Feminists—can't live with 'em and a lot of people would love a world without 'em. They're too crude, too rude and they hate everyone's husbands. These are the misguided beliefs many people can't seem to shake. When I came across the Odyssey article, "I Am A Female And I'm So Over Feminists," I felt inclined to reply and set the record straight.
Now, after I read it over—contrary to the complaints that it wasn’t well-written, or well thought out—I thought it was a pretty great read. Gina Davis, the article's author, did a phenomenal job expressing many of the views widely held by men and women all over America—that feminism is overrated, unfair and we don’t need it anymore.
Davis noted the fact that women in America are better off than most women all over the world and that women in this century are doing better than ever before. This is overwhelmingly true, seeing as American women have the right to vote, hold public office, work in a variety of fields and on a good day, they can even walk home alone. While this is all well and good, it simply isn’t true that we’ve reached equality.
And equality is the goal despite the fact that women against feminism seem to see feminism as a radical movement in which women are fighting tooth and nail to be better than men, pillaging through respectable cities with their talk of equal rights and tearing down the fragile egos of innocent gentlemen along the way.
Many women (Davis included) criticize feminists for blaming men for all their problems and demeaning men in an effort to rise above them. The reality is that feminists are (or at least should be) women fighting for equality and equal opportunity regardless of sex and gender.
Women and men are not seen as equal in this world and while science might dictate some things about our bodies, our bodies shouldn't dictate too much about our rights.
While many women are being treated far better than they would have been in, say, the 1800s, we still have a long way to go before the world can even claim to be equal. I'm not quite done with feminism and if intelligent women like Davis understood why, they might not be so "over feminists," either. Here are some things Davis and other anti-feminists may have overlooked.
Although American women are doing well, many other women around the world are not.
Feminism is a global issue, not just an American one, and this is what makes arguments like “But American Women are doing so well!” irrelevant. In many places, women are still systematically having their genitals mutilated, educations overlooked and their potential squashed every day. The fact that this is happening is unacceptable to anyone in favor of gender equality. American women might be doing alright as far as these things go, but don’t go speaking for the rest of the world.
Chivalry isn't dead; it's just expected from everyone.
It isn’t old-fashioned to let a man hold the door open for you, but it is old-fashioned, in my humble opinion, not to expect a woman to do the same. All people are worthy of respect, men, women, children (and, whenever we find them, aliens, too).
It isn’t the job of one gender to take care of another, but the job of people to take care of each other. Men weren’t put on the planet to singularly take care of the family and women didn’t evolve to make sandwiches in the kitchen. Everyone is here to help out everyone else. That’s equality, and luckily, it’s trending right about now.
Feminism isn't about making men feel bad.
For the last time, feminism isn’t about bashing men; It’s about bashing the patriarchy. For those of you who don’t know, the patriarchy is the social system tyrannically reigning over us all, dictating our gender roles, giving weight to gender stereotypes and crushing inequality in its midst.
The patriarchy isn’t men. The patriarchy isn’t women. It’s the system within which we all live. Quite frankly, I’m not a fan of any system that tells a certain member they are less powerful or less important. Feminism is about tearing down the system, not the men and women within it.
The answer to improving conditions is to never stop talking.
Feminism's job isn’t quite over until the glass ceiling and its sexist counterparts are shattered forever. Arguments that women in the workforce are still relatively new and that we’re slowly progressing due to the hard work of women only provides evidence that this kind of hard work and passion is still needed.
Davis herself says that the glass ceiling is "being shattered by the perseverance and strong mentality of women everywhere." I believe what she’s trying to say is that it’s being shattered by feminists everywhere. These strong women aren’t blaming men for their problems; they're blaming society.
The best part about it is that they aren’t simply complaining in a corner sipping tea, they’re doing something about it, which is what we all should do. No one will know that something is a problem until it’s brought up, and if talking about the problems in our society is seen as complaining, then complain on. It seems to be working.
In fact, Davis’ article is a bit of a complaint, a complaint about the stereotypical version of feminism and about many of the real women that support this version of feminism. The faulty version that says women can do no wrong and men are hopeless, misogynistic meatheads. Well, that version is wrong, but we should all start or continue to support the version that is right—the one that believes at its core that women can be meatheads, too. All meatheads deserve to go to school, all meatheads deserve a right to their own bodies and all meatheads should stand up for their rights, feminists included. In the words of Davis, “We coincide with each other, that’s that. Time to embrace it.”
