Feminist, Not Misandrist
Correcting the misrepresentation of feminism.
Feminism is unfairly misrepresented and I can’t, for the life of me, understand how it got to that point.
Add ‘feminist’ to your social media bio and see the world avoid you because they believe you are combative, angry, and threatening, and I cannot help wondering how a movement so necessary has been reduced to hysteria. How?
For years, I refused the label of ‘feminist’ because I had come to associate it with anger against the masculine gender. All over Twitter, the consensus seemed to be just that, with ‘feminists’ tweeting angrily about the domestication of women, and the men who hated their guts castigating them for corrupting other women. Understandably, it made me wary about the label and the people who proudly bore it.
Even so, I could not shake the suspicion that feminism was being misrepresented, that in spite of their vocalization, Twitter feminists were presenting an inaccurate (or incomplete) picture of the movement to the public. Despite refusing the label, I decided to address the misrepresentation of feminism in an article I wrote in 2019. Not much has changed since, with Twitter conversations on the topic still addressing who does or doesn’t cook, and the public believing feminists to be women who do not like men.
One of the reasons I avoided the ‘feminist’ label for years was I didn't think I earned a right to it. Sure, I watched Chimamanda Adichie’s popular We Should All Be Feminist Ted Talk. I even bought and read a copy of the book. Still, I refused to claim the label because my understanding of feminism was limited. Likewise, I read Wikipedia and a bunch of other random blog articles too, but I’d not read any key feminist texts, and I felt that I needed to do so to: (i) truly understand feminism, and (ii) stake any credible claim to it. To make up for the polarity of my laziness in reading those texts on one hand, and my curiosity about feminism on the other, I labelled myself ‘contemplating feminism’ rather than ‘feminist’, and that worked for years… until it didn’t.
I have always been able to keep my frustration with feminism’s misrepresentation at bay, but lately I have felt my patience wearing thin, and that led me to finally get to those key feminist texts.
I read a Substack article a few days back that gave me lots to think about with regards to modern feminism. This article pointed out one of the key issues with feminism today, which is how some women have conflated their narcissism with feminism.
As it turns out, you do not need an elaborate legal ceremony to claim the title of feminist, neither do you have to sign a document or have any witnesses to do so. All that’s needed is to identify yourself with the label. You can even spend hours doom scrolling on Twitter, get your blood hot with a series of pseudo-feminist tweets and end the session with the conviction that you are a feminist, and voila! A feminist you are. The problem with that is people can use the feminist label to justify anything.
A woman who’s fed up with men can call her exasperation feminism, an insecure woman can use feminism to justify her insecurity, etc. And considering that some people have blurred the lines between their self-absorption with feminism, feminism has become synonymized with those things rather than what it truly represents.
Even worse, it has devolved into a movement that people believe is out to displace men.
I suppose I can see how the campaign for female empowerment can sound like a ploy to displace men. Its relentless endorsement for all things female can make it sound like it is against men. But even when feminism seeks to empower women, it does not do so at the expense of men or because it opposes them. It is merely giving a much-needed voice to women.
Feminism was not designed to indulge women’s egos or their need to usurp the masculine gender (read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan for context). It was created in response to the systemic oppression that women had to put up with.
It was created as a way to advocate for women to also access simple things like education — without feminism, the width of your education as a modern woman would be religious texts (if you’re lucky enough to be born into a religious society) or how to be an attractive wife material. Similarly, men alone would be deciding who the world leaders should be without feminism — I doubt a Kamala Harris or Hillary Clinton would stand any chance in such world.
Feminism is for, not against (i.e., for women, not against men, and this isn’t mutually exclusive). However, the overwhelming definition of the label by what it opposes is why majority think of it as combative. That said, feminism can only be understood to the degree that it is properly defined.
So, what really is feminism?
In the words of Roxane Gay, feminism provides “the necessary language for talking about the inequalities and injustices women face.” It provides language for the active narration of women's character in society, rather than leaving us as passive characters who are defined in relation to the men in our lives.
