By Ross Parry
I’m sure that, if you’re reading this blog, you have come
into contact many times with the argument that feminism is a female-superiority
movement. I am equally confident that at least half of you lovely readers know
that this is rubbish.
Feminism is a movement which believes that gender inequality
is an issue in much of the world and that this takes the form of women having
fewer rights than men (in most instances, anyway). So where does the image of
feminism as a tribal, man-hating world domination group come from?
At its core, I believe this distorted view is rooted in
three basic and unfortunate truths:
1)
There are a minority of frustratingly
vocal individuals who actually do preach anti-male reverse sexism as feminism.
No matter how much we try to skirt around this, they exist.
Let’s just take a deep breath and admit it. Kidding ourselves will not do the
movement any favours. Anybody who paints all men as male-privileged chauvinistic
woman-eaters treads quite solidly in the grounds of the sexism they claim to be
fighting against. Actually no, they’ve basically jumped into it with both feet and somehow can’t see the irony of
what they’re doing.
Philosopher and author Christina Hoff Sommers labels this
kind of feminism Gender Feminism, which she says has ‘transcended the
liberalism’ of standard or Equity Feminism and has basically descended into
poorly disguised misandry (to simplify enormously).
Gender Feminists perhaps account for less than 5% of modern
feminists, so how have they managed to make such an impact on the image of
feminism as a whole? I could probably write an entire blog about this but I think
for now it’d be sufficient to boil it down to one salient fact: outrageous
opinions attract bigger audiences.
Gender Feminists are given a disproportionately huge media
platform by papers, magazines, television companies and the like because of the
profits they’ll drag in. Essentially, while they may account for less than 5%
of feminists, their media presence is much, much larger than this. Feminism has
been repped far too much by these people, and it’s damaged the label
enormously.
2)
Education of what feminism actually
is is lacking, especially when it comes to educating men.
I had to consciously go out of my way to find out what
feminism really was two or three years back, and I’m confident many of you have
had similar experiences. Even then it’s hard to find your way past the garbage
I mentioned in point 1.
This effort was especially great for me because I am a man.
For some reason almost every feminism populariser I can name almost solely
targets their educational pieces at women (and specifically young women). It
took me a long time of soul searching and reading to decide that I even could
be a feminist, something that should be self-evident to any human being. Just
try googling male feminism now and you’ll see what I mean. Almost every result
is a set of debates as to whether men can be feminists (this, by the way, does
nothing to dispel the myth that feminism is a woman-superiority group). Most of
these pages could easily be trounced with a counter question: ‘why the hell
not?’ but the point remains – feminism as a set of values is just not being
taught well enough.
There also seems to be a prevailing attitude amongst
feminists that it is somehow okay to instantly get emotional or ignorant when
it comes to questions or arguments against them, rather than staying cool and
informing the opposition of the facts. So much so that I anticipate much flak
directed at me for even raising this point.
Here are two bits of advice from your most humble writer:
Firstly, when people respond to your feminist arguments with a counter-opinion
– do not just all out start insulting them or calling them sexist. Secondly, do
not ignore them as if their argument is worthless.
This is your opportunity to educate people. If they’re still
being a prat afterwards then at least you tried. Feel free to ignore them from
that point onwards. But don’t berate people for not knowing – feminism isn’t
exactly an accessible movement at the moment.
3)
Feminism as a label is inherently
confusing.
Despite being the most simple of the three factors I have
drawn attention to, the name and ‘branding’ (if you will) of feminism cannot be
absolved of guilt.
When feminism first came about, it was used solely to
describe the campaign for women’s rights. Since then, it has expanded to mean
so much more and is broadly used as a header for the whole gender equality
movement, including the rights of men, transgender and other groups.
So why is it still called feminism? Advocates of racial
quality are not called ‘blackists’. Sexual orientation rights movements are not
attributed to ‘homosexualism’.
As I said, the feminism tag comes from where the whole
gender equality movement started – with women’s rights. This is good and of
course I would never suggest that feminists not be immensely proud of the
movement’s heritage, but in terms of viability in the modern era it’s just
honestly not a good label. Its unfortunate etymology fans the flames of the
stigmas that I’ve highlighted, such as feminism being a women-superiority group
and men being excluded from it.
What is the answer?
I could very easily end the blog here just by writing ‘beats
me’ and signing off. The feminist movement is enormous and important, the
problems it has need careful deliberation between as many of its followers as
possible, not just one unknown blogger in Britain. It needs a concrete
direction to move in.
But since this is a blog and therefore a body of text solely
dedicated to my opinion, I’m going to suggest what I think would be the way
forward.
Stop clinging to the feminism label out of sentimentality or
a sense of duty to the women who struggled to get it started in the first
place. Far from being a one dimensional issue, gender equality is a far more
complicated topic now that women are finally starting to get some of the rights
that they deserve.
There is a great deal further to go before the genders are
eventually equal, but there are other subtleties to consider. To move on, the
movement must not allow itself to be misrepresented by the minority who do not
understand it. It must be firm and clear both about what it entails and what it
will not tolerate without descending into impatience and frustration. It must
not be afraid or hesitant to distance itself from those who would use its name
to promote hateful ideologies and yet it must leave its doors open for anybody
to step inside and look around and see how everything works.
To this end, a different label and a perceived fresh
perspective by those who have failed to understand modern feminism would help
the world understand in almost unthinkably huge ways. I don’t know what this
label would be, but it should definitely be something inclusive and
unambiguous. Perhaps ‘equalism’ or something similar.
This kind of change cannot happen overnight, but if nothing
else please just consider the points that I have raised in this blog, even if
you do not agree with me. For me, and many others, feminism needs a rebrand.
No comments:
Post a Comment