The Right to Dissent
While catching up on some blogs this weekend, I ran across Jessica Valenti’s post on her own wedding.
Now, I could care less about her wedding and all the hullabaloo of a “feminist wedding.” I’ve gone on the record to state that I have zero respect for Valenti. I’ve read one of her books (I refuse to spend anymore more money purchasing the rest), and found the writing and rationale behind her positions absolutely sloppy. Just because she’s not afraid to drop the f-bomb doesn’t make her fresh and witty and give her a “unique perspective.” Backing up your claims with statistics, examples and other sources goes a long way towards winning an argument than “those f-ing Christians feel this way, so you should believe the opposite.” It’s juvenile scholarship at best.*
I honestly hope she had a happy day that was special for her and her husband. However, I was a bit surprised at this statement:
We wanted to make the wedding representative of the institution we’d like marriage to be, and I think we did a good job. Does any of this change the fact that marriage is a historically sexist institution or make it okay that millions of people are denied the right to be married? Of course not. But it made the celebration one that made sense to us, one that re-imagined what marriage as an institution should be about – love, equal partnership and community. (And seriously, to the some of the more conservative relatives at our wedding, hearing these sort of things at a wedding absolutely made an impact.) [italics mine]
That’s nothing short of rude. It’s one thing to hold a ceremony that is important to you. It’s another to hold a ceremony that pushes a political agenda so that the less “enlightened” members of your family can be exposed to the “truth.”
I hate to break it to Ms. Valenti, but she sounds dangerously close to the Bible-thumping-Bob-Jones-University-types that I knew in high school. If you go far enough to one side, you start resembling the views of your so-called enemies. The politics my be different, but the attitude and expressions are nearly identical.
To push an agenda towards your extended family who have taken off from work, spent time and money to travel and most likely purchased at least one gift is the height of arrogance. What Valenti and other liberals (and many conservatives and Evangelicals for that matter) refuse to understand is the right to hold an opposing view.
The greatest part of democracy is the ability to hold a dissenting view and be vocal about it. That is a liberty that far too few people hold in this world, and it’s one that is taken for granted and trampled by both sides of the political spectrum.
I see this every day as I help conservative college students fight for freedom of speech and diversity of thought. I write about the absolute exclusion that liberal women have towards the center-right majority of women in this country. The right to dissent without fear of ramification through lawsuits, hate speech codes or threats of “intolerance” is a very real battle in this country.
Simply because you have very strong views and are surrounded by a fawning press and people who agree with you (ahem, Ms. Valenti), doesn’t make you superior. I disagree with nearly everything that you believe. While I respect your right to hold these views, I rarely see that respect come from your side. When was the last time that you gave a conservative woman an interview? When was the last time that you tried to find common ground with a Republican? What about an honest and real debate with someone from the other side? How is feminism helping women when you automatically dismiss at least 50% of your audience?
Where is our country going when we can’t even openly debate important issues? This problem ranges from small situations, such as the Valenti wedding to the White House shoving government health care down our throats. Average Americans, the ones that the left claims to speak up for, are not allowing debate. You either agree or disagree. There are a range of options out there from de-regulation and allowing competition and flexible health care plans to the public option. However, we only hear one side. When one side shuts down all debate, it furthers one side’s political agenda but it destroys democracy.
*I’m currently reading Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future and find the writing far more articulate and the views of the authors better explained. While the book is a bit outdated (published in 2000 with a considerable zeal for ‘zines), it presents a grown-up perspective of feminism that Full Frontal Feminism lacks. I still disagree with nearly everything, but I don’t find myself putting the book down and laughing at its idiocy.
Tags: debate, Feministing, free speech, health care, Jessica Valenti, weddings
October 24th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I actually read about half of Manifesta a couple of years ago. Decent read, but I never got around to finishing it.
October 24th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I’d recommend picking it back up. It’s one of the few feminist books that I would actually tell people to read. While they inherently hate the right, the authors do admit the shortcomings of feminism and offer a wider perspective of what the movement means.
I wish that they would do an updated version since a lot has happened in the past decade.