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Zelda Lily aims to redefine feminism. We want to approach the term from a new angle. We want feminism to be about everything that being a woman entails.
A woman can be a full professor of physics at MIT, or a CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation. A woman can run a political campaign and a woman can win a political office. A woman can spear-head volunteer efforts at a national level or at a grass-roots level. A woman can run a hospital. A woman can run a salon. A woman can play football. A woman can host a dinner party. A woman can be a single mother. A woman can be pro-life. A woman can run a software company. A woman can be a porn star. A woman can run a bank. A woman can max out her credit cards. A woman can pick up the tab. A woman can be whisked off to Hawaii. A woman can accept and love her body. A woman can get liposuction and a nose job. A woman can produce a hard-hitting documentary. A woman can watch The Hills. A woman can love her husband. A woman can love her wife. And a woman, of course, can love her new Manolos and the perfect little purse she got to match.
We’re pulling feminism away from its cave of ideology and bringing it back into our day-to-day lives. We want to encourage women to talk about everything that being a woman can entail, and everything that a woman may want or fear or love.
We’re putting feminism back in bra.
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I love this! Feminism rocks! xx
Greetings from the middle east :)
i wish you success , but…
Dimwitted tripe.
unable to connect to zelda lily anymore can only see the website through cached pages….i have comcast cable internet and use microsoft explorer, live in states do not understand why this website not working….i get your logo on top with no content
Don’t know if you got your problem solved. With windows 7, same thing happened to me. If you need some help, just yell.
I have to use firefox or the same thing happens.
There is a lot of range with what contributes to feminist movement. There is plenty of room for diversity, but any woman working to take away another woman’s right to control her own body is the complete antithesis of feminism.
You can be pro-choice and think abortion is “murder”, but you cannot be supportive of laws that limit women’s freedoms and be a feminist.
Women have the power to control their own bodies. They have the power to keep their pants on should they not wish to get pregnant.
Also, you can stop wars by just talking it out.
And if you just work really hard, you can be anything you want when you grow up. Or that’s what I heard when I rode the Oversimplifying Train on over to this here website.
I think Oprah was driving….
haha I lol’ed for real.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I say this all the time, yes, you can be a woman and be anti-choice, but no, you cannot be anti-choice and be a feminist. Thank you for articulating it so perfectly.
So…if I find abortion thoroughly reprehensible, I’m somehow not a feminist? Thanks for clearing that up for me; I’ve been so deluded this whole time.
You can find it personally reprehensible and be a feminist. If you support making it illegal and removing that right from women then there’s an issue. Personally I’m not exactly comfortable with the idea but I’m not about to dictate what people can and can not do in that arena.
Melanie already answered this perfectly.
“Any woman working to take away another woman’s right to control her own body is the complete antithesis of feminism.
“You can be pro-choice and think abortion is “murder”, but you cannot be supportive of laws that limit women’s freedoms and be a feminist.”
One can think abortion is reprehensible as you say, but if they work/vote/take action against my right to make that choice for my body, a feminist they are not. Such a person may believe in some of the tenants of feminism, as I believe in some of the tenants of Republicanism, but I am am not a Republican, and in the same way they would not be a feminist.
I believe especially abortion is a very difficult issue. Personally I am strictly against it although I do indeed consider myself a (modern!) feminist. I believe a woman can be everything she wants to be, a housewife, a working mom, a single, a wife, and/or a successful lawyer/doctor etc.
But: In all those comments concerning abortion I read here the issue was always a woman’s right to decide over her body; what I found disturbingly missing was the baby’s right of life. A baby no matter how small/young is a person, a human being just like you, like all of us. Having an abortion you take that life away. Doing that to a “real” person, someone who has already been born would be called murder.
I believe no woman is allowed to abort an unborn child just because it grows within her body (and is entirely dependent on her for everything) anymore than a man is allowed to kill his 5 year old son because he’s his flesh and blood and can’t live on his own.
If someone is old enough for sex then they’re also old enought to take responibility for themselves and their partner(s). If a couple decides to have sex they have to use their brains first. It’s common knowlege that no contraception is 100% secure. Sex can always have consequences (no matter how unlikely). And if you aren’t prepared/able to handle those, please people, just keep your pants on!
