Why I refuse to be bullied into being a ‘feminist’.

So this is a response to Camilla’s blog post found here at http://plzexplainthis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/why-some-girlswomen-say-they-arent.html . Have you read it? Go do it now. Are we all up to speed? Good. Now, I have to say, ‘whaaaaaaaaat?’ Perhaps I have misjudged the situation but I get the feeling this blog might have been inspired by a rather controversial module in our Government and Politics A-Level – Feminism. Our teacher (fondly I hope) has reminisced a few times (including in writing, in my yearbook) that the debate got so heated that we made her, a 6’2 woman, invisible and she could have left the room gone for the weekend come back for our Monday lesson and no one would have known the difference.

Camilla, you might remember I was not on the side of the rampant feminists. Perhaps you would describe my contribution as anti-feminist. In fact, I’m almost sure you did. So bearing that in mind you have written a woefully inaccurate and misinterpreted version of the beliefs of the majority of so called ‘anti-feminists.’

Let me dispel the first and most important of these misinterpretations. People who are not feminists do not necessarily believe that women should all be housewives*. (For want of a better phrase) ‘anti-feminists’ like myself also believe in free choice. But for a variety of reasons we do not agree that ‘feminism’ as it is practiced is the way to achieve what we want to achieve. If we are looking at the broadest definition of feminism – ‘feminism is the belief that women are disadvantaged because of their sex, and that this disadvantage should be overthrown’ as Camilla put it then perhaps we believe that this isn’t correct, again for a variety of reasons.

I am going to give explaining how I feel about feminism a go. I have lived my ‘work’ life and some of my ‘social’ life by the principle that ‘I want’ gets.  I don’t shy away from confrontation if the goal is something I want/need (even if often it is simply out of ‘principle.’) And I happen to be of the belief that if you want something – perhaps something on the long list of feminist complaints i.e equal pay, shared childcare responsibilities etc etc – then you should do something about it by yourself. Saying ‘I’m a Feminist’ in 9 cases out of 10 is a get-out-clause of taking affirmative action independently. When I don’t like something I don’t hide behind my gender. I prefer to make my gender a non-thing and I get to the root of the problem. ‘Why am I not being paid as much as Mr. Smith?’ Not ‘You can’t pay Mr. Smith more than me just because he’s a man.’ People who say they are feminists are contributing to the gender divide just as much as misogynists are (not least because there are increasingly more feminists and increasingly less misogynists.) Women in the West are in the very fortunate position where First Wave Feminism has secured equal rights for men and women. So the divisions are purely social – and the way to change social attitudes is not by riling everyone’s feathers by showing off your unshaven legs (this is a metaphor – please don’t freak out). That just scares all the misogynists and conservatives (small c). Stop talking about feminism, stop talking about ‘men and women’ and start talking about yourself. Your glorious, genderless self who wants to be treated how she deserves to be treated not how Mr. Smith in cubicle two is treated. The next step is rather annoying but it is a fact of life – waiting. Social attitudes won’t change over night but they will change just as a wound will heal as soon as you stop agitating it and give it a little time.

Now one of the biggest issues I took with Camilla’s blog was it seemed to suggest all feminists thought the same way and all anti-feminists thought the same way. This is bollocks. Now I’m not an authority on different strands of ‘anti-feminism’ or really any strand, I just know how I feel so I can’t tell you about everyone else. What we have to remember is that there are ‘anti-feminists’ who believe women are inferior in some ways and men are inferior in other ways so it is nonsensical to argue that women should ‘overthrow the disadvantage of their sex’ because it is natural and necessary. (I don’t know enough about this strand of thought to comment on it, maybe I’ll do some research and do a little follow up post).  There are ‘anti-feminists’ who believe that we already have overthrown inequality and feminism has become pro-women not pro-equality.  And there are a thousand more kinds of ‘anti-feminists.’ So I think Camilla needs to rethink her put down of ‘anti-feminists’ all being obsessive, self-absorbed wannabe homemakers

@bexmaynard if you want to tell me what a disgrace to the sisterhood I am (or better that I am a genius who has changed your entire gender-political persuasion). Either way x

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*Some ‘anti-feminists’ do believe women’s place is in the kitchen. But these tend to be ultra-conservatives and I do warn against assuming you can sway their beliefs by pointing out something as benign as ‘what if what you want is not what everyone else wants?’ It is an ideology.