Non italics: Vita
Italics: Alex
How can you be a female living in 21st century America and not be a feminist? Unless, of course, you are misunderstanding the word, to which I say: look it up. Dictionaries exist, as does *gasp* THE INTERNET.
Seriously, somebody please enlighten me. What is with this aversion to feminism? Why do females seem to think that they are somehow less human than their male counterparts? A: Years of learning gender roles that are enforced by television, film, advertising, and other major media messages. Not to mention society and the people around you.
Part of it, at least, must be the fact that feminists tend to get a bad rep. You always hear about the ones who are burning bras, condemning all men, lobbying for complete power. That isn't feminism. If you believe that men and women are equal - not that women are superior - and you believe that laws and society ought to reflect our equality, then you are a feminist. And before you ask, no, you don't have to offer up the corpse of a freshly killed male to join the women's-rights club. That would be worrying.
Please don't say, "I'm not much of a feminist, but..." Just don't. It's a terrible phrase. What you're saying is, "I don't really think women are equal to men, but..." Is that honestly what you mean? Do you truly believe that you are worth less? Or are you trying to avoid being called a bitch? A lesbian? A typical power-hungry self-serving woman?
Because that's what feminists are called. It's meant to deter the movement, to shake our beliefs, and unfortunately, it works.
Happiness and feminism aren't mutually exclusive. You can have five kids, be madly in love with your husband, and still be a hardcore feminist. That is totally cool. The modern feminist movement is not about calling men chauvinistic pigs and taking over the world. It's about realizing that we have a distorted world view. It about shoving aside the idea of 'boy colours' and 'girl colours' and concepts like that. It's about being able to buy LEGOs with dragons, moats AND princesses* (maybe even wearing armor and a helmet). It's about equal opportunity and FAIR PAY**.
So stop demeaning us with your derogatory language. And when your kids (or their kids, or your friends kids or whatever people you might imagine being close to in the future) ask you if things really weren't always this fair, and were you a part of making things equal for everyone, I hope you can tell them you did something. At the very least, I hope you can say you didn't hinder the progress. Chances are, though, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. So get on it***.
footnotes to describe my links:
*This is an awesome blog by Maggie Stiefvater (whose books I have not actually read but I intend to because her blogs make her sound like an incredible writer) complete with a Harry Potter graphic.
**This is a link to my own blog-rant which you might have read already, but regardless, it's relevant.
***An article from the Princetonian (sp?) about how to be a feminism (or at least how to start).
2 comments:
I totally agree wiff you 100% (that first article you linked is awesome) but I would like to make several comments regarding feminism in general (my viewpoint since writing that draft has since changed slightly):
1) The claim that women are judged based on appearances more than men are is, I must say, complete bullshit. Every girl I know judges men based on their appearance just as much as men do the same to women. Yes, female celebrities/politicians/models/etc are probs judged more harshly, but in day-to-day life, there's no freaking difference. So. Nobody should be blaming men for that one.
2) I think that the aims of feminism most directly apply to the public/political/business sphere. Socially speaking, yes, there are double standards for women etc. etc., but men have it just as hard, just in different areas. Like, gender stereotypes in general hurt everyone, not just women. For example: something ridiculous like 75% of women get total custody of their kids. That is bullshit. I can understand mothers getting custody of their kids more than 50% of the time BUT NOT WHEN FATHERS GET CUSTODY 9% OF THE TIME (excluding joint custody). That is fucking ridiculous and is definitely not fair. I'm sorry, but there is NO way that the mothers are the better/more suitable parent 75 freaking percent of the time and fathers are better freaking 9% of the time. (Granted, I don't have 1st-hand experience with this so I'm not saying I know better than everyone, but fucking common sense tells you that a statistic such as that is horrifying.) I think it gets *really* difficult for women when you start having more female politicians, et cetera, but even then it's not so clear cut. The pay thing is ridiculous, but then again, there's some statistic about a lot more men than women getting laid off when a company downsizes. So in the US, I don't think you can ever truly say, "Oh, women are treated so unfairly" without stepping back and going, "But men are treated unfairly, too." I watched some video about an anti-feminist chick who was like "Now the law is overcompensating for women because they don't want to get labeled as sexist" and while I think that viewpoint is extreme, because all in all I think women do get the shorter end of the stick (even though, in all honesty, it's not THAT much shorter and in fact both ends of the stick are more like really crap twigs), it is still totally possible to be sexist against men.
That said, I'm all for girl power. I'm just for boy power, too. :) In fact, I'm personally a huge fan of feminism in countries where women are actually oppressed for reals (like, a lot of the Middle East) but in countries like Canada & the US, where there are still a lot of stereotypes/sexism/etc. but it's less "men oppress women by calling them sluts" than "people oppress themselves by setting up stupid gender lines" I'm more of a fan of dropping the feminist label and calling it, like, humanism or something. Because as much as I support women, I also support men, and while real feminists do both, the name is misleading.
Also, this article is vair interesting: http://hannahmosk.blogspot.com/2010/07/boy-problem.html
I agree with all of this. When people hear the word "feminist" they think "bra-burning, man-hating, hairy-arm pitted lesbian." This is not true. You can be straight and be a feminist. You can wear skirts and be a feminist. You can *gasp* be a MAN and be a feminist. It probably makes me the angriest when people act like the struggles of minorities are for minorities to battle alone. Men are completely necessary in order to have equal rights with women, and any man who doesn't think that women should have equal rights is *insert nasty adjective here*.
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