Yesss!!!!!!

I haven't had the attention span of a gnat on crack for the past year or so, so I hardly ever really read anymore, and I miss out on a lot. But thankfully, I have friends like JanetL who send me the bestest links to stuff that I can actually sit down long enough enjoy.

This Salon interview with Katha Pollitt will rock your world. And yes, you have to do the click on the sponsor's logo thing to get to the whole article, but it's worth it.

And I quote:

"...I just think that women -- feminists -- need to have the conversation with people who don't agree with us, people who live in places that aren't so cosmopolitan. You need to make the connection between your own personal life and the larger story of what's happening in the country and what we can do to help ourselves. I'm sure someone like Wonkette feels quite feminist and liberated in her own life -- she just doesn't see how what happens to abortion rights in South Dakota has anything to do with her."

And:

"There's this huge backlash going on involving women's bodies and appearance, and the immense pressure to be beautiful and thin and complaisant and alluring. That's what Linda Hirshman and others call 'choice feminism' comes out of. Which is just saying, 'I'm a free agent. I'm making my own choices, so we don't have to talk about them. In fact, it's insulting if you want to talk about them. Don't judge me.'"

And finally:

"I think that conservatives have really done an amazing job of taking away from us all the good words like 'liberty' and 'freedom' and demonizing the words that are left. Like 'feminism' and 'choice.' And 'liberal.' I think we can't let them do this forever. If you lose a way to describe yourself, you've lost a lot. If you lose the word 'feminism,' you are losing the idea that there is anything particular to the way women's situation is structured in this society.
I would fight for that word. But it's a losing game in the end. I think we've seen that with 'liberal.' 'Liberal' was a very good word! 'Liberal' was a word that put together the idea of our constitutional liberties -- like freedom of speech and the rights of the individual against the government -- with the idea of fighting poverty. Fighting racial discrimination. Once you lose the word, you lose a very good way of keeping those concepts together. And I think the same is true about 'feminism.'"

Go. Read. Now. You'll be glad that you did.