Last week I went to a book club discussion. I’ve never really been a part of a book club before, but when I heard the book being discussed would be Gail Collins’ When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, I decided to go at the last minute; if it gave me the opportunity to hear opinions on a good book on the history of feminism, I had to go.
It was a relatively small gathering, apparently not accumulating as many readers as last month’s, but promising an interesting discussion nonetheless. In the end, there were five women (including myself) and three men, ranging in diversity from a grandmother who experienced much of what the book discussed to a man and a woman from other countries who could compare America’s feminist progress to their own country’s. Certainly, it was an eye-opening experience.
However, one of the topics that stuck the most with me was about today’s feminism. A number of the people present seemed to believe that the feminism movement was going just as strong as in the past and without receiving as much grief from non-feminists. Certainly, there are feminists continuing to strive for equality, but there’s also a large group trying stubbornly to soundly undermine them. I also have to wonder how we can compare our current feminist movement to that of the past when nowadays many people (including young women that could be the strength of a feminist movement) are under the impression that feminism isn’t even needed anymore. These people think we’re all fine and peachy now that women are able to wear pants without grief even though women are still being paid less than men.
There’s the classic, “I believe in equal rights for women, but I’m not a feminist” phrase that really says a lot about some people’s view of feminism. It’s been warped in many people’s minds from a cause for equality to something ugly and extreme. Thanks to people like Rush Limbaugh and his famous invention of the word “feminazi” and other media, people don’t want to associate themselves with feminism.
On Feminist Frequency, Anita Sarkeesian used the sixth part of her Tropes vs. Women series for Bitch Magazine to point out just how the media has tried to sabotage people’s opinions of feminism through the use of what she calls the “straw feminist” trope. Sarkeesian explains that the media not only presents viewers with feminist extremists in this trope (if you can even call these characters “feminist”), but also feeds them the idea that feminism isn’t needed anymore. This makes anyone who dares to call themselves a feminist look crazy and extreme. Similar issues are discussed in Susan J. Douglas’ book Enlightened Sexism: the seductive message that feminism’s work is done.
Hey. I’d love it if feminism wasn’t needed anymore, too, but if people are just going to believe it isn’t needed, they may as well try to believe away the recession as well. As long as companies like Hardee’s and JCPenny are still using scantily clad women as the bait to get customers, Hollywood is still shoving offense female stereotypes at viewers (while pointedly not presenting us with many realistic female characters), and the government won’t allow women to make their own health decisions, we still need feminism.
Gagging on Sexism 
I am a female and I do not support feminists. Most feminists are extreme, always pointing the finger at men and putting off the blame. Women like to use emotions and hormones as an excuse to do just about anything they want, whereas if a man is having a bad day and decides to let off a little steam, its a horrible, unforgivable thing.
Feminists are sexist. They are REVERSE-SEXIST. Not all are, I agree. I have a feminist friend who is supportive of equal rights but without putting down every human who has a penis. I support that too. I think feminists need to stop labeling themselves and grouping up under such a name, and just go forward in the name of equal rights. Groups are dangerous. It’s when a lot of people get together and think they have power that their cause gets ugly.
By the way.. Women in don’t dress scanty with a gun to their heads. They do it themselves.
I’m sorry this has been your impression of feminism. You are right; a woman who puts down all men is just as bad as the reverse. However, this is not feminism. The definition of feminism is about creating equality between the genders not about gaining superiority over men. Real feminists are fighting for this equality, no more, no less. Anyone who says otherwise isn’t a real feminist. I would say the majority of the people calling themselves feminists are the former. As for women who dress scantily, yes, they can make their own decisions, but I believe our culture almost gives girls/women the message that women should like to dress like that because of the attention they receive. On the other hand, when commercials star scantily clad women they are specifically using women as objects to sell products (and an idea). Feminists are trying to teach both men and women not to objectify women.
See there is a slight problem with focusing on on equality. I am just going to ignore the whole “Most feminists are extreme, always pointing the finger at men and putting off the blame” because that statement is just beyond ridiculous and it basically showed me that you know nothing of feminism. Of course I am aware that there are radical feminists, but there are extremists in every movement, that doesn’t mean it defines the entire movement. And those people who call themselves feminists and hate men, they’re not real feminists because they don’t understand what the movement is actually about.
“Instead I’m going to focus on the “equalism” thing, and explain to you why “equalism” is a naively dangerous thing to support, and that is betrays your privilege.
“Equalism” rhetoric proposes that men and women (and non-binary gendered people) all face the same, or at least comprable in severity, issues and problems in our culture. The “we are all human beings/we all bleed red” rhetoric says that ALL people everywhere face the same problems. White straight cishet dudes face the same levels of oppression and marginalization as queer black women according to that rhetoric. And that isn’t true. A basic understanding of intersectionality, history, and sociology make that abundantly clear. This kind of rhetoric ignores and erases the realities of sexism, racism, queerphobia, transphobia, ableism, and classism in our culture.
