For my more updated views on feminism, click here for a post written in 2020.
About a year ago I decided I no longer self identified as a feminist. I had my reasons which I will outline. The feminist movement has historically been about women’s rights. It grew out of the 17th century European Enlightenment, which placed emphasis on reason, rational and critical thinking, rather than accepting the dogmatic and rigid structures of absolutism brought to us by faith. Western society was predominately male-dominated; women had little political rights such as the right to vote, and there were few women up-holding positions of economic power and high social status.
Nowadays, things have changed. Saying ‘nothing’s changed’ completely ignores all of the incredible work feminism has done for women over the past few centuries. Women can vote, drive, go to uni, not go to uni, have kids, not have kids – etc etc. I believe that in the West (i.e Europe, North America, Canada and Oceania) we no longer live in a patriarchal society. Women are no longer second class citizens, and men and women more or less have positions of equal status considering social, political and economic rights. Needless to say, that doesn’t mean issues of gender roles affect both women and men today (yeah, sexism against men is a thing), but it does mean that the original issues have shifted.
Herein lays my main problem with the modern feminist movement. Ban Bossy? Dressing up little girls and making them curse?
The modern feminist movement has completely missed the point of original first and second wave feminism.
First of all, feminism is a WOMEN’S movement. It had nothing to do with gay rights, trans rights or men’s rights originally – the LGBT movement and the feminist movement are two different things. Secondly, the world has changed. We’re not living in the 1800s or 1963 anymore. The same things that affected women back then no longer affect women now.
I’ve never felt unable to do something because I’m a woman. I’ve been able to work, have an education, vote, walk around without being accompanied by a guy and generally live life like a normal person. There are real problems facing modern women that the feminist movement doesn’t really seem to be doing anything about, and I’m not just talking FGM or domestic violence. What about the problem of women trying to balance motherhood and a career as a result of feminism? Of course women should have careers and high ambitions, but if I don't know how she does it is anything to go by, having a high powered job and being expected to do most of the childcare stuff seems to be an over-expectation that would drive anyone round the bend.
Making a problem out of something which isn’t there like some of these crazy misandric feminists do is just putting the entire movement to shame. ‘Oh no, a guy called me pretty and opened the door for me – he thinks I’m beneath him!’ Seriously?
Feminism has become something of a fashion trend rather than actually caring about the deeper problems women used to face outlined by 20th century academics like Simone De Beauvoir and Germaine Greer. It’s almost ‘cool’ to jump on the ‘feminist wave.’ Why do I need to call myself a feminist? Can’t I just be a person who cares about male and female equality without giving myself a label? I love How to Be a Woman, but the original feminist movement was a bit more serious than ‘having a vagina and wanting to be in control of it.’ We can be pro-equality for women, men, LGBT people and people of every ethnic background without having to give ourselves unnecessary labels just to jump on the Liberal trend.