Blog #10 Fear of Feminism

After reading Hogeland's essay on Why Young Women get the Willies, I saw that she made a very good point about women being afraid of homophobia when it came to being a feminism. She states, "Allying across differences is difficult work, and is often thwarted by homophobia-by fears both of lesbians and of being named a lesbian by association." She also states that the fear of feminism is somehow molded by the reinforcement of heterosexuality in our society. I thought this was very interesting because, just like there are certain stereotypes for race and culture that people consciously and subconsciously use against people, there is a stereotype for feminism that may lead women to have the wrong idea about feminism. This fear of association she talks about is also a very legitimate claim because many young people are very worried about being categorized by the people they hang around with and therefore would be afraid to put themselves in the feminist category in fear of being called a lesbian. The fact that society views homosexuals as bad and heterosexuals as normal also brings many women to fear feminism also because of the association it has to being a lesbian.