Well, kind of. I never stopped believing in equal rights for women; I never stopped being pro-choice and I never quit voting and I never decided that we women were all just a bunch of whiny harpies who needed to be put back in our place. I held onto my beliefs, but the word "feminism" became a dirty one in my vocabulary.
The unfortunate, hilarious, oooh-seriously? reason: I was influenced by a man I was dating at the time.
He was, generally, a good guy. Probably still is. And by "good guy," I mean he was respectful and wasn't the type of man you'd find creeping on women in bars or raping anyone. I mean the basic tenets of not being a monster.
But he felt threatened by feminism. As he explained it to me, feminism meant preferential treatment of women by a society trying too hard to right its past wrongs. As a man, he felt he was often overlooked for things like jobs or scholarships, in favor of someone who could fill a diversity quota. And as a white man especially, he felt that as an individual he might miss out on opportunities because he represented too much power and privilege. He was angry that traditional gender roles not only limited and hurt women, but men as well--it was just that no one seemed to care.
Back then, I understood very little about the concept of "privilege." It didn't occur to me to tell him: Yes, but as a white male in America, you have so many advantages you probably don't see most of them. Or: the very fact that you feel threatened by women standing up for their rights not to be second-class citizens is proof of why feminism is important.
I wanted this dude to love me. So he kept talking about how feminism had wronged him, and slowly, I came around to his point of view.
When I started dating this particular man, I felt only briefly that I was betraying myself (no kidding). I was giving up the ideals that I'd learned were so important, in favor of something that, I was convinced, was more evolved, more enlightened. Men experience sexism, too!!! I'd think, anytime someone mentioned something unfair to women. Harassment? Stereotyping? Discrimination? They happened to men, too, I reasoned, and therefore what women experienced wasn't so special. It was hardly worth discussion. And after all, if you were getting paid less than a man for the same work, it was probably your own fault. I wrote an editorial for my school paper about "reverse sexism" and began explaining that "I'm a humanist, not a feminist. I believe in equal rights for ALL PEOPLE."
I was probably insufferable.
I'm back on track now. That man has been out of my life for several years now. A while ago, I read Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman and found myself falling back into the soft, pillowy safety net of my feminist allies thanks to her clarity, wit, and utter reasonableness. This quote of hers, in particular, helped lead me out of the tunnel:
“We need to reclaim the word 'feminism'. We need the word 'feminism' back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42% of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of 'liberation for women' is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? 'Vogue' by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?”
And with that I realized what an idiot I'd been.
Several things have happened in my life recently, however, that made me realize that my own return to sanity regarding feminism doesn't mean shit for the rest of the world. Caitlin Moran is right. A lot of us just plain suck when it comes to women's issues, and whether it's because we're too afraid of the "feminist" label or have some misguided idea of what feminism is, we're not doing a very good job at all.
Identifying as a feminist can be terrifying. It still is for me. I have a hard time talking about it with anyone whose viewpoints might be different than mine; it's only the known feminists I can be completely honest with. That's partly to do with my own dislike of any sort of conflict, but a lot of feminists struggle with being loud and proud about it, too. If I were to tell a complete stranger that I'm a feminist, that person might come to all sorts of unfair conclusions about me, from the superficial ones (I must hate the color pink and any woman who shaves her armpits) to the devastating ones (I must hate men and want to crush their dreams).
And as much as they'd be wrong, I still don't want them to think those things about me. I do have a mental weapon (built on Caitlin Moran's influence) against that doubt and fear, though, which I'll share here.
For any woman afraid of feminism: there's a good chance that unless you live in some sort of cult, you're operating on feminist values without even realizing it. Do you have a job? Are you educated? Do you wear pants and use birth control? Do you enjoy going out unchaperoned on a Friday night, spending your own money, and heading home without any expectation of a curfew? You can thank feminism for that. Women didn't come by these privileges easily.
It's easy not to realize or remember where we've come from. It's incredibly common for an otherwise "modern woman" to not recognize why she is able to live the way she lives. I lost my way for a while, and it feels good to get back to being totally myself, thinking my own thoughts and living as I choose. And after all, isn't that the whole point?
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