I tend to segregate my more personal posts to my personal blog, because I figure that I don't read any livejournals or personal blogs, so why would Cogitamus readers be interested?
Reading Melissa McEwan's feminism 101 this weekend inspired a change of heart, and made me realize how easily I've swallowed the misogynist, sexist old saw* about emotions being for girls and therefore boring and stupid.
*Ohmigod, you swallowed a saw? That sounds almost as painful as this mixed metaphor.
It wasn't until my personal life got kind of interesting this winter that I ever wrote much about myself on my blog.
Being a rookie at the whole fat acceptance thing, I was a little nervous about posting anything reflecting my struggle with body image to the Cogitamus audience. Previous experience with writing about body image and fat has taught me that putting together a post that advocates for myself is a good exercise in aligning my emotional and intellectual positions on my value as a person and how it relates to the form my body takes.
But as Melissa says,
Making the personal public and political is serious business. Because women's stories aren't told, it's incumbent upon female feminists to tell their own stories, to fill that void, to be unrepentant and loquacious raconteurs every chance we get, to talk about our bodies, our struggles, our triumphs, our needs, our lives in every aspect. It's our obligation to create a cacophony with our personal narratives, until there is a constant din that translates into equality, into balance.
Hell, yeah! Why shouldn't mundane things like body image be feminist issues? They were once, I'm sure you know. Can't tell you how that battle got lost, but after about 1/3 of a century, maybe it's time for another go at that one.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | August 11, 2008 at 08:01 PM