Feminist but Not Feminist: The Rejection of The Feminist Label

Feminist but Not Feminist: The Rejection of the Feminist Label

"At its core, feminism promotes equality for all. That goes for all races, genders, classes and sexual orientations, among other things ... The goal is to create an equal playing field. Although we have reached great milestones in making it to this goal, we are still far from reaching it” (Lapointe). In today’s times, with the modern way of living and thinking, people tend to shy away or be indifferent to one of the most controversial movements, feminism. Moreover, the main question people ask when confronted with this issue is if the movement is still relevant or needed in society. According to Higginbotham, “Feminism is still relevant because you still see issues of inequality ... You still see people being discriminated against” (Johnson).

        Unknowingly