The Tradëscan Codex

I'm not sure where you're seeing learned helplessness or a "poor little me" attitude among contemporary feminists. I see anger and resistance and critique and motivation to create change where you apparently see unjustified whining.

And yes, I have several kinds of privilege -- white privilege and class privilege and apparently-heterosexual privilege (since my bisexuality is not immediately visible). Those forms of privilege, however, do not negate the effect sexism has on my life and the lives of other white, middle-class, straightish women. I do not have male privilege. But my response to that is not "Woe is me!"; it's "Let's change this so all women have more choices and better lives."

Do you believe that women and men have equal power in today's, say, American or British societies? And if so, how do you explain the overwhelming majority of men in positions of political and economic power? I'm not trying to derail alixtii's discussion of OTW into a debate about the persistence of sexism -- I'm just trying to explain that I, and I believe most people who identify as "feminist" and especially "radical feminist," do see power as inequitably distributed between men and women in our societies. Men are still by and large the gatekeepers, and women are still routinely portrayed as unsuited for holding power. It's that belief that leads us to value female-majority spaces, as at least the LJ- and fic-segments of fandom are.