(K)eine Königin des Feminismus

Zwei US-amerikanische Feministinnen diskutieren über ihr Politik- und Feminismusverständnis und unterschiedliche Generationen: Gloria Steinem und Kathleen Hanna.
Gloria, geboren 1934, ist eine feministische Journalistin und Gründerin/Herausgeberin des amerikanischen feministischen Magazins MS. Kathleen, geboren im geschichtsträchtigen Jahr 1968, ist Musikerin, feministische Aktivistin und Autorin.
Das Interview ist nicht nur lehrreich, sondern auch äusserst lustvoll. Kathleen Hanna und Gloria Steinem zeigen, wie intergenerationeller Feminismus aussehen kann und diskutieren darüber, warum sie keine feministischen Königinnen sind und was Feminismus bedeutet:

Q:Okay, so my first question is: How do you each define feminism?
KATHLEEN: Gloria, you want to go first?
GLORIA: Well, I think the dictionary is not bad, you know: the belief in the full social, economic, and political equality of women and men. I would just add "and doing something about it." And when you look at the effects of that simple statement, it's quite a transformation.
KATHLEEN: I agree with what she said, and I would add that I also see It as a broad-based political movement that's bent on challenging hierarchies of all kinds in our society, including racism and classism and able-body-ism, etc etc.
GLORIA: Yeah, I agree. That's the transformation - because once you take away the basic first step in a hierarchy, which is the passive/dominant of female/male, it challenges everything.

Sie sprachen aber nicht nur über grundsätzliche Feminismuskonzeptionen, sondern ebenso darüber, was sie für Bilder über unterschiedliche feministische Generationen hatten:

KATHLEEN: Like that they have hairy legs and they are anti-sex and so on. And I was like, "I'm a SEXY feminist, and I'm going to wear makeup and blah blah blah." Then, when i actually started delving into the history, I realized that I was playing into stereotypes, and that i didn't need to base myself in opposition to my perception of the past. Instead, I needed to learn from it and grow from it and seek out mentors and a continuation of things that had happened before, as opposed to positing myself as the new hip feminist product to be consumed. I was really playing into a lot of bullshit capitalist ideology that i now realize was stupid, and now I'm seeking out more information.
GLORIA: You know, it's interesting listening to you, because, though I knew less about the suffragists than you know about the Second Wave, I did the same thing of positioning myself in opposition to them, because I had heard they they were these puritanical, sexless bluestocking folks. And that wasn't right either - look at Emma Goldman, look at Victoria Woodhull and the Free Love Party. I think that what happens, in a deep sense, is that society sees the relationships between men and women, and even between women and women and men and men - all sexual relationships- as having to be passive/dominant. So, if you're talking about equality, they think you must be against sex.

Nun – dass beide diese Missverständnisse ausgeräumt haben, haben sie zu Genüge bewiesen. Und dennoch möchten beide nicht als feministische Ikonen bezeichnet werden:

GLORIA: There is no Queen of the Feminists, by definition.
Q: Right, but from a media perspective, you were "It".
GLORIA: Well, you know, on the one hand I was working in the media, and on the other hand I was trying to avoid being singled out by always speaking with another woman, by refusing to do interviews unless there were other women-racially diverse women-who were (also) part of the article or interview. It wasn't always successful you know- Newsweek did an early cover story about me, for instance, and I wouldn't pose for photographs, so they just took one with a telephoto lens. I think the challenge is to figure out how to use public recognition to convey some message. A simple-minded example is that, when somebody asked me for an autograph I used to say no, because I thought that institution was such a hierarchy in itself, but that was seen as unfriendly, so i began to ask people to trade autographs with me. And I think, small though that is, it conveyed a different message. So that's the challenge and the fun, to try to take old bottles and put new wine in them.
[…]
KATHLEEN: It was really terrible at first, 'cause I didn't want to be the leader; it was obviously a community of a lot of different women working on different fronts. I felt really embarrassed and humiliated by being singled out in that way, and (as a result) I was sometimes perceived as a traitor, even though it wasn't my fault. But, like Gloria, at a certain point I just had to accept it and think, "What can i do with this?" It's funny, 'cause when I sign autographs I write "Born in Flames by Lizzie Borden", a movie that I think is genius, that I think all women should see. So I use my autograph as a way to advertise that movie. Or I'll write down just a book, like The Dialectics of Sex by Shulamith Firestone, or Letters to a Young Feminist by Phyllis Chester, or No More Nice Girls by Ellen Willis, and then sign my name.

Und zum Schluss – die Frage aller Feminismusfragen - diejenige, die wir am liebsten haben:

Q: How do you two feel about men? Can they ever be as feminist as women? You've probably both been accused of reverse sexism...
GLORIA: Well I've been accused of everything.
KATHLEEN: (laughs)
GLORIA: Liking them too little, too much. But of course, biology is not destiny, and there are some men who are better feminists than some women. But it's also true that it's justified to have anger against men who treat you badly, and who undermine or denigrate or create hierarchies or hurt people. There's nothing wrong with healthy angry. Indeed, depression is angry turned inwards.
KATHLEEN: Well, I don't think sexism is going to change unless men start to investigate the construction of masculinity and how to move outside of the boundaries. And I think that, while sexism hurts women most intimately, it also damages men severely.

Das ganze Interview findet ihr hier. Lasst euch inspirieren.