I'm a liberal who believes in investment banking
In college, I once attended a panel presentation, sponsored by the Women's Studies department, on women in the working world. By the time we got to the discussion portion (at these things, there's always a "discussion", lest anyone's "voice" go unheard), I was finding the panelists and participants generally obnoxious, and I proceeded to tell everyone that feminism will finally achieve its goals when we all stop waving signs in front of people in power and otherwise romanticizing the activist lifestyle, and instead use our Ivy League educations to make a lot of money and BE those people in power so no one can push us the fuck around.
My comments didn't go over well; academic feminists have nearly fetishized the idea of protest action. And I said, "Look, bitches, the Civil Rights movement used sit-ins and marches because that's all they had. If African-Americans prior to the '60s had had the opportunity to attend Ivy League universities, become investment bankers, and make shitloads of money so they could leverage their economic power instead of getting hit with police hoses, they sure as fuck would have done so, and for you to throw away your privilege now because you like sitting on the Mall in Washington in your Birkenstocks with your girlfriend singing folk songs about oppression is an insult to the Civil Rights movement and all those women you supposedly want to help."
Imagine if Bill Gates went to, say, the slums of Calcutta, and said "Hey, I want to help!" And everyone was excited, imagining all the schools and hospitals that would be built. And then Bill said, no, actually, I'm going to take my shoes off and walk barefoot like Gandhi, holding a sign that says "Hell, no, we won't die of leprosy!" because it gets me off to think of myself as being like Gandhi.
I recently recounted this story to some friends of mine on a listserv, and one friend replied:
"Jen, with more people like you telling those liberals what's up, Evil will have more and more trouble contending with my JUSTICE FIST."
My comments didn't go over well; academic feminists have nearly fetishized the idea of protest action. And I said, "Look, bitches, the Civil Rights movement used sit-ins and marches because that's all they had. If African-Americans prior to the '60s had had the opportunity to attend Ivy League universities, become investment bankers, and make shitloads of money so they could leverage their economic power instead of getting hit with police hoses, they sure as fuck would have done so, and for you to throw away your privilege now because you like sitting on the Mall in Washington in your Birkenstocks with your girlfriend singing folk songs about oppression is an insult to the Civil Rights movement and all those women you supposedly want to help."
Imagine if Bill Gates went to, say, the slums of Calcutta, and said "Hey, I want to help!" And everyone was excited, imagining all the schools and hospitals that would be built. And then Bill said, no, actually, I'm going to take my shoes off and walk barefoot like Gandhi, holding a sign that says "Hell, no, we won't die of leprosy!" because it gets me off to think of myself as being like Gandhi.
I recently recounted this story to some friends of mine on a listserv, and one friend replied:
"Jen, with more people like you telling those liberals what's up, Evil will have more and more trouble contending with my JUSTICE FIST."
posted by JenIsFamous at 12/19/2004 11:32:00 PM
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