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[stevenleser]

229. Its a very second wave way of being a feminist which is why I reject it in favor of third wave

feminism. Someone asked me in the women's rights & issues forum what being a third waver means to me and I haven't had the chance to get back to them but I will do so in the context of the discussion here and link to it.

I am not in favor of beauty pageants for women or men, because I think that judging people primarily by physical beauty is done enough already and so we dont need additional mechanisms to enable it. I dont think that people judging each other (men judging women, women judging men, men judging men or women judging women) on beauty is necessarily sexist, but it is definitely superficial. That being said, one of the main ideas of liberation for each of the sexes is the opportunity for each woman and man to be able to do what they want to do and live the way they want to live. That is a core concept of third wave feminism.

Third wave feminism embraces two additional concepts here that are very important to this discussion. First is that sex and sexuality is a positive and beautiful thing which each consenting adult has the right to decide for themselves how they intend to enjoy and also that second wave feminism has nothing to say about issues outside of the gender binary but third wavers do.

What if this woman, as is very likely, wanted to appeal to other women by participating in this pageant? Shouldnt she be allowed to do that? Why can't the LGBT community be sexy and superficial on occasion if they want to be? A second waver wouldnt even consider that in their comments as it would never occur to them. What second wavers in this discussion dont seem to get is that in arguing this is a bad thing, they are denying this gay woman her right to be superficial if she wants to be and reinforcing patriarchy and straight priviledge.

If you want to know why I think third wave feminism is the right way to go about promoting equal rights for all women, this discussion thread is a really good example.