I just don't like paternalistic, white man's burden, now let me explain your own culture to you, etc. kinds of discussions.
Oh yeah, I've seen enough of those that I become twitchy whenever Germany comes up in Anglo feminism. God only knows how women from countries that generally get the "look how horrible life is for women here!" treatment feel.
My main issue at the moment is that I'm seriously out of touch with both feminism in Germany and in the UK where I live (English feminist discussion often not only being very Anglo but very US-centric), so I don't really know what the issues *are* until I stumble across them in a German blog and go "wait a moment here!" (e.g. there was apparently a big blow-up about the Pirate Party vs feminism, which I would dearly like to have known of before I voted for them damnit). And the issues that affect me personally are all tangled up in disability and asexuality - hooray for intersectionality, hooray - which are both usually so little discussed especially in combination that I'm still breaking myself of the "but all that doesn't matter because I'm not a /normal/ woman" mindset. :(
I must admit, I find it wonderful to read not only about various politics and laws and suchlike that, uh, actually affect me, but also see feminism put in the context of where I come from and the history that is important to me and my family. I'm only now realising how alienating I found it to read about the history of feminism and have it be solely the history of US-feminism - seeing a history of feminism that meshes with things like the aftereffects of WWII on Germany, the '68 student revolution, terrorism by the radical left (RAF and all that), the Berlin Wall and the like is- is- wow. I feel as if I've suddenly gained roots again!
Re: German feminist blogs - I am also pretty ignorant, and have NO IDEA how good the ones I've found are on race, trans* issues, sexuality, asexuality, disability, class, etc. I know of Mädchenblog and Mädchenmannschaft, which also has a very useful feminist dictionary which comes in handy if you're coming at feminist discussion via English. It gave me a whole new appreciation for people who complain that feminist discourse is all academic and jargon-y when I realised that I had no idea how to express many of the ideas I was used to in German! I Heart Digital Life and Genderblog I've also seen linked. Blogrolls exist although they're often mixed English/German - indeed, the old phenomenon exists: the German feministosphere seems *very* up-to-date with what's going on in the English one, links and discusses English posts, has various bits of vocabulary lifted from English, even feminist memes, and the English one doesn't seem to realise the German one exists. Where do we know this pattern from? Right, everywhere. :D
Re: Euro and international feminist recs
Oh yeah, I've seen enough of those that I become twitchy whenever Germany comes up in Anglo feminism. God only knows how women from countries that generally get the "look how horrible life is for women here!" treatment feel.
My main issue at the moment is that I'm seriously out of touch with both feminism in Germany and in the UK where I live (English feminist discussion often not only being very Anglo but very US-centric), so I don't really know what the issues *are* until I stumble across them in a German blog and go "wait a moment here!" (e.g. there was apparently a big blow-up about the Pirate Party vs feminism, which I would dearly like to have known of before I voted for them damnit). And the issues that affect me personally are all tangled up in disability and asexuality - hooray for intersectionality, hooray - which are both usually so little discussed especially in combination that I'm still breaking myself of the "but all that doesn't matter because I'm not a /normal/ woman" mindset. :(
I must admit, I find it wonderful to read not only about various politics and laws and suchlike that, uh, actually affect me, but also see feminism put in the context of where I come from and the history that is important to me and my family. I'm only now realising how alienating I found it to read about the history of feminism and have it be solely the history of US-feminism - seeing a history of feminism that meshes with things like the aftereffects of WWII on Germany, the '68 student revolution, terrorism by the radical left (RAF and all that), the Berlin Wall and the like is- is- wow. I feel as if I've suddenly gained roots again!
Re: German feminist blogs - I am also pretty ignorant, and have NO IDEA how good the ones I've found are on race, trans* issues, sexuality, asexuality, disability, class, etc. I know of Mädchenblog and Mädchenmannschaft, which also has a very useful feminist dictionary which comes in handy if you're coming at feminist discussion via English. It gave me a whole new appreciation for people who complain that feminist discourse is all academic and jargon-y when I realised that I had no idea how to express many of the ideas I was used to in German! I Heart Digital Life and Genderblog I've also seen linked. Blogrolls exist although they're often mixed English/German - indeed, the old phenomenon exists: the German feministosphere seems *very* up-to-date with what's going on in the English one, links and discusses English posts, has various bits of vocabulary lifted from English, even feminist memes, and the English one doesn't seem to realise the German one exists. Where do we know this pattern from? Right, everywhere. :D
ETA: I fail at HTML.