p. 24 – Erin: “That’s why this academic, pushed-on us feminist shit has actually hurt my family!” Regarding “pushed-on,” I think that, and the feeling of being “forced” to identify as a feminist (p. 22) are related. I interpret these as statements of frustration with limited choices. You can either accept the patriarchal status quo, or fight it by being a feminist. This means accepting the dominate feminist narrative, even if you don’t truly see yourself represented in that narrative (and feel that the keepers of the narrative are loathe to expand it to include you). I suppose in theory you could identify as a womanist or something else, but feminism is still the movement that has the most cultural cache (such as it is). You might feel forced to swallow feminism as your best bet for fighting the greater evil of the patriarchy even if feminism is problematic to you.

p. 24 – Krysta and Erin discuss their perception that “feminism sets this bar of ‘independent, strong women’ that are supposed to be able to ‘handle our emotions’ …” which includes a prohibition on crying. I don’t know whether this is an academically correct interpretation of first-wave (?) feminism, but back then I think there was a perception that a woman needed to reject stereotypical feminine things (like crying) to achieve equality. I saw that sometimes with older female partners when practicing law. Many were just as horrid as some of the men, but I suspect they had to be like that (act more like men) to climb the ladder at a time when women were still trying to reach that glass ceiling, let alone break through it. Hell, we still to some degree talk about a woman’s success as being linked to acting more like a typical man (e.g., the argument that the pay gap wouldn’t be so wide if women were as aggressive as men in pursing raises).

p. 26 – “The mainstream feminist movement is supposed to have started in the early 1900s with women fighting for the right to vote. However, these white women deliberately excluded the struggles of working class women of color and participated in the policy of forced sterilization for Aboriginal women and women with disabilities.” Maybe it’s not academically accurate to say that feminism started with suffrage in the US, but I think that association is strong, particularly for those (myself included) who don’t have an academic background in women’s studies.

Anyways, sorry for the long response. I haven’t even read the book [hangs head] and am just going off your quotes, so take what I say with a big grain of salt!