(Hold on to your hats, kids, and maybe get a snack, because this is a long one.)
I am genuinely saddened at how many posts I have seen lately wherein women denounce the women's movement. If this was an isolated instance, I would feel kind of cranky and disheartened, but it hasn't just been one; there's been a few occasions wherein girls appearing on my newsfeed have felt compelled to both post and defend at length statements that are really distressing in their implications. It speaks to a larger problem and frankly, the whole thing has left me feeling like I'm taking crazy pills.
Admittedly, I've been on a bender lately: for the last month, the bathroom floor has been covered in an array of Cosmopolitan magazines and feminist library books (thus making me a terrifying and conflicted human being). College has me missing abstract theory courses hard and so I've taken to reading nonfiction issues books while relaxing in the bathtub. In one of these books, Julie Zeilinger discusses what she refers to as "feminism's PR problem." This is a very real thing, I think. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure how to solve it without diluting a fundamental message.
I am 25 years old. In my little quarter-century of existence, I've had a turbulent relationship with feminism that unfortunately doesn't seem to be all that unique.
I was an opinionated kid. I was also very much a contrarian kid, which meant that while my peers were listening to the Spice Girls, I was sneak-reading my mom's copy of The Female Eunuch and condescendingly pretending to understand the words inside. I declared myself a capital-F feminist to anyone who would listen; to me, feminism meant that women who cooked dinner for their families were pitifully unenlightened and men who didn't help with dishes were barbaric. I saw no problem with this black-and-white logic. I was also eight years old, so.
Then, boobs happened. Or didn't really happen, exactly, and I guess I was kind of bummed at the time about that. For whatever reason, I entered high school with a very fierce desire to conform in every way I could. The ninth grade syllabus included The Taming of the Shrew, and Glebe had three different ninth-grade English teachers, all of whom were women. One of them straight-up refused to teach it and I remember being jealous of her class getting to skip Shakespeare for a whole semester. Another teacher taught the play without any room for interpretation, at one point berating one of my friends for suggesting that Petruchio was kind of a misogynist. My teacher taught it and encouraged us to discuss different meanings of the text, which, in retrospect, I think was brilliant and the best possible way to open up a discussion about these sorts of issues.
Unfortunately for her, this teaching strategy served mostly as her own wake-up call. I remember this woman becoming visibly alarmed that no one in the room was willing to call themselves a feminist. To the contrary, many girls openly declared themselves anti-feminist. I never spoke up in class, but I thought the same thoughts in my head. I reflected on the irrelevance of feminists in today's society and how silly it was that I ever called myself one. We already have equal rights, I thought. I'm in favour of people.
That was also the year I actively snaked away a good friend's boyfriend. That kind of stuff takes two, and he was equally to blame, but I find it interesting that my self-proclaimed anti-feminist stage saw me treating my female friends the worst I have ever treated them.
University didn't initially come as an epiphany. When my high school boyfriend and I broke up and I started dating the university guy, it was never about my own growth or triumph. Rather, it was about the new boy swooping in all blond and smiling and saving me – because that was the narrative.
I wish I could pinpoint it, but somewhere between the third and sixth year of my undergrad, my perspective changed. I don't think it was any one thing in particular, and maybe for me, it was just being single and alone enough that I had time to do some required readings and actually think about what they were saying. I could never have known this in advance but I'm so glad I chose to do an arts degree, if only because of all it exposed me to. Somewhere along the line, feminism shifted into focus and made sense to me again. I saw the need.
Once you see it, you can't stop.
Because one in five women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Because news stories on those women so often cite what they were wearing. Because many women feel unable to even report an assault. Because somehow, in our society, we think the absence of a no means a yes. Because a stranger put his hand up my skirt on a bus one time and I went speechless in shock and it took me six stops to get off the bus, and that is in no way my fault.
Because men think it's okay to approach me and keep talking to me as I give them subtle cues to stop. Because when I make the cues less subtle, they think that gives them the right to explicitly harass me. Because I am honked at in the street for looking leggy in my shorts. Because I am yelled at in the street for not being curvier. Because, simply for the fact that I am a woman, my body is perpetually on display, and it is apparently your God-given right to tell me what you think of it.
Because I can't turn on my television or even walk into my fucking classroom without hearing a sexist joke. Because I'm viewed as shrill, humourless, and paranoid when I complain about it. Because women in the grocery store with crying children are bad mothers and men in the same situation are championed for simply trying. Because we are called sluts and prudes and other things that exist in restrictive binary form. Because I still catch myself making these snap judgments sometimes, because they are so ingrained in me.
Because I walk home late at night with my keys out. Because I dial 9 and 1 on my phone, waiting, when cars slow down next to me on dark and empty roads. Because some people would say I shouldn't be walking down those roads, but that isn't fair, because this is my world, too...and because that is not what equality looks like.
So just to be clear: I am a flag-waving, card-carrying feminist. I am also a man-loving, makeup-wearing, armpit-shaving feminist. I mention these things mostly in an effort to dispel the incredibly false concept that feminists spend their days hating on men and refusing to bathe. We are a wide spectrum, and just for the record, armpit-shaving is completely irrelevant to both how "good" a woman and how "good" a feminist you are. It is, in fact, only indicative of whether or not you felt like shaving your armpits today.
Feminism is neither scary nor a bad word and it has been said thousands of times before but it bears repeating: feminism is not about superiority, it is about equality. And yes, we appear to have the aforementioned PR problem on our hands – but this is not solely our responsibility to fix. In a society where we are told from birth by the media (and, often, our teachers, parents, churches, government, etc.) that 1.) feminism's work is done and 2.) feminists are therefore obnoxious whining bitches who simply hate men and will never be happy, we are losing from the start. Few people are inclined to pick up books or take courses in women's or gender studies; those who do are disproportionately female. I can't count how many times I've heard a bunch of first-year dudes complaining about having to take a single feminist theory class in intro film (YES Riddles of the Sphinx is brutal; NO you will not die) only to follow up their complaints with a sexist joke. Exhibit A; this is why you need to take this shit, guys.
One of the things you learn as you become more well-versed in the feminist movement is how diverse it is. Feminists are not conspiracy theorists, nor are we trying to take over the world, and if you honestly think that is our message, I implore you to listen closer. There are varying opinions on just about everything in the feminist movement. Some feminists hate porn; others work in porn. Some are religious; others are not. I don't spell woman with a Y. Make of all that what you will, but I think it speaks to how much room there is under this umbrella-ella-ella, eh?
That being said, maybe you don't like the label. I can live with that; we're free to call ourselves whatever we like. But just remember: maybe feminism isn't for you, but it sure as hell has worked for you, affording you the right to vote, work outside the home, and have control over your own reproductive rights. So if you don't like the label, fine. But can we please stop making explicitly anti-feminist posts? Or at least do a little more research on feminism before condemning it? Because these bold denouncements just add fuel to a fire that seeks to destroy decades of hard-won victories.
And at the very least, please remove "Feminazi" from your vocabulary, for so many reasons.
