The Cursed Word: Feminism

I was surprised by the number of people I have met in college who have little to no perception of, or a totally jaded view of feminism. It is important to note that these people are not just men, students my age, or those who openly oppose feminism, but also professors, women, and those who identified as feminists themselves. Let’s look at the loud one first. Unfortunately, the fact is that there are some women who claim to be feminists, but put women above men. They have been called “womanists,” which actually already exists, as it specifically targets the place where race, class, gender, and sexuality intersect, or “men haters”, but these people are using, and jading the word, “feminist”. They are not “feminazis,” as I have heard in the past, as the word “feminazi” relates them back to the word feminist to which they are not truly associated. I won’t even get into the great injustice, and disrespect given to all who fell victim to or opposed the Nazi party in WW2 when this is used against these people.

Now that I’ve got some of your attention, the word feminism is defined as, “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men” (and is worded in this way because of the history if the unfair advantages held by men). So, feminism places no one gender or sexuality above any other, it simply wants everyone to be equal in all parts of society. Associating these women, who preach wrong intentions that the masses (us) become attached to as reality, and slander the word ‘feminist’ with feminists, is the same as calling all Muslims terrorists.  It is the same in the fact that the reason many people associate all Muslims with terrorism, generally in America, is because Isis claims to be a force for the Islamic world, claims to be the voice of Islam, just as the Ku Klux Klan claims to be a force and voice for Christianity, but we’ll ignore that one. We don’t stereotype all Christians as KKK members, because, as a nation, we have a general understanding of Christianity, it’s in our history as we have a past of intersecting church and state, while we as a nation do not have a decent understanding of Islam or feminism because they are relatively new concepts to the generalized American public. The majority (generally white males, but also all other sects of the populous included) hear primarily about these radicals, due to the fact that the excitement that comes with radicals is all the news seems to cover, and they are our unfortunate introduction into these respected worlds which those radicals falsely identify with. In turn, a feeling of vulnerability is created in the majority, white, Christian, male of the American Patriarchy (generally speaking of course) as they are now those under attack, being men, being white, despite the fact that they personally have done nothing wrong. It is an attack to which a defensive counter attack has become the primary natural response due to little to no deeper knowledge on the situation, leading to the creation of discomfort, or hatred and resistance towards, in these cases, both the nation of Islam and the feminist movement. Discomfort and hatred which manifests both in the repressed psyche as well as in physical and verbal opposition.

Clichés exist for a reason. “One bad egg spoils the whole bunch.” Even if the 11 other eggs are not rotten, we still throw away the box because we believe they’re all ruined. In this sense we must start changing ourselves and our children. We must stop accusing and convicting all the eggs with the one that is rotten, and learn to investigate for the truth. Rot can spread, but we don’t hate the egg, we hate what the rot does.  But that is a simple comparison, and in our reality of human beings, we are more complex that rotten eggs. It’s not nearly as black and white as that. Everyone has motivations.

We must teach our children that things are almost never as they seem on top, to investigate and question, to forever seek out deeper knowledge and understanding, and to not be too “big” to change. We must teach them, as well as ourselves, that they must treat everyone with the respect of an equal, and we must do so by example. I was once told, as I was growing into the early stages of adulthood, that they (my adult instructors) would treat me and my peers, who ranged of all races, religions and sexualities, as adults, unless we acted in such a way to prove we should not be treated as such. That gave me a powerful feeling inside, and as a young white man, I saw one of those heroes that I grew up with in my story books standing before me. I saw that this old, mustachioed, black man, who I immediately believed to be my better, with so much more experience than me and him being my instructor, was treating me as his equal and give all of us the opportunity to make something of our world. He who was in a position of power directly over me put us on his level, gave us responsibility. He was the kind of role model that many of us need in America.

 “Don’t judge a book by its cover” means more than finding a good book to read, as brilliant authors may be or hire terrible visual artists. “Innocent until proven guilty” is all great until the accused hit the media, where WE as Americans and the general public act as judge, jury, and executioners if we could and practically do, ruining innocent lives and personal images. We must stop this blind, blanketed hatred of women, men, Muslims, People of Color, or anyone, and any other form of discrimination based on what we appear to be or don’t understand. We must educate ourselves on the many issues we face before judgement.  We cannot associate the radicals of Isis with the whole of the religion of Islam, we cannot associate the “men haters” with all feminists, nor can we hold hate against any of those fallen victim to the ignorance, hatred, and fear. All we can do is learn to better ourselves and our children, by forever learning, growing, changing, which we accomplish by communicating with and listening to others.

We, as feminists, as people, cannot be single-minded, and must constantly develop ourselves, and work together with society to help others to do the same. If we do not, then we cannot include the masses, and we would be crushed by the dual opposing forces. Instead we must educate and include everyone, for education is understanding power and inclusion is direction.

Dec. 4, 2016