Thursday, October 18, 2007

Possibly My New Favorite Quote

From Cara in this thread at Feministe:

Isn’t it funny how all of those so against identity politics tend to be white middle-class dudes? It’s almost like they share a political view that is shaped by a shared identity. WEIRD.


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As a side note, the post at feministe that generated the thread is an example of particularly acute awesomitude shining in a generally awesome blog.

3 comments:

Lesley Hall said...

This is probably a bit tangential, but since I've recently compiled a memo for the UK organisation History and Policy giving a historical perspective to current debates around modifying the terms of the 1967 Act, how is that people don't take time to think that it's very very difficult to get accurate figures of numbers of abortions when abortion is illegal? Figures collected through standard medical systems of data collation when it is legal are going to look shocking, if it's not realised that illegal abortions tend only to get recorded if the woman dies or becomes ill enough to be taken to hospital - and even then, doctors may be cautious about attributing these miscarriages to intervention rather than nature.The evidence from the UK suggests that only a tiny tip of the iceberg percentage of illegal abortions ever ended up in the legal system. So the apparent rise is due to better recording, not actual prevalence.

Rachel Swirsky said...

Good points, Lesley. Thanks for taking the time to tell us.

Anonymous said...

Oh, pgeorge pbernard pshaw. There are many Wendy McElroy/Camille Paglia-type women who oppose "identity politics", to say nothing of the critiques coming from PoC such as Appiah, whose work is perhaps more worth taking seriously. I wish the anti-"identity politics" types all looked like Todd Gitlin (it would be particularly interesting if Paglia were to wake up one day with a circumsised penis, a beard, and big lips); but sadly, they don't.