superheroes in cartoons, sexual health guides created by people with disabilities, Whole Foods's decision to stop selling food produced by prisoners, and Indian boys doing housework are just a few of the current blog topics. Looking at these issues, the blog clearly understands that material inequalities, class structure, and social exclusions can reinforce misogynist behaviors.

This broad focus reinforces the idea that feminism is a human rights issue and that any behavior impacting human rights is going to be a feminist issue, because it is going to impact women. For example, even behaviors that do not directly impact women, like the excessive incarceration rates among African-American males in the United States, will still have indirect impacts on women, and articles on the blog discussing things like the for-profit prison structure help readers understand the relationships between the various human rights issues.

From a reader's perspective, the main strength of the blog may be that it focuses on such a broad variety of issues, many of which are not underneath the umbrella that many people think of when they think of modern feminism: sexual harassment, gender-based violence, and reproductive rights. While these issues are of critical importance, they have become divisive, particularly the issue of abortion rights.

As a result, many young people believe that feminism is actually a single-issue movement and that, if they do not agree on that issue, they cannot identify as a feminist. By showing the broad range of topics that are feminist issues, the blog shows that feminists, while very concerned about retaining bodily autonomy, are also concerned about a wide variety of other human rights issues.

However, one of the main weakness of the blog is that it appears to target a fairly well educated and well informed audience, leaving the audience to connect the dots between some of the articles and the underlying feminist issue. This is somewhat problematic because there some very vocal opposition to feminism in parts of the media, including much of mainstream media. As a result, many people are simply unaware of the impact that various social issues have on groups of people.

It would be wonderful to see the blog take things a step further and explain why the issues are feminist issues. To do this in each article would appear pedantic and cause the blog to lose part of its young, hip vibe. However, having companion articles and links with easy-to-understand breakdowns of why an issue is considered a feminist issue would increase the educational potential for those readers who are.