This post is about a postcard which my mum use to have on her wall. I googled the quote on it and found it! Hoorah!
The quote at the bottom says:
""Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." - Pat Robertson, US POLITICIAN, 1992."
Mate, that is totally what it does.
From the time I first saw this postcard until present it has made me laugh. At first I thought he was being sarcastic, but after research I found out that this guy was actually for real.
I did an oral on this in year 8, and I find that the impact of this quote is still harsh but quite amusing. For someone to think those sorts of things about women standing up for womens rights.
Its like me saying:
"Boys nights out encourage men to cheat on their wives, eat the family dog, do the washing, convert to scientology and become gay."
There is nothing really wrong with most of these (except cheating on their wives and maybe eating the family dog). All these things are irrelevent to the a 'boys night out'.
Standing up for womens rights DOES NOT mean that women will become lesbians!
The photo on this postcard, however, has used the quote to the advantage of feminism. There are two girls on the postcard who are both in their swimming togs and are having a giggle. This photo is basically saying (in a blatent manner) "Up yours" to Pat Robertson, which I think really is the best way that someone could react to this quote.
The fight for womens equality, I feel, is not really understood by a lot of people, which is demonstrated by Robertson.
A close friend of mine, who is not anti-feminism, once said something which made me realise he really had very limited knowledge about fighting for womens rights.
I have a "Rosie the Riveter" badge on one of my little bags. The badge is from the post war "We can do it!" feminist act. Basically, during WWII women took over mens jobs while they were at war. Once the men returned they expected women to stop these jobs and go back to being house wives. Wrong. So yeah, you get the idea.
If you haven't the poster or badges, they look like this:
Back to my story. I had just bought this badge when my friend was like "Bridget, why did you buy this badge?". So I was like "What do you mean why?". Then he said "It's not even funny!".
At this point I realised he had no idea what the badge was about and thought that it was a joke, but it wasn't funny. HOWEVER, as funny as I found this I was like "It a feminist badge etc so forth..." and he was like "right." He really did just not quite understand the whole concept of why I wanted this little badge.
In my opinion I think the fight for female rights should be more broadly explained so that people know what the myths are with feminism and what it is. Maybe this will help people who think like Robertson to understand feminism.
Although there will always be people who have their negative opinons about women and their rights. Makes me wonder but I suppose thats why we have feminism.
Anyway, thanks for reading my blog.
Taa, Bridget.