Ok… Fetus does not = baby. Or child. Or person. Yes I am “dehumanizing” the fetus because it’s not a full, autonomous human being. There’s a reason fetuses don’t have citizenship, and there’s a reason we celebrate birthdays. The instant my BC fails or I forget to use a condom, the microscopic collection of cells growing inside me suddenly mean more than MY life? Why? Because I was “a slut?” Because I didn’t adhere to a moral standard YOU follow? I don’t think so. The life of the mother HAS TO matter more than the life attached to her. If I ever have a baby, once that child is born I would give my life for it in a second, I’d move heaven and earth for it, but the line between fetal and autonomous is not small. What we recognize as ‘human’ about each other, our emotions, our wants, our drive, doesn’t develop until AFTER birth. Yes, I recognize that a fetus can eventually turn into a baby and then a child, but they are neither of those things, and frankly, I find it dehumanizing to babies and children that the rights of fetuses are paid more attention to than their rights. There are so many millions about millions of starving suffering children, already born, starving, beaten, raped, alone, suffering (thanks to a lack of abortion access, I might add.) Why can’t we pay attention to the PEOPLE that want/NEED our help? I think carrying a child to term just because you got ‘knocked up’ with no ability to properly care for that child is worse than abortion, for both the (potential) child and mother. The basis of the pro-life movement isn’t about “trying to save ‘babies,’” it’s about controlling women by keeping them in the home, and making those babies. Do you REALLY think “keep your pants on” is a good solution? Yeah, it’s a cute catch phrase, but the rest of us live in the real world. Every idiot can have sex, not every idiot should be a parent. The moment that baby is breathing on its own, I will fight for its rights as hard as I would for anyone else, but until then it’s the woman’s body, it’s the woman’s life, it’s the woman’s call. Period. End of discussion.
1. I am sorry if my comment offends anyone. That was never my intention! I was just trying to show another perspective.
2. I don’t care about the intentions of some movement. This MY opinion! Nothing more and nothing less. And I have never said I want to ontrol and force all woman to be faithful housewives raising 10 children. I don’t onsider myself as part of any movement This i just n individual thinking.
3. I never said a fetus’s life is more important than the mother’s. I just believe they are both feeling beings (scientifically proved) with a right to exist. Their lifes are equally precious and unique and worth preserving/saving.
In the antique world peopple believed a child was born with a lesser soul like an animal and thereore wasn’t really human. They only became humans from the age of about 5 years when the soul was supposed to have developed into a full human soul. The gen was determined by the age an average adult was able to remember back to lateron. just as a note on the ide…
4.Yes, I do believe “keeping one’s pant’s on” is the solution. Whoever is not mature enough to act responsible should not have sex. Simple as that. MY OPINION! Of course everyone can as in being able to but houldn’t we raise our children in a way that allows them to become resopnsible adults?
5. I don’t condemn any woman who’s had an abortion and I ‘d never call her “slut”. all I do is hope that she took the time to consider all options.
6. All I ver meant to say is that if and when you decide to have sex you have to take care of contraception. And if ou do you hve to be aware that you re still taking a risk no matter how small. Then, if you decide that it’s a risk woth taking, you also have to be aware that in case of the case you’ll have to take the responsibility of the rist you agreed on taking.
7. Not aborting children here does in no way help any of the poor 3rd world children.
8. I still don’t intend to offend anyone! And I respect theat there are people who think differently. So please do respect mine as well.
was this written by a 14 year old?
Mentally….it looks like that’s the case.
I wish feminists would focus their energy on helping poor women instead of obsessing about political type stuff. It seems to have lost it’s focus and is all about wealthy, privledged women looking down their noses at everyone else.
I couldn’t agree more.
I couldn’t disagree with you more. Feminism IS political. Where you take it from there is your choice, but you cannot disregard the “political type stuff.”
So, now it’s my responsibility to “help poor women?” That’s not all feminism is about. Do I wish to help those who are abused and done wrong? Of course. Do I wish to help the woman who won’t get off her ass to take care of business or her kids? Hell no. Women have a responsibility to themselves to help themselves. It is not other women’s job to do that for them.
Feminism is dying thanks to people like you in support of porn stars. Stop calling yourselves feminists. Porn stars are often exploited and confused women who mistakenly believe they are “empowered.”
I think the point being made is that porn stars are women, rather than objects. They don’t stop being women just because of their jobs. In light of that, I’d say it’s a very feminist viewpoint. Besides, I think it’s been established by now that porn isn’t going anywhere. Most people would recognize that a prohibition strategy is futile and that moving to a harm reduction strategy to implement rules and safety standards would be far more helpful to women who are actually working in the industry.
The problem is that sex objects are still objects. women are more than objects and should find sexual pleasure in people who want them for more than their bodies. Rhere’s nothing wrong with bras – I have nothing against them inherently. I just have issues with “feminists” supporting the objectification of women. Maybe porn isn’t going anywhere, but women shouldn’t be the ones to feed it.