Feminism, especially intersectional feminism, DOES acknowledge that privilege and power differences exist in our culture. ”
-In the words of fandomsandfeminism.tumblr.com
(Ineffective and Inefficient: Why this Feminist has an issue with “Egalitarianism.”
You’ve all heard the rhetoric before: “Why be a feminist when you can be an egalitarian! You can’t have REAL equality unless you focus on everyone equally! Like, we’re all people!” Yeah. I’m here today to explain to you why I don’t buy into that.
If you’re just going to scroll past this post to the reblog button so you can yell at me, I’d like to take a moment and tell you to fucking not. Actually read what’s going on here.
My issues with Egalitarianism boil down into two delightfully alliterative issues: Effectiveness and Efficiency. The practical and the theoretical, if you will. Let me explain.
So, what IS Egalitarianism? One problem is that the word is VERY VERY broad, and there really isn’t a lot of actual activism happening under this label, so working definitions are hard to come by. The way MOST people seem to describe it through is this: it is a belief that ALL people, regardless of gender or race or anything else, are equal, and we should work on EVERYONES problems to make sure everyone gets to be equal.
So, why is this NOT effective?
Remember how I said that there isn’t a lot of activism happening under this label? Yeah, that’s our first problem. I’m not gunna sign up for an activism group that doesn’t really appear to be doing much, if any, activism. The tag here on Tumblr is nearly entirely “feminism sucks. Egalitarianism is better!” posts instead of, ya know, actual issues. And as an activist, I actually want to deal with issues.
But why is in not efficient?
This is the main issue at hand. Even if there WAS LOTS of activism working under this name, Egalitarianism is NOT informed and theoretically sound in the issues it claims to address, and thus is not equipped to actually deal with those issues.
When we, as intersectional feminists, look at a problem, we have to ask ourselves, what is the ROOT of these issues? We recognize that there are established social scaffoldings of oppression in place that favor male-ness, whiteness, straightness, cisness, thiness, and being able-bodied over everything else. These forces, such as Patriarchy and White Supremacy, influence people in a variety of ways based on their own identities.
Sometimes, even power groups take backlash from these systems of inequality. We know that the Patriarchy enforces increasingly strict and aggressive ideals of masculinity, which often works to silence male victims of abuse, for example.When we say that “Patriarchy hurts men too!” this is what we mean.
Because we understand these power relationships, we can work to dismantle the underlying power structures in our culture to help everyone.
Egalitarianism does not do this. The rhetoric at play here completely IGNORES these underlying causes and treats ALL gender equality problems as though they were unconnected and equally important. It buys into this strange notion that somehow MISANDRY is responsible for hyper-aggressive ideals of masculinity, or the silencing of male victims, or the draft. So they have to fight Misandry too! Or something?
And here’s the thing: If you don’t understand the ROOT of a problem, you’re never going to be able to fix it.
Egalitarianism sounds decent enough, and safe enough to not offend those in power. But revolutions need revolutionaries, yall. This weak-tea low-cal substitute doesn’t have the teeth to fight the battles it needs to fight. It is a neutered and de-clawed Feminism that can’t get things done, and doesn’t even try.
I understand the appeal. I do. But THIS is why I will never use that label, and roll my eyes in frustration when people try to paint it as the MORE EQUAL cousin of feminism. It isn’t. It’s Feminism’s daddy’s boy little brother who never gets his shit taken care of while Big Sister starts the revolution.)
-In the words of fandomsandfeminism.tumblr.com
THANK YOU! Well- written post, and thank you. I agree. FAR from over. FAR from done.
Hey, first poster: You have been GRAVELY misinformed. Go here for a good start- that is, if you really are interested in learning what feminism is…
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/
Bless you and bless this post!
Hey Erin,
I know it probably seems weird me saying but I just wanted to tell you this anyway. By running this blog, you really really helped me out a lot and I can’t say that enough. Your blog is the thing that got me started on feminism and all thanks to you I found out a lot about rape culture, sexism in the media and how it impacts us, slut shaming and feminism itself because I used to be one of those people who thought that feminism is anti-male but you educated me a lot about it. And I really like the fact that you posted other feminist blogs on your site because they also helped me so now I don’t judge girls anymore based on their clothing and now I am writing a story that has a diverse cast of strong female characters which I hope will make the world more feminist.
