Lucienne -> RE: Sisterhood (12/28/2009 8:11:21 AM)
|
Is anyone contesting the idea that, on average, women are more judgmental of/harder on other women than they are on men? Not true across the board, of course, but common enough that I want to see the living environment of someone who disagrees with that statement. At this stage, I think the concept of "sisterhood" is a part of the problem, not the solution. Sisterhood implies a collective identity and duties to your fellow members. "She makes all women look bad," and other similar sentiments quickly follow. In my late teens, I carried around this idea that women owed each other certain things as women. The reality of interaction in college (and cheating boyfriends) cured me of most of that. Today, when I offer mentor-like counsel to younger women I tell them that there is no such thing as a sisterhood, and that your only obligation to a woman, as woman, is to provide her with a tampon under emergency circumstances. Other than that... treat women as human beings. So much "sisterhood" talk is plainly reactive to patriarchal norms that we should be disabling, not accommodating. The point is to be the person you want to be, not to shackle yourself to a group identity based on something as reductive as gender.
|
|
|
|