Sorry, Allison.
You are discounting the fact that there are many, many women who enjoy porn.
It may not be your thing, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t enjoyed by other women.
There’s a difference between erotica and porn. Pornography exploits and objectifies, whereas erotica celebrates. And @Blurry, just because women like it, believe in it, think it, feel it, doesn’t mean it’s feminist or even right. We’re all part of the system, women and men alike, but feminists (also men and women alike) recognize that the mass rape, torture, exploitation, undermining, and objectification of women is, in addition to intolerable, undermining the happiness, rights, and equality of all individuals. :)
Jen, since when does porn mean “…the mass rape, torture, exploitation, undermining, and objectification of women…?”
It remains true that just because you or I don’t like something, or find it to be disgusting or immoral, does not make it the one and only correct way of thinking.
I couldn’t do porn, but there are women out there who are totally into it. Do I have the right to tell them that they are less of a person, less of a feminist because I don’t like their career or hobby choice?
If it would make me feel objectified, does that mean that it makes everyone feel that way?
Hell no.
But isn’t the whole point of feminism to let women have the choice to have the career they want? If a woman wants to be a porn star & sex object, shouldn’t that be her choice? Shouldn’t she be allowed to make that decision? Or should a so called “feminist” be allowed to tell her that her choice to be a porn star is wrong, because the said feminist doesn’t agree with it?
Seems to make more since to just boycott the porn if you think it is demoralizing instead of condemning the porn star that chose that career.
I never said porn was all of those things, I would classify porn under the “objectification” part.
I am not entirely for or against porn myself, though the majority of it I have seen is geared towards pleasing men. This in itself is of course not a bad thing, what I object to is the messages it sends to men, especially young men, about women and the objectification of women. Of course some women enjoy porn, the women in the porn industry claim to love it. But regardless of what some people feel about objectification, it remains harmful to women as a whole. I would go one step further and say that women are trained by our culture and media to participate in and even like things that keep us subjected and objectified. It’s called the status quo.
Someone told me recently that I only like hamburgers because I’ve been culturally brainwashed into liking hamburgers. I wonder where I was “trained to like” a good, hard spanking. There is no McMindpolice telling me to embrace beefy goodness. The Porno Gestapo did not need to tie me to a chair and hypnotize me with a dildo to make light bondage seem appealing. Maybe hamburgers are just delicious to some people and spankings feel good to others, and that is A-OK.
Hear, hear! I love everything you just said.
Ughhh!! Your personal likes and dislikes do not equal porn! I love being spanked, and held down, and bit and giving it all back to them and etc etc etc. I am talking very specifically about the use of porn in our society to influence and reinforce patriarchal status quos. Young hot teen pussy, young hot teen gang raped while tied down, prom queen gets whats cuming to her good, hot blonde held down and fucked hard. That is what I’m talking about. Not what YOU PERSONALLY like in the bedroom. Seesh.
Perv!
(yes, I’m joking)
seems like another washed up opportunity to make yourselves look good…(I’ll say it) if you want to make a change do it on your own time and with people that actually give a crap…
FRIENDS….Please say a prayer or whatever you believe in or my good friend. She just had a stroke. She is 49 years old, 2 kids and I just got home from rushing her to the hospital.
Ugh, V, I’m so sorry … I’ll definitely keep her in my prayers. It’s so hard to deal with this kind of stuff, especially when it’s a close friend or family member and even moreso when children are involved.
Sorry to hear this, V.
Keep positive, there is so much more that they can do today.
My Mom has had 5 strokes – all within 14 months! She is doing well, is back to work and everything.
Hugs, my friend :)
Thank you guys. Got that right Sarah, it’s the kids especially. I have the 11 year old with me and the 17 year old is with his Mom stepping up to the plate. Of course the Mom’s boyfriend is an ASS. If I could strangle someone and get it away with it, it would be him right now.
The doctor’s are hopeful…The key is keeping her quiet and calm for now (not an easy task). I told her last night that I promise her one of these 2 things.
1. That she will recover and thank God for the second chance.
2. That she will continue with this type A personality and worrying all the time, and end up dead. Then she won’t have any worries.
Thanks again friends.
