This article contains cisnormative language. The author fully recognizes that gender identity is not as clear-cut as 'men' and 'women', and is only using these terms as a way to paraphrase the general population.
The word 'feminism' brings different mental images to different people. Perhaps you envision the Slut Walks in major cities, banners hoisted high above the heads of the marchers and statements about sexual assault painted on their bodies. Maybe feminism to you is the girl with the pointed nails and red lips, the model of 'if looks could kill', who doesn't put up with sexist nonsense for a second. It might be someone from your childhood, like the first person to tell you that boys couldn't hit girls and that your sister needed to learn to sit like a lady, and the scowl that invoked.
It's definitely a buzzword, whether the audience's reaction is positive or negative. In 2016, there has (arguably) never been a better time to be a feminist. Granted, you'll get eye rolls and exasperated sighs from those who are tired of 'political correctness', but our society has finally started to adjust its former ways of taking one step forward and two steps back. It doesn't make being a champion for the cause any easier, but at least it's more obvious that one isn't alone. Feminist art and clothing articles are readily available for purchase, social media feeds are often plastered with appropriate reactions to gendered statements, and the prominence of feminist ideals on college campuses are more common than ever. Regardless, utopia is still a long way away.
For any given movement to be perfect is at best a pipe dream and, at worst, completely unattainable. Even so, for a movement that prides itself on making sure men are equal to women, you would think priority would be put on fixing itself from within. The scenario that comes to mind when I think of problems with modern feminism is the act of smashing the patriarchy.
As a concept, it sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Yeah, smash that patriarchy! Reject the notion that women have to abide by the standards men have set, sit down and shut up to make our peers more comfortable. It's time for women to speak up when men talk over them. It's 2016, and a woman showing the same amount of ambition and drive as a man in the workplace shouldn't label her as 'overbearing' or 'trying too hard'. Women shouldn't fear getting insults hurled at them for expressing behaviors that would be perfectly acceptable, even healthy, if expressed by a man.
Except...it's not that simple. Like most things, the catchphrase sounds good on paper, but it's pretty flawed in practice. Ideally, smashing the patriarchy should mean getting rid of all societal expectations that restrict the behaviors of women. It should translate to the community working until they are just as free as men are. Often, though, the opposite happens. Looking back to prior, less progressive decades, the toxic effects of patriarchy-enforced femininity are obvious. The expectation was for women to be housewives and stay-at-home moms, and nuclear families had the male cast as the breadwinner. An ambitious woman was something to be feared. Sex ed has only recently become a commodity, albeit still highly flawed in some states and school systems. A woman who had premarital sex was looked upon as a harlot by most of society in a time that was, frighteningly, not too long ago. She was to sit down, shut up, and be subservient to her husband.
Modern feminism seeks to combat this. The movement tells feminine-identifying individuals that you can have your own opinions, never mind if they conflict with your male partner's. Such an individual should be able to serve in the same job field as a man without their competence being questioned. It is far past time to teach young, impressionable girls that they have greater value than their virginity.
I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing that the intentions of modern feminism are honorable, but the execution leaves something to be desired. The movement teaches women and girls that they don't have to conform to patriarchal standards, such as the notions that not shaving makes them undesirable, that one shouldn't stand up for themselves too loudly or they'll be called names, and that the value of a woman's virginity is decided for her.
However, it's gotten to the point where anything resembling societal conforming disqualifies someone from being a feminist. If one shaves, they're buying into the lesson taught from a young age that a hairy woman cannot be attractive to a man. If their chosen household dynamic puts them in the role of a stay-at-home mom, they must have a subconscious impulse to let their husbands control them. If someone's preference is to wait until marriage, they're a prude who doesn't value their own sexual freedom. (Men have long called women who won't give them sex prudes and, ironically, whores; for self-identified feminists to be doing it to their own peers is like a slap in the face to the recipient.) This is all terribly wrong.
Society's view of women has long been problematic and narrow-minded, and will no doubt continue to be in the near future. That's why we need feminism! Who else is going to stick up for a woman's right to exist if not the feminist community? There's an argument to be made that almost everything a woman does can be traced back to satisfying a man's power trip at some point in history, but that doesn't mean she's letting herself be controlled, and those things aren't necessarily related.
Sometimes people do things for themselves to be happy, and that's OK. What's not OK, however, is telling people what personal choices they have to abide by to give themselves a progressive label. If someone dictates that all women have to shave, be the head of a household, and save themselves for their spouse, then yeah -- they're a pretty bad person, and should probably stay out of any movement until they work on improving themselves. But if someone chooses to do those things because it makes them feel comfortable in their own skin, no one has any business disqualifying them from fighting for change because of that.
I am proud to be a feminist. I am proud to be someone who doesn't accept anything less than intersectional feminism; feminism that's here for POC, the LGBTAQ community, people who fit the exact stereotype of a man's Hollywood starlet dream and people who flip it off. I will not accept anything less than feminism that rejects ableism and body shaming, has no time for classism and a hierarchy of privilege.
It's about time we let diverse causes speak for themselves. Part of achieving that means letting people be themselves -- and that, in a nutshell, is what feminism is all about.
Isn't it?
