It is my firm opinion that ‘Feminism’ is a
dirty word for a reason. It’s not that it’s become obsolete, and so any
proponents of it are irritating shrews who don’t know when to stop flogging a
dead horse. It’s not that Feminists are crazy, bra-burning man-haters, and it’s
not that they ‘take it too far’ and want to run the world and make men
irrelevant. In fact, all of those opinions (unfortunately held by too many
people) are insidious, clever ways to undermine Feminism.
Feminism challenges the system. And to defend
itself, the system has demonised and tarnished Feminism so that no one is quite
sure why we ever needed Feminism in the first place. It’s no accident that I
heard the word Feminist in a negative light, as an insult, long before anyone
ever told me what being a Feminist is actually about. Whether aware of it or
not, society doesn’t want young girls (or boys for that matter) to be Feminists,
society doesn’t want people to challenge it, or tell it it’s wrong, or change
it. Society wants to stay the way it’s always been thank you very much, and
those who challenge it will be crushed with the mighty fist of injustice.
I’ve not used the word ‘sexism’ yet. Why is
that? There is no doubt in my mind that the world is filled with sexism, but
many would not agree. When we hear the word ‘sexism’ we tend to think of a time
gone by, when women were lesser by law, when the men worked and the women
raised children, when a man could beat his wife and be protected by law and by
society, when women had to leave work if they got married, where sexual harassment
and assault were “normal” parts of a workplace. For the purposes of this rant,
I’m not going to get into the fact that all
of this still happens. But people who argue against Feminism will say that
we succeeded against all of this with laws and policy changes many years ago.
But I disagree, I think it’s just become more subtle. When Feminism was
fighting against blatant sexism, it was easier to point to acts and condemn
them. Look, this firm has no women in it; look, this woman was beaten; look,
this law is discriminatory. Feminists from that era will almost certainly
disagree with me, and that’s fine, but I feel like sexism is so much more
insidious nowadays, and that makes Feminism, and what it even is, even harder
to understand.
Sexism manifests itself in music, in
advertising, on our screens and in our books. All it takes is a quick skim of
@everydaysexism on twitter to convince you that it’s still happening IRL as
well. But you tell someone you’re a Feminist and you’re bound to get questions.
“But why?” “Why not call yourself an equalist?” “Isn’t Feminism unnecessary
now?” You have to be on the defence straight away. It should be as normal as
anything. Of course we all support women’s rights. Of course we want to
eliminate sexism. But it’s not. Feminism is a dirty word. Right now I think it’s
dirtier than ever. And why is that? Because
we still live in a patriarchal society. Because sexism is still the norm,
because there are still gender roles we are afraid to change, because a society
without sexism confuses and scares us. We still tell our little girls they
should be pretty above all else. We still tell our little boys not to cry. We
still expect boys will be better at maths and sport, we still think women who don’t
want babies are weird. And Feminism
challenges all of that.
If you think Feminism is a dirty word,
think about why. Think about the society you live in. How is Feminism portrayed
in the media? Who controls how you perceive sexism and equality? Is it the people
who benefit from a patriarchal society (and I’m not just talking about men
here, for the record)? Is it newspapers and Hollywood and government? Yeah, I’m
bordering on a conspiracy theory here, but I think it’s legit. The system
works. The system knows how to stifle challengers.
The system wants you to hate Feminism.
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| Trying to find the original source for this, if you know it, pls tell me. |
August is Potentially Problematic Opinions
Month. Led by Alex from Adventures in TV-Land, a bunch of bloggers will tell
you about opinions they hold that might piss you off, or make you think, or be
so obvious you can’t believe anyone would think them problematic, opening your
eyes to a whole world of people who don’t agree with you. This is my
description, by the way, and it’s possible that Alex has a completely different
one. Ooooooh Potentially Problematic!
I feel like I have been sharing a lot of my
opinions lately. So in some ways, thinking up opinions to blog about has been a
bit tricky. And in other ways, this should be the easiest thing in the world
for me, she who cannot stop telling everyone her opinions. Today’s rant kind of
makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, though, so that’s new.
What else is happening in PPOM? (will be updated with links as they happen)
Want to get involved? Click here.
If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed by opinions, next week I'm going to write about crumpets...