Feminism fights against the “stunted aspirations” of women. It inspires us with the audacity to dream big dreams and create lives that are much larger than our role as “wife”, “sexual partner”, or “mum”. Feminism recognizes and acknowledges every woman’s personal agency outside of our obligation to the home.
Officially, it is “a movement advocating for women’s social, political, legal and economic rights equal to those of men.”*
Contrary to what Twitter and woke feminists insinuate that feminism is, the movement is not about who does or doesn’t do the dishes, or if a woman who earns more than her husband should ‘submit’ to him. While it does promote gender and domestic equality (to the chagrin of some), the basis for its advocacy are a lot more earnest than petty domesticities.
Beyond gender roles, feminism exists to create space for women to thrive ‘in the real world’.
Personally, I have never understood when women build their life’s purpose around domestic obligations, or when they leave lucrative careers behind “for the family”. Unquestionably, it is a noble sacrifice, but it is one that confounds me when I consider the likelihood that those women raise daughters who end up making the same sacrifice for their kids, leaving me wondering who the sacrifice really is for. If generations of women keep sacrificing their careers and personalities to raise their kids, could it be conditioning womenfolk to self-erase?
Because I see feminism protecting women against this risk, I am increasingly inclined to it.
This is not to say that feminism encourages physically and emotionally absent mothers. Far from it. What it advocates for, however, is that women maintain their dreams, personality, and identity amidst the responsibility of wifehood and motherhood. It advocates for women to express those dreams, personalities, and identities without being censored or punished (whether it is with their objectification, marginalization, or low pay in the workplace).
Where society teaches women to want and live small lives, feminism resists that appeal. It addresses the unfulfillment that women who have settled for small lives feel. It calls out the autonomy of women, which society and religion often makes secondary to that of men (or eliminates entirely).
Feminism is not just about what it’s against. Just as much as it is against the inequality of women, it’s also (and largely) about emboldening women to take up space and explore their fullest potential in politics, media, business, academia, and more.
All that is still relevant today because we live in a world of patriarchy.
No! Not patriarchy again.
I know. You can’t stand anymore mention of patriarchy this patriarchy that, especially when self-acclaimed feminists blame everything on “the patriarchy”. While they might be overstating it, they do have a point.
Did you know that for every dollar men earn in the United States, women earn 82 cents? That in the European Union, women earn 12.7% less than men hourly? And in sub-Saharan Africa, the gender pay gap is 30%? There are a lot of reasons for this.
Women face occupational segregation, which makes it near impossible for us to be considered in certain occupations or roles. In addition, women largely bear the burden of parenthood and are thus less likely than men to participate in the workforce. When we do, we work fewer hours than men, subsequently missing out on career opportunities that could offer us a promotion and close the gender pay gap.
Sometimes, women are simply offered a lower starting salary than men — this happened to me — and at the root of it is a heavily patriarchal attitude.
Patriarchy, as in, a systemic privileging of men that guarantees that men will have better economic opportunities (than women) because of their gender; one that socializes men to dominate, sometimes at the expense of women — think domestic abuse and sexual assault.
Men might not enjoy the perks of being treated specially as women often are, but there’s no denying that much of the world favors them.
A man’s competence is presumed, a woman’s is almost always confirmed. A man’s assertiveness is welcome, a woman’s is considered aggressive. A man can philander about without much thought for consequence; even with birth control measures, a woman risks the rest of her life living with the consequence(s), etc-etc.
Because women need advocates to challenge these norms, feminism is still relevant today.
But feminism is not without its faults. I like what Roxane Gay said, “feminism is flawed because it is a movement powered by people, and people are inherently flawed.”
The movement has been a little too radical at times. It has defined women singularly, thereby disregarding the reality of other (marginalized) women. A great deal of time, it has ignored issues affecting men, like the increasing rate of suicide among them, and — in a world of increasing female empowerment initiatives — lack of male empowerment.
Even so, feminism is still relevant.
No doubt, humanity has made tremendous progress with regards to women’s role in society. Yet, there is more progress to be made if we are keen on creating a world of true gender equality. Such world requires the activism of feminism, but we must refuse the temptation to vilify it if we want any benefits from it.
SOURCE:
* UN Women
