Melissa Harris-Perry, Tulane professor, MSNBC host, and public intellectual, recently did a Q & A with the readers of Jezebel. The entire piece is a must read, but especially great is this answer to a question on whether "the current state of black feminism is a dying revolution:“
For me, feminism is a question: what truths are missing here? The feminist thinker and organizer should always be asking this question. What are we missing? Who are we excluding? How is our analysis true, but still limited by missing truths? For me this means feminism creates a posture of intellectual humility and a willingness to question ourselves as much as we question systems of oppression. I am always distraught to encounter feminists who are utterly sure of themselves and never willing to admit to their own need to grow, expand and change. That strikes me as inherently anti-feminist.
It’s this approach and writers like Dr. Harris-Perry that keep me questioning, including especially my own position as an educated, middle-class, white cis man in a heterosexual marriage. I think it leads to both self-doubt and self-improvement. I hope it leads to the awareness that the personal (self-)improvement of men like me should be a side-effect and not the goal of feminism.
(I use the "doing feminism” in the way Dacia Mitchell used it on the This Week in Blackness podcast sometime last year, unfortunately I can’t remember the specific episode. I found the quote on feministing.)
Thoughts?