anythings.org

Ultimately, I am a feminist because I believe in two things: equality and choice. Equality for all people, regardless of what labels are applied to them by themselves and society, and choice for all people, so they are able to live their lives as close to their dream as possible. That also includes to the choice to reject equality and remain oppressed or inferior if that is what you truly desire. This includes the choice to be anti-choice (or pro-life, if you will), as long as your opinion on the matter does not infringe upon my choice - and legal right - to obtain an abortion. I don’t expect everyone to be feminists, but I do believe that feminism can benefit the world as a whole. I openly admit that this is a very idealistic belief, and I’m fine with that. So you can imagine my disgust when people try to tell me that feminism isn’t about equality and choice for all people - that it’s about women having power over men.

I was innocently browsing through flickr today when I found this atrocity. It appears as though this woman (whose only interest listed is: My man is the most important thing in the world. As it should be for every woman. I’m luck y that he lets me use his computer to share my views, I’m even more lucky that he approves of them, and that he allows me to not only have them..but share them.) hates feminists because instead of continuing with the original mantra of feminism (equality, aka my mantra, which belongs to the majority of the movement), she believes that feminism’s main goal is to obtain power over men.

Feminism doesn’t wish for equality amongst the sexes…no not any more. Like I said, feminists today have pissed over that ideology; they now want POWER over men.

So why did feminism fail? The failure of feminism was assured the moment it took its name. I do not have anything against the original goals of feminism, namely the equality amongst the sexes; I simply oppose modern feminism as a METHOD of attaining such goals. The method is suggested by its NAME and DEFENITION [sic], namely the elevation of the females. Its not called ‘equalism’ or ‘egalitarianism’ its called ‘feminism’ and there-fore [sic] tries very hard to argue the ‘greatness of the female’ in an extremely defensive fashion, in the hope of bringing females up to male levels of respect and cultural treatment- something that we supposedly don’t have. You may ATTEMPT to rebut this statement by arguing that the goal of feminism to simply promote equality. The name infers an emphasis on the female, and there-fore [sic] the female becomes the focus and the greatest element of the movement. Equality is apparently the preferred by product and goal of feminism but it sought though through an emphasis of the ‘greater female’.

Of course the name of the movement is “feminism”. That’s because the movement began in an effort to obtain equal rights for women. While the early feminist movement may have been flawed, it was coined feminism (and not equalism or egalitarianism) because men already had the rights women were fighting very hard to have. Since then, the feminist movement has evolved beyond rights for women. Almost every single feminist I know is also in support of gay rights and equal rights for all people, regardless of ethnicity, race, religion, etc. The feminist movement is not just trying to win legal rights, it is also trying to remove sexism from our society. Where’s the harm in that?

Could you imagine trying to change the name of the feminist movement as a whole? It would be like trying to rename “Catholicism” to “Jesusism”. People simply wouldn’t go for it. Feminism, the name, the word, the verb, inspires a particular image in people’s minds. For some, like this person, it is a negatively skewed image. But for others, like myself, it inspires solidarity and confidence that someday I will be able to be a bridesmaid in a wedding for a gay couple from Alabama who just adopted their first child. Changing the name of a social movement won’t really do much to shed any negative images: the haters and the nay-sayers will still be there.

Potentially my favorite:

An equality movement for all those suffering, oppressed, silenced, forgotten and hurt regardless of race, colour, creed or sex. Not just those with ovaries. It is time to forget about feminism for in the rapidly unifying world culture we have run out of time to make a difference. Feminism has to be forgotten NOW for EGALITARINISM [sic] to survive.

Which, really, if she paid any attention to the majority of the feminist movement and not just the extremist fringe, she would that is what feminism is about. Of course, every major social group has its extremist fringe - take Mormons for example. They’ll never live down their past of polygamy and no one will let them forget that some fundamentalist Mormons still practice polygamy today. The same goes for sexuality and sexual object choice. Almost every person on this earth will, at one point in their life, have sex. Some people choose to take that sex without permission, others prefer sex with people (or… things) that either cannot consent (because they’re goats) or they are haven’t even hit puberty. We do not condemn the act of sex in its entirety simple because of an extremist fringe. Even the fundamentalist Christians still revere sex, if only for reproductive purposes to create a “quiverfull” of children.

While it is fun to giggle about fringe “feminazi” feminists, it doesn’t make any progress for women, and it certainly does not make promise for the feminists who aren’t women, or who are women, but identify as lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, black, African, Asian, etc first, rather than as woman first. Even I have, from time to time, enjoyed a laugh at the expense of so-called feminazis. However, I have also enjoyed a laugh at the expense of fundamentalist Christians and Mormons; cults; individuals fulfilling the stereotype of their particular gender and/or race without a concern for how ridiculous they look; extremist men’s rights groups; Neo-Nazis; and many other extremist groups. Of course, when I think of the scary fundamentalist Christians who burn down abortion clinics, I do not associate them with all of Christianity. They are a separate group entirely from my nice Christian friends who respect my right to choose as much as they respect their right to not have an abortion.

This is the problem ~Clair~ has run into: she has chosen to associate all of feminism with the fringe man-hating movement. It’s a choice she made, albeit a pretty poor one.

I think if she read these words said by Ani Difranco, she’d have a better understanding on the modern feminist movement and its intentions and goals. Feminism isn’t just for women anymore. Feminism is for everybody.

I think what we need to do is to understand feminism as a prerequisite to saving the environment, to ending war, to ending racism. We need to understand that feminism is not for women, it’s for humanity. Patriarchy does not work for men - they go and get killed in wars. Patriarchy hurts all of us. Either you are a feminist or you are a sexist/misogynist. There is no box marked ‘other’.

I don’t want power over men. I don’t want power over anyone else. I want power over myself, my thoughts, and my body. I want the ability and the legal right to marry whomever I wish and have as many abortions or as much sex as I’d like, with any consenting adult I wish. I want to be able to make the choice of whether or not I submit to my husband and have 12 children and remain a stay at home wife. Feminism is letting me make these choices.