I haven't read all of the thread - it will suffice to say that the blatant ignorance and misogyny on the part of some made me not even want to read it. Regardless, hopefully I can offer some thoughts that inform the discussion. I graduated with almost enough credits for a Women's and Gender Studies minor, and have taken many classes with Feminist professors. Those are my credentials haha.
Here's Feminism 101, and why you should at a minimum respect it, if not embrace it.
History
The Feminist movement can be divided into three distinct waves (in the United States) - first, second, and third. The first wave was largely about getting voting rights for women. It was the first step for women to become equal with men in a society where men dominated everything. The second wave was about getting legal rights for women - it lasted from the 1960s to roughly the 90s, although many academic feminists consider themselves within the second-wave tradition. Roe v. Wade was a second wave victory. Women got the right to use contraception. The Civil Rights Act was written, etc. The second wave accomplished most of its goals in getting legal equality for women, but a disturbing trend became apparent - women had legal rights, but still faced enormous challenges in the social realm. There are so many examples here, but I'll get to them later. The third wave, sometimes but incorrectly referred to as postmodern feminism, began in the 90s. The third wave reversed some second wave positions. For example, many second wave scholars found porn (especially the industry itself) oppressive to women. Third wave feminists changed in favor of a more "individualist" interpretation of femininity - so, women should be able to prostitute or participate in porn if they
want to.
How women are still oppressed
So, you don't believe women are oppressed in modern society (mind, I'm speaking from a US perspective). You see women around you everyday that are shallow, vapid, conniving, and use their sexuality for personal gain. Even worse, some of these women call themselves feminists. The "men's rights activists" take this perspective, and it's especially popular on the internet right now. The young male's response to these women is to demean them with words like bitch, slut, and whore - and to make incessant rape jokes and the like. You guys know this kind of man. Many of you fall right into the category.
But, you have to take a step back and look at the big picture. Two concepts become clear upon careful study and reflection: privilege and non-institutionalized sexism. Second wave feminists were successful in their war against the legal oppression of women (institutionalized sexism), but patriarchy had an answer and it was to make women oppress themselves. Our entire culture is set up to make this the case. It's also important to note that our society forces men into rigid gender roles as well. Second wave feminists acknowledged this and largely embraced men into the movement. There were and still are some exceptions, but like any movement there will always be a few crazies. Let's examine the life of a female child from birth to her mid-twenties.
A little girl is born and she is immediately placed into pink clothing. She will likely have a pink bedroom, possibly with princess posters on the wall and Barbie dolls in the closet. A study was done, and I can't remember what it was called, where a baby was put in blue clothes and allowed to crawl around the room while adults watched. The exact same baby was put in pink clothing and the experiment was repeated. Everyone loves a cute baby, so naturally the adults made comments and those comments were recorded. Even when the baby was displaying the exact same behavior the adults comments were heavily gendered. If the baby, dressed in blue, crawled away, people said she was "being adventurous" or "exploring." If the baby was dressed in pink, she was described as "trying to find her mommy" or "scared."
So a young girl starts watching Disney movies, where the women are always helpless and in need of a man. Disney princesses are not intelligent. They don't problem solve. They are helpless. The only thing they are good at is often literally waiting around for a man to save them. They are, on the other hand, good at "love," "romance," and being mothers - historically feminine qualities. Our young girl watches TV, most likely. She is bombarded with advertising that is heavily gendered. This study looked at the frequency with which words were used in gendered advertisement (most advertisements in the US are heavily gendered). Here are the results:
For boys:
For girls:
Study URL:
http://www.achilleseffect.com/2011/...-ad-vocabulary-reinforces-gender-stereotypes/
Love, magic, babies. Are you kidding me? Granted, the boys are being fed information that encourages aggression and "meat-head" stereotypes, but sit back and really think about it: which stands a better chance at advancing in society? Into positions of power? In business? In situations where manipulation and corruption are required for advancement (business and politics, not that this is a good thing)? Let's move on.
Our child watches TV shows on the Disney channel now. She sees characters like the one Miley Cyrus portrays. Girls in these TV shows fawn over boys. They wear inordinate amounts of makeup. They use their emerging sexuality for power and control. Importantly, it's completely out of their control. A 12 year old girl does not have agency. She doesn't
choose to wear makeup because she wants to. Society and culture, and adults who write those TV shows, create this gender role for the young girl. It's a construction, it's no innate. It's not biology. It's not the "way women are."
