Brooklyn Museum:Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

basically, to me, any institution willing to own the word feminist, which has been made so evil and questionable by the right, has my support. nothing I do, my job, my writing, my sitting on the sofa watching tv, is non-feminist. hell, I can even defend my love of booty music as a feminist. the one, and only, piece of writing i've ever had published (yay) was feminist at it's roots, and that's important to me, as it was unconscious but real.

an artist that celebrates feminism (because I do believe that men can be feminists, too - just like straight people can be gay rights activists, etc), to me, is a feminist artist. I'm incredibly happy about this.

laura wrote: [quote=alafairnadia]nothing I do, my job, my writing, my sitting on the sofa watching tv, is non-feminist. hell, I can even defend my love of booty music as a feminist.

I could say the same about myself, which just contributes to my thinking that the word "feminist' is not very meaningful any more. That and the fact that it can be applied to such a wide divergence of views (think Andrea Dworkin vs. Susie Bright).

alafairnadia wrote: because I do believe that men can be feminists, too - just like straight people can be gay rights activists, etc

Um sorry but, isn't this, like, totally obvious? Geezo peezo, are we traveling back in time? Darn that Judy Chicago!

sure it's obvious, but I'm ok with that.

also, I think the word 'feminist' has been so demonized in the last .. what? 10 years? 15 years? that I'm glad people still claim it, think of it as positive, and are willing to put it on paper/on a wall/on an exhibition. I work with way too many female partners who make over $4 million a year who don't consider themselves feminists, because that's so 'loaded'. in real life, outside of the liberal area to which I, I admit, belong, 'feminist' is still a bad word. so when an organization, like the brooklyn museum, which depends on corporate contributions, in addition to various grants, to survive, I'm impressed. and happy. you, and I, may not like the primary exhibit, or the permanent work, but I'm still happy. just the word itself means a lot. I also work in a place where being a gay man gives someone more power and rights than being a single woman so ... I function in a very loaded, very respected (extremely respected - top law firm in the world) environment that handles most of the corporate world's major deals and makes billions because of that. so I think I have a particularly good insight into how even the extremely liberal, yet the extremely privileged left functions.

I'm not saying people can't have beef, but I think it's ultimately a positive thing. sure it may be very 70's in sentiment, but I'm not certain women's rights have progressed that much since then. think about the stupid ultrasound stations being set up outside of abortion clinics in the bronx. this city is being assaulted by what the rest of america has had to put up with the last 30 years. we aren't immune.