So I just wanted to say thank you and to let you know that you are indeed making a difference. 🙂
Hearing that my writings have helped you and inspired you to look at feminism in a different light inspires me to keep writing! Thank you so much for taking the time to tell me. Good luck with your story (you’ll have to tell me when your work gets published!) and I hope you continue to enjoy my blog. 🙂
Really? 🙂 I am glad that my comment inspires you because that was my intention, I think it’s awesome to be informed that you make a difference in this world so I wanted to let you know that you are helping. I know of people who hate on feminism and one of their arguments is that feminists hold blogs and in their words “bitch and complain about their own lives but actually do nothing” which really annoys me because you and other feminist bloggers certainly don’t do that. You’re informing and educating people and making them aware of the problems. If people aren’t aware of the problems of sexism and racism, how in the devil’s name are we supposed to solve them? Nowadays, I always call out on people on their sexism and racism even though it makes them uncomfortable and I am actually hoping that that feeling of discomfort will make them anti sexist and anti racist. It’s thanks to bloggers like you that I am brave enough to call out people on their sexism and racism. Yes it’s just a small select group of people that I am (hopefully) trying to influence but at least it’s something. Changing the world one person at a time. I am doing what I can :D. But with my story I hope to reach more people. Although, Erin, I have a bit of concern. While I do have a strong diverse cast of both male and female characters I just realized something. Most of my villains and anti-heros are Asian, Latino, I have one Native American anti-villain, Azerbaijani and well basically PoC. I haven’t realized that I done that O_O and most of them are women too it’s just they’re not like “evil for the sake of evil” they’re very complex and broken people. They do have, fairly noble goals (not all of them), but their means to get them are villainous. I feel pressured to switch some of the colored anti-heroes and villains to white because the media is filled with the stereotype that people of color are evil. But I am hesitating in turning them to white because I want more PoC on the media (since being a person of color myself so I rarely if ever see people like me portrayed in the media) and also because I really love their characterizations, I just feel there are not enough 3 dimensional PoC in the media. I’ve worked really hard on developing them and making them 3 dimensional. I do have a lot of PoC who are good too though. So what do you think I should do? Should I turn some of my colored anti-heroes and villains to white? Oh and it will be a while since my work is out but it definitely will be.
Well, thanks again for your support! 🙂 As for your question, since I’ve dabbled in creative writing myself I understand your dilemma very well. After all, you don’t want to force something in your story if it just doesn’t fit. Going off what you’ve said, here are just some of my thoughts: Even if they’re anti-heroes or villains, if you create PoC who are complex and play big roles in the story, I feel like that’s a big step in and of itself. It seems like a majority of stories are just so white-washed that it doesn’t matter if we’re talking heroes or villains, major, well-developed characters who are PoC are rare in comparison to white characters. However, I do get your concern about the media vilifying characters of color and not wanting to unintentionally feed that stereotype. My suggestion is to just play around with the race of some of your characters. Maybe try making some heroes PoC and some villains/anti-heroes white. Play with it and see what you think and what feels right.
Regarding your concern about a majority of your villains/anti-heroes being female, I personally wouldn’t worry about that one so much. I see tons of male villains/anti-heroes, but female ones are few and far in between in comparison. If a good portion of your story’s antagonists are female, it might be an interesting change from most stories. However, you could play with the sex of your characters as well if you feel like it.
This is all just my opinion and, of course, you’ll have to be the ultimate judge of what feels right, but you’re aware of the issues in the media so, I think you’ll be fine. I hope this helps!
I am happy to have someone understand my dilemma because I don’t really know anyone else who understands it because they don’t understand the kind of impact media can have on us. While I am writing my story, I always try to keep in mind the kind of impact it might have on some people. I can’t control everything, I can’t control the reactions and the feedback everyone will have to my story but I sure as hell can reduce the negative impact of my story. Thank you so much for the advice! You’re right! When I was reading your post on Azula, truth is even though Azula is a villain I actually found her a pretty feminists friendly character. Not a good person and definitely not a role model but she was complex as hell and realistic. But I wanted to comment on that post saying that I don’t really care if a female character is a hero, anti-hero, villain, anti-villain or whatever, as long as they are complex 3-dimensional characters, unless of course they’re background characters or minor characters who don’t really get development, but you get what I mean right? If a female is going to be important in a story, she better be 3 dimensional. I have a lot more female villains than male villains which is actually much more interesting for me to write because it’s not really been done before so I don’t have a model to follow. I can’t look at other stories for inspiration on writing female villains because they almost don’t exist. And even when they do have female villains they’re always super sexy and scantily dressed and are there to distract the males or seduce them. They’re flat boring characters that fulfill the male fantasy. That stereotype annoys me so much. Writing a lot of female villains who outnumber male villains is indeed very very interesting and it brings my story to new directions :D.
Actually in my story, I have 5 main characters and only 1 of them is white, the other 4 are PoC. So I’ll do just that, I will try to switch around my anti-heroes and villains into white people but I doubt that I will change my mind because I want them just the way they are.