Our young girl starts to get older. She is bombarded with makeup advertisements and articles about how to be pretty (for men) in magazines and on TV. All of her friends are likely the same, so competition starts between them. She begins to obsess about her weight, perhaps. Everything she reads in media or sees on TV says that she is not good enough. She must buy products to become desirable. While I agree that gender roles negatively effect boys, I also argue that they are under nowhere near the same amount of pressure.
This is all perpetuated through the capitalist system (largely run by men). By convincing women that they need all of these things, men in business (some women too, of course) can get rich, oppress women, and create a class of women who are obedient and have no agency. The best part: women are completely on-board.
Our young girl is now a young woman. She discovers her sexuality and the power it holds. It's the only power she knows. She's been trained from birth to believe that her body, her genitals, her ability to mother, are the most important parts about her. And so she uses it. Who can blame her?
There's an interesting tension here. The tension between the 1950s, "proper, obedient woman" that men used to control, and our modern society which preaches equality, individualism and rights. Our young girl is bombarded with media, literally trained by it, to lack agency, but society tells her that she has it. Our culture tells her that she can do whatever she wants, get anywhere she wants to go. She feels entitled to power and status like men. Most legal barriers have been erased. But she hasn't been taught to be smart. She hasn't been taught that her body is only a small part of who she is, as a person. She hasn't been taught that her personality matters. She hasn't been taught morality. She's watched Miley Cyrus use her body and her sass to get what she wants.
Internet Culture
I'll do my best to explain the dominant culture on the internet right now. It's dangerous and ignorant, but also misguided.
So, the internet hates Miley Cyrus (even though they said they'd fuck her). Why? They see her as vapid, shallow, as using her body to get what she wants. They hate the way she manifests her power. Instead of playing by the man's rules and advancing through "hard work" with her brains, she uses her sexuality to get what she wants. This pisses off men for two reasons: 1) She has a kind of power men seemingly cannot have. 2) She refuses to play by the man's rules. Now, note that I am not arguing for women to have the kind of power Miley Cyrus has. It's a shallow power. It's demeaning. It doesn't allow women to truly have agency.
But the internet male is pissed off. At some level, he understands that Miley Cyrus offers nothing of value, but he doesn't understand how men have created this reality for themselves. He doesn't understand the societal, cultural, and capitalist reasons for the woman's oppression. He doesn't even see women as oppressed. He just sees the negative aspects of women that he despises.
So he further adds to the oppression. He calls women bitches, sluts, whores. He makes comments about how and who he will fuck. He makes rape jokes. He strips women of their humanity. He turns them into fuck toys. He has one night stands with girls who have "daddy-issues" and feels no remorse. He watches porn that degrades women in horrific ways. And he feels justified. He's getting revenge in his mind.
On to privilege, which I don't think I explained earlier. Privilege is an idea that started in the 1990s. It originally applied to race, but what expanded to feminism and other disciplines. Privilege is the idea that, when you are the one in a position of power, you fail to realize all of the systems, mechanisms, and societal influences that enable you to get where you are. So, the white male has privilege by being white and male. I won't go into race here, but you get the idea. So, he doesn't realize how being male has enabled him to get where he is. He doesn't understand how the TV shows he watched as a kid gave him the confidence he needed to succeed. He doesn't understand how young girls are not afforded the same opportunity. He thinks he's done it all on his own, but he's wrong.
Second vs. third wave feminism
A lot of academic feminists don't like third wave feminism. The third wave has manifested itself on the internet, today at least, and has many good aspects. It embraces the idea of privilege, intersectionality (the idea that various types of oppression are related and interconnected), etc.
But, if one looks at how the movement is actually working (beyond the ideology and onto its function), it's... frustrating to say the least. Note - these are my opinions. Almost all "tumblr feminists" will disagree with me here. But, my position is informed by academic feminist thought, and I will try to argue it persuasively.
Internet feminism is a reaction by young women against at least two things. 1) the cultural biases that we hold the oppress women, and 2) the men who calls women bitches and sluts and make rape jokes.
Examples:
Being against slut-shaming - the idea that women who express their sexuality freely are labeled sluts when men who do the same thing are "just being boys."
Concerns about rape culture - "rape culture" is a broad term encompassing several ideas. 1) the idea that women are taught "don't get raped" instead of teaching men not to rape 2) Fighting against the use of rape in jokes. If you've ever known someone who was raped, you understand just how fucking terrible it is. How it can destroy someone's life, strip them of their confidence and self-worth, etc.
Defining privilege - we've already talked about this one.
These are all great things.
Unfortunately, internet feminism has a highly individualistic, almost narcissistic, side that I believe is dangerous. In line with postmodern culture, the internet feminist is willing to throw out the greater cause in favor of a personal agenda that
feels right to them. The result is a fracturing of the movement in general (feminism), and a vast number of uninformed, undereducated people with loud opinions.
Examples:
Porn and prostitution - many internet feminists are for porn and prostitution. They justify these practices by saying that women who
want to participate ought to be able to, because it's their own free choice. They fail to realize a number of things, though. First, that our society, which teaches women to serve men (through Disney movies, TV shows, etc) creates women who have never known anything but serving men. They fail to realize that many of the women who enter the porn industry or start selling their bodies have been raped, sexually abused, or neglected. They don't realize that these women are not making a "free" choice. They lack agency. They lack confidence and self-worth. There are exceptions, sure, but vast amounts of sociological research show again and again that women who sell their bodies come from low-income families and have suffered abuse of some sort. Google it if you wish to read it. It's there and the conclusions are clear. I'll spare lengthy discussion of how porn objectifies women, but if you think choking, slapping, and shitting and pissing on women doesn't objectify them, you are delusional. The dominant culture has allowed this stuff to continue under the guise of sexual freedom, but again, go look at that sociological research. We're all getting off at someone else's expense.
Defending modern culture - many internet feminists will argue that it's okay to be a feminist and wear makeup, do "girly" things, and express their feminine side. I don't necessarily disagree. There are historically feminine qualities that are incredibly valuable. Kindness, compassion, empathy, "mothering," have all been historically assigned to women instead of men. There's a pretty significant amount of research showing that men are just as capable of expressing these traits as women are - they are learned, not innate. I digress - anyway, once again the cause is thrown out for individual pleasure. In defending the young girl's "right" to wear makeup, worship Disney princesses, and fawn over Justin Bieber, we allow these oppressive industries to continue to exist. Chances are that you, internet male, encourage these enterprises too. You want women to wear makeup so that they are attractive to you. You want women to think that you're their knight in shining armor. But you create your own arbitrary rules and guidelines since we aren't in the 1950s anymore. Don't wear too much makeup. Act like a whore for me, but no one else. Right now we're trying to have it both ways - but that really just doesn't work.
"Pro-something" movements - if you're familiar with tumblr feminism, you might know that other causes have been tacked on. An example is the "pro-fat" movement. Again it's rooted in a good cause - it argues that people (but especially women because of the societal pressures against them) should not have their self worth judged by their weight. This happens all the time. It's bad if you think about it at all. But the pro-fat movement takes it a step further. Its members take pride in their weight. They make tumblr posts about their favorite junk foods. They encourage others to be fat. They scoff at good health. They argue that anyone ought to be able to eat literally whatever they want with no social recourse. If you die of diabetes, you made the choice and did it happily. But once again this opinion is ignorant and destructive. Children don't have agency with regards to food - they eat what their parents feed them. They learn behaviors and lifestyles that they will carry with them their entire lives. They will suffer through their lives with chronic illnesses caused by poor diet. They will never have the choice. There are public health concerns. There are environmental and ethical reasons to discourage the massive factory farms that turn out the antibiotic and growth-hormone ridden, nutritionally bankrupt food that goes into a McDonald's chicken nugget or cheeseburger.
A common thread runs through these examples. Individual pleasure ultimately wins out over the good. The greater cause, for women and men, is abandoned in favor of cheap thrills and surface-level pleasures. Our decision's effects on others are ignored and narcissism prevails.
What does this mean for Feminism?
To conclude - feminism is not a bad word. It's a broad, encompassing, umbrella term that includes so many ideas (many of them contradictory). There's marxist feminism, postmodern feminism, eco-feminism, black feminism, multicultural feminism, first, second and third wave feminism - and the list goes on. They all have something to offer, but you have to read and engage yourself to understand them. The single biggest threat to feminism is rampant ignorance. The religious right was ultimately successful in sabotaging feminism's name during the 1980s and 90s. They painted feminists as man-hating women hell-bent on getting abortions and killing their husbands (I wish I was joking), and as a result very few read or acknowledge what feminism has to offer. Even many internet feminists, who have co-opted the movement to some degree, are uninformed and fail to see the big picture. The feminist movement has been relegated to academia, and political action has largely ceased.
But it still matters. And it deny that is to be willfully ignorant. I hope this post sparked at least one person's interest. I can provide some reading material if anyone is interested.
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