Feminism
Just what's going on around here anyway?
By David Schneider, rewritten 2000
Way back in the midst of Galactic history, well, back in 1995, I had the dubious fortune to attend a Blue Stocking Week debate on whether feminism oppressed women or not. The debate largely consisted of the for and against speakers wandering out and trotting out various dull spiels of feminist theory and dogma. Oh, I admit that there were a couple of articulate and almost interesting speakers, but by and large it was pretty dry stuff. In the end the adjudicator, who happened to be the then Women's Rep at Adelaide Uni Students Association, completely wussed out and declined to make any sort of ruling on which side had produced a convincing argument. Perhaps she just vagued out during the rhetoric and couldn't remember who had said what - or perhaps she didn't want to risk conflict with the more, shall we say ardent, members of the feminist fraternity.
And you know, this little debacle of a debate is to me a prime example of why feminism in recent times is, well, alienating the bulk of women and not exactly generating a devoted following in sympathizers amongst men. Firstly you had a bunch of women wander up and trot out a great deal of dogma - which was a bit like drinking undiluted cordial, rather too much all at once - without any clear explanation of the underlying concept of feminism, which they just assumed their audience had picked up via osmosis or some similar method of mystical information transfer. They made little attempt to relate their spiels to their audience - I suppose that would have skirted a little too close to making it interesting - and then the adjudicator refused to do her job for fear of upsetting one of the sisters. All in all this would have to be one of the dumbest ways to promote a cause that I have ever witnessed. Be boring, use rhetoric wherever possible, assume that your audience has the same base information and understanding of the issues as you do and then decline to take a firm stand on anything for fear of repercussions. Good stuff! We'll have women barefoot and pregnant again in no time at this rate. "I'll have some waffles while you're in that kitchen there Rosie..."
Now the Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1974, defines feminism as;
"advocacy of women's rights, of the movement for the advancement and the emancipation of women."
You know what? That may have been the case when the dictionary was written, but I feel confident enough to make the assertion that feminism is no such thing today. Following that debate I took the liberty of talking to several of the speakers, various women's reps and examining various documents pertaining to feminist theory. Following these exhaustive researches, which frequently involved discussions in bars and large supplies of the old social lubricant, I have been able to come to the conclusion that feminism today is nothing even vaguely resembling the homogenous definition given above. Rather, modern feminism is an exclusive club of appropriately indoctrinated women who all know how to "talk the talk", who are then broken up into a number of frequently mutually hostile camps.
For example, my number one favorite camp of feminist thought, and the one most frequently perceived by the lay public as the personification of feminism is the lesbian separatist school of thought. This particular camp have several interesting notions such as that being a lesbian is a political choice, that women should live apart from men as men will automatically oppress women, that only sex between women is pure, that all heterosexual sex is rape, etc. It has a rigidly enforced uniform that must be worn if you are a real feminist, and that vegetarianism is the only true way for feminists to be. Now at the risk of making myself unpopular (yet again) I have to state that these assertions are a big old pile of crap.
The notion that sexuality is a political decision is found to be pretty absurd by all the non-heterosexual people that I've spoken to about it. Most of them just say things like they just knew that they were a lesbian, there was no choice about it, anymore than I chose to be heterosexual or male. The notion that women are unable to resist being oppressed anytime they're near a male does more to portray a fictious female helplessness and male superiority than anything else. The concept that one form of sexual expression is more pure than another is simply ludicrous - I haven't bought similar arguments from the Church claiming purity for only heterosexual sex and I'll be stuffed it I'm going to buy that line from anyone else. The claim that all heterosexual sex is rape is actually offensive. It treats loving relationships and the concept of consenting adults with complete contempt. I've got to admit though that the rigidly defined uniform is kind of quaint though. In an attempt to fight the view that women must look like a model out of Vogue or Dolly, they've created their own rigidly enforced code of how you must dress - too bad about that whole freedom of choice thing. As for vegetarianism being a prerequisite for being a feminist, I can't actually see the link. I would have thought that being a vegetarian was a personal choice based upon your own ethics and beliefs rather than a way of advancing women's rights.
Another thing that I've noticed that there is a lot of talk in feminist circles about something called the Patriarchy. Now the Patriarchy is often spoken about in terms that give you the impression that it's some sort of International Organization dedicated to the enslavement of women everywhere, and of which males everywhere are covert members. At one point I tried protesting that I couldn't be a member of such a group as not once had I been sent a T-shirt or newsletter, I don't know who the President or General Manager of it is, and they haven't even sent me a membership card or told me about the secret handshake. At that point I was told that my genitals were my membership card, at which point I hoped that the Patriarchy didn't run a video shop as hiring videos would likely be a difficult and embarrassing procedure. All right, I'm being a tad flippant here but my point is that feminists have been saying that something called the Patriarchy is Bad without actually telling anyone what it is or how it came to be.
As I see it the problem with feminism today is that it has allowed itself to be marginalised. The extremist view has managed to portray itself as the one true version of feminism to the detriment of all other schools of thought. All too often women are put off of feminism due to the fact that those championing it are boring, make assumptions and use rhetoric at people. In these enlightened times the original goals of the feminist movement have been integrated into mainstream western society - which is not to say that there isn't still a hell of a lot of work to do to in improving the role of women. But if the women's movement doesn't stop alienating women themselves and treating men as some sort of enemy camped outside the city walls, real opportunities for change and progress will continue to be lost.