By Michelle M
I have heard people assume that ‘feminism’ is embarrassing, outdated, and extremist. I want to give a few words to reposition this; to place it back in the definition it truly belongs to for International Women’s Day.
Image Credit: istock
Look up ‘feminism’ on Google: ‘the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.’ Look up ‘feminism’ in the Urban Dictionary and you will see a wide range of responses, e.g: ‘Was originally a good idea but now has changed into a hate group that spreads false statistics and propaganda.’ How is the concept of equality being weaponised, equated with hateful extremism? Men-haters are misandrists, not feminists, and as bad as misogynists because the two sexes should be equal; but it’s appalling the two are conflated to try and ignore a movement for equality.
Feminists have fought so hard over so long: we cannot take away from that. My college, St Anne’s, was originally established in 1879 as more of a manifesto than a physical place by The Society of Home-Students. This only became a full College of the University in 1952. It took women so long to claim a place, metaphorically and literally, and I’m so grateful to their resilience. The work of women and men for gender equality has given me a place to write this now: it seems fair to work likewise for later generations.
I was in the first cohort of girls at an all-boys’ sixth form. I’m grateful for the experience, and it was testament to the equal intellectual capabilities between the two sexes. Many treated me as if this was completely normal, but this wasn’t always the case. I was in a talk where consent was made a joke. I heard sexual jokes that made me uncomfortable, women's bodies objectified, sometimes to their faces. Worst of all, this is everywhere. In Oxford, too, I’ve heard comments from friend groups who have normalised sexist ‘jokes’, but many ‘jokes’ have much deeper implications within our sociohistorical frameworks. It doesn’t mean anything when women have equality now, right?... But how do you equate equality with such ‘jokes’ existing in the first place?
The change has been positive. There are more women in universities, more equal pay. But that isn’t generalisable. There are still women who cannot access education. There are still women who are barred from their human rights. Sexual harassment is too common: men are impacted because they are less likely to report things like domestic abuse, in line with societal normalisation; women are impacted as frequent victims.
Michel Foucault argued power in society resides in societal discourses making these acts and their supporting ideologies appear common sense. It is small, everyday practices that allow such inequality to become established and normalised; but that, too, means we can prevent it. A joke is not just a joke but reinforcement of wider social issues. A person calling another out is not automatically a ‘snowflake’; they are trying to break down the language of inequality that reinforces a society where feminism is invalidated. Don’t conflate equality with extremism.
Bar some biological differences between men and women, we are all bodies of flesh and blood at the end of the day, so how can some discursive practices create such ideological divisions? Equality is respect and acknowledgement. It’s saying: you’re a person, too, living in this world, so I give you the space to make what you can of it, too.
Let’s place feminism where it truly belongs. Not to raging male-haters, but ordinary people who want a more peaceful existence for all.
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