Hopefully we can reach a point where someone who identifies herself as a feminist will have a more balanced approach to her feminism. I can respect a woman who follows her dreams in an intelligent way. I prefer women with intelligence however above all this intelligent women also want sex just like men and both sexes are just a freaky. Enraging other women or convincing them about how bad men are for wanting to share with that pleasure with them (probably for your own benefit) will only make sexual relations between men and women even more strained than they are now. I can appreciate that women want to and can contribute to society and are just as (if not more) important for the wellness of that society but when it comes to sexual relations has any of you stopped and asked yourself whether feminists caused enough damage in the relationship between men and women? It has even gotten bad enough that lesbian women (butches) walk around with this chip on their shoulder as if they’re better than men when the natural truth is they can NEVER replace men. There are a whole host of men out there that would be really good to their women but they can’t even talk with her after reading publications like yours. Then that same woman goes home and wonders when she’ll have a man of her own with whom to share her love or the other woman who wonders when and how she’ll have her next orgasm that didn’t involve batteries of some kind. While these women are free to make their own decision they can only base their decisions on what information they have (whether overwhelming or lacking).
Ummm… lesbians aren’t trying to “replace” men. They have sex with women because they like having sex with women. Men really have nothing to do with it.
If non-feminist men have a hard time talking with feminist women maybe they should educate themselves about feminism and use that as a starting-off point.
I’m confused about the whole “feminism in a bra” thing. Bra-wearing is regularly invoked by some feminists as a way to distance themselves from other, perhaps more stereotypically-presenting feminists. As in “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not one of those hairy-legged feminists who don’t wear bras.”
I can’t tell if that’s where you all are coming from, but you are invoking something that is, rightly or wrongly, a symbol of the oppression/suppression of women and trying to associate it with feminism.
To Addy: LOL Are you a lesbian? I knew I’d piss you off with the truth LOL!
Maybe everything in the world is black and white to you but I see that most of the world are grey areas, maybe even earth tone LOL.
To clarify, I meant to say SOME lesbian women think they can replace us. I didn’t mean to imply all lesbian women had that mindset. I can tolerate lesbians until they cross that line.
Personally I really don’t care if a woman wears a bra or not but to understand the effects of taking ANYTHING to the extreme can do far more harm than good. That realization can only free that woman rather than repress her. Otherwise what’s the point? If she has to be an extreme feminist then she’s only moving from one oppressive regime to another because she will go from a life where she got all the sex she wanted but didn’t like the comments of some of the men with whom she consorted to complete sexual repression (unless she were to have sex with a woman perpetrating as a man) in the name of “equality” and it’s probably over something really petty. BTW I used quotes because the equality some feminists speak of actually creates inequality in the opposite direction, essentially de-masculating natural born men so women who want to take over that role has a place to sink their anchors (even though it may be made of plastic and only painted in a color to emulate lead and lack the substance of lead itself).
Maybe what you’ve considered to be oppressive is actually liberating but you were taught to take it the wrong way. Perhaps even for that person’s own selfish pleasure.
Should we walk on our hands because our feet feel that their role is repressed? We all still need our feet.
[...] exclusive? — as well as a definition of what feminism truly is in the year 2010 (I think Zelda Lily’s stated philosophy is pretty [...]
Hey “guy”: I think you’re wise to recognize the concept of ‘if the pendulum swings too far in EITHER direction, we lose’. All forms of extremism do more harm than good.
We seem to be so eager to prove ourselves as politically correct, that some folks who don’t have citizenship are entitled to more health care, and have more priority, than say, random working class guy? I see many of the so called “privileged” being sent to the back of the line.
I do believe that when people confuse reverse superiority with equality, it puts us all right back where we started. All that does is oppress a different group.
I do realize that my sentiment has already been stated.
And I interpret the bra thing to be a metaphor. : )
Peace.
To Lindsay. Finally someone who understands the truth and that truth is too much of anything is not good even if what you’re having or doing is a good thing.
Hopefully that sentiment will spread across this and other feminist communities. Perhaps it should go from feminism to people-ism. People who take a holistic approach to improving things.
Sorry bro, but much of what you write will fall on deaf ears for two reasons: 1. Your analogies suck. 2. Little of what you say is based in reality.
The crux of your statements are easily lost.
You speak of feminists in a very broad way, tarring them all with the same brush of hypocritical zealotry. With your claims of how extreme this publication is you reveal yourself as not having read it.
If you have something to say, such as, “Check yourself and don’t mistake taking control and oppressing others as they once did to you as equality” then just say it. If you did say that here then you would find ALL OF US would agree with you. Instead you chose to assume who we are and what we believe. Even worse you somehow tag this idea as being a rarity among feminists- it is just incredibly irksome!
Ha! You must feel my posting applies to you, Gigi.
All I’m saying is wouldn’t your life be better if you let go of whatever hurt you in the past. Learn from it instead of holding it against every man in or around your life. I guarantee you’ll be happier.
What do you think the word or label of “Feminist” conveys to people who who hear it?
Let me give you some examples. What do you think of when you hear, read, or say:
Player
Amway
Muslim
ex-offender
There are obviously some baseline thoughts that come to peoples’ minds whenever they see or hear words like these. They don’t necessarily mean the first though that comes to mind.
If you were to read my words with an open mind maybe your generation of feminists can make a better name for yourselves and have happier, healthier relationships in the process.
I am very interested in how you think feminists are made, clearly you think they must have been hurt by a man so drastically that they turn against them- which is also interesting as it implies that we hate men, or even have animosity toward them simply because of their gender. With that idea you have missed the point of this site. No one here is a radical in the sense of feminism. You say our generation can breed some type of non-manhateing women, but guess what, we don’t hate men, we don’t think we are better than men. You are attacking the very feminists you hope we will create. It is bizarre that you make such assumptions about who we are as people (ie. crazy) when this site is full of very self-aware women AND MEN who are interested in how gender politics play out around the world.
Guy, do you realize how hard your posts are to read? Gah run-on sentences and incoherence!
And I’m with Gigi, why on earth would you assume that the feminists on this site have been hurt by men? You have generalizations and incorrect assumptions coming out your ass, good sir.
So what do you think I seek out feminist websites to comment on? Nope. I actually was looking for an article from askmen.com but the top hit was on this site. The article on this site was full of venomous and negative responses to every point the article is trying to make. Responses that convey to me that the woman has a problem. Her own hatred for men. Men that chose the other girl instead of her and because of this she has allowed herself to enter a world without good quality men. Why? because she fails to see them. She chooses to see that man that didn’t choose her and she probably doesn’t realize she wouldn’t be a good fit for him anyway. So she’s mad at the world based on one possibly repeating event that always seems to involve the man she wants but can’t have. Maybe the problem is with what she wants.
I am good. Aren’t I, Erin. :-)
Aw, that was almost adorable in how shitty of a comeback that was. It is always just precious when people assume they have built an impregnable argument which trumps all other arguments, when really they have demonstrated their lack of ability to construct all the pieces of their diatribe in a manner which could be taken seriously- from the simple sentence to the overall argument.
No, dear, your little story doesn’t have relevance to me or probably to Erin, or likely to almost all of the readers on this site. You just told a random tale which could have happened to one random person, but I doubt that person makes Zelda Lily their choice place of cathartic hate speech- we wouldn’t let them go without notice.
I honestly don’t care how you got here. But if your knowledge of this site is confined to one article which was likely facetious in nature (considering askmen.com is a repeated topic here and most of the time the writers here examine in a humorous way the views of gender they hold) then you should probably actually take a look at a few more pieces which have been written.
After reading that one, what interest would I have in reading others? I’m simply stating your “few” hot heads are making you all look bad. The fact that there is no correction implies you all share their sentiments.
Well there will always be crazy people in every group. This is not a dictatorship. But you know what, the fact that you are unwilling to read anything else on the site and instead judge the hundreds of people who read, comment, or post here based on that one article just makes you look stubborn and afraid to be proved wrong. See if I then took the same approach you did (judging a whole group of people based upon one person’s words, even if you may have misinterpreted them without the correct context) in how I judged you as a person then I could make a whole realm of judgments and then attach them to any group you belonged to. Now that wouldn’t be fair. Really I feel like I’m explaining the basic principles of good etiquette/ tolerance. Check yourself compadre.
it’a not about being proven wrong. I simply and honestly am not interested in reading anything further about this site. I admit and apologize if I believe I was wrong but in this case I’m not interested in spending time out of my life reading negative opinions, nor do I like to dwell on negative sides of facts. Because of this I avoid news papers and news channels unless I’m watching the weather or if I believe what I’m watching, reading, listening to can improve my personal life in one way or another. With me, as with most people, you have one chance to make a good impression and you blew it. You made yourselves look like an arbitrarily anti-man website. Feel free to express what you want but don’t get mad when you have to deal with the consequences of your actions and that’s a fundamental problem with women that claim to be feminists. That’s why men don’t want to date you.
Try being a realist instead.
bahahahaha, you can not be a real person!
Haha, oh no Gigi he must be a real person! His best comeback was “this is why men don’t want to date you.” Crap, I knew my boyfriend was hiding a vagina somewhere! Thank you guy, for enlightening me!
You’re quite welcome Erin.