The State of the Me and a Women Unbound meme

So it’s been a crazy week here in Chez Shannon.

Early this week, I resigned from my reviewing commitment at The Good, the Bad and the Unread. I love that I got to review over there, but I didn’t have the time to devote to writing for two blogs in addition to being a full-time student. In addition, I’ve been feeling really burned out on romances lately. I haven’t read one in a while that I thought was a keeper, and I slowly want to ease back into reading them. This happens to me a lot. I’m not meant to be a one-genre reader, and I don’t quite get people who can do that.

I also had a brief struggle to find a way to use Net Galley, which I thought would be a useful resource. But sadly, I was stymied by DRM it is illegal for me to strip which makes the books unreadable. This actually nearly caused me to write up a whiny blog post, before I reminded myself that it didn’t matter. My blog is small potatoes. I’m content with it remaining so, since this is largely something I do for my own enjoyment and I have enough homework. I’d much rather campaign for e-arcs I really want, which is a relatively small number, and read what I want the rest of the time, whether it was recently published or not.

As I posted a few days ago, I’m participating in the Women Unbound challenge. I have several of my books ready to go, and I am excited to participate. I also really love that there’s this whole community on twitter who is doing the challenge, which will make it more fun.

Anyway, there’s an opening meme for the challenge, so here are my answers below.

1. What does feminism mean to you? Does it have to do with the work sphere? The social sphere? How you dress? How you act?

I think it means all of those things. For me, feminism is all about finding our voices and using them, as often as possible and as bluntly as we can. It’s about not being ashamed of those things that make us female, and not participating in shame of others. It’s not about fucking the patriarchy, bringing the man down, or making it so that men can never ever have fun again, which is what people who oppose feminism seem to think it is. I believe there are issues feminists face in the work and social spheres, and I think they’re all important.

2. Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why or why not?

Absolutely I consider myself a feminist. I’ve always found the complications of gender fascinating. And the more I read about the feminist movement, how far it’s come and what still needs work, the more I identify with it. Also, I’m a left-leaning tree-hugging pinko commie liberal, so feminism naturally follows from that. LOL.

3. What do you consider the biggest obstacle women face in the world today? Has that obstacle changed over time, or does it basically remain the same?

Honestly, I think the biggest obstacle women face is dealing with our own issues. I ran across the term internalized oppression in my social work classes last year, and I think that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Statements like, “I don’t have any girl friends because they’re all such catty bitches.” are all too common. Assuming implicitly or explicitly that a woman’s worth is tied up in whether or not she has a man and can keep him still goes on today. In fact, if I can go off on a tangent, one of the things that’s turned me off about romance novels in particular has been the treatement of female characters. In a genre that is meant to be so women-centric, the number of authors who develop such fascinating, multi-faceted male characters and then pair them with women as interesting as drying paint is absolutely appalling. Also, if I never read a description along the lines of, “She wasn’t like all the other women he’d met, who all *insert awful stereotype here*.” it will be too soon. I’m not asking for every single woman to embrace sisterhood and solidarity, but not cutting each other down would be seriously awesome.