{"id":1681,"date":"2009-07-16T10:30:29","date_gmt":"2009-07-16T15:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1681"},"modified":"2009-07-16T10:30:29","modified_gmt":"2009-07-16T15:30:29","slug":"girl-talk-sisterhood-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2009\/07\/16\/girl-talk-sisterhood-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"GIRL TALK: Sisterhood Revisited?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I loved reading Emily Bazelon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a> in Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s New York Times Magazine.<\/p>\n

I loved that she gave this interview so strategically, with its publication on the eve of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings.\u00c2\u00a0 The interview both anticipates and undermines the predictable sexism and racism (see, for example, all of the ink spilled about the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wise Latina woman\u00e2\u20ac\u009d quote, and Ginsburg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spin on that tempest in a teapot) that have informed both the hearings and the media coverage surrounding the Sotomayor nomination.<\/p>\n

I loved that it was feminist.\u00c2\u00a0 From talking about why women matter on the court and in public life to arguing that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[t]ime is on the side of change,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with regard to abortion rights, Ginsburg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s responses are unabashedly feminist.\u00c2\u00a0 How wonderful to see this on display\u00e2\u20ac\u201dat length\u00e2\u20ac\u201din a mainstream media publication.<\/p>\n

But most of all I loved the way it represented women supporting one another.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe this is what our feminist foremothers had in mind when they used the phrase, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sisterhood is powerful.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 I have to say that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never had much use for the idea of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sisterhood\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in my definition of feminism, since the term seemed to rely on artificially flattening differences among women.\u00c2\u00a0 It seems to assume that gender struggles are the most important ones, something that has been most often true for white women.\u00c2\u00a0 (As many GWP readers already know, GWPenner-in-Chief Deborah Siegel has a terrific analysis of the conflicts and controversies at work in feminist ideas of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sisterhood\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Sisterhood, Interrupted<\/a>).<\/p>\n

So with all of that history in mind, that show of support is what I especially loved about Ginsburg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interview.\u00c2\u00a0 Positioning herself as white, Jewish woman from Brooklyn, she was standing up for her Latina. . .colleague (sister??) in a very public, political way.\u00c2\u00a0 Speaking as a white woman myself, we need to this more often, and not just when it comes to gender struggles.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also been thinking about this public, political, feminist show of support in the context of girls\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 relationships.\u00c2\u00a0 My daughter has recently been grappling with what is probably the beginning of many girl friend conflicts that center around attention, inclusion and exclusion, and degrees of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153best friend-ness.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 (For example, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have no one to play with on the playground.\u00c2\u00a0 Sally and Susie are spending all of their time together and they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t include me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m saddened that these conflicts are arising already, in second grade.\u00c2\u00a0 But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also thinking from a feminist perspective about how my daughter can learn to value her female relationships, and about how I can model female friendship myself.<\/p>\n

I return to thinking about the Ginsburg interview.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear from the Q&A that Ginsburg and Sotomayer don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know one another well.\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly they would not call one another friends.\u00c2\u00a0 But no doubt they share a passion for their work, a commitment to advancing social justice, intellectual curiosity, and much more perhaps.<\/p>\n

Friends are important in life, no doubt.\u00c2\u00a0 But so are feminists.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope my daughter finds plenty of both as her relationships unfold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I loved reading Emily Bazelon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s New York Times Magazine. I loved that she gave this interview so strategically, with its publication on the eve of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings.\u00c2\u00a0 The interview both anticipates and undermines the predictable sexism and racism (see, for example, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1905,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21103],"tags":[245,21351,21395,21804],"class_list":["post-1681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-girl-talk","tag-feminism","tag-feminist-history","tag-girls","tag-sisterhood-is"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1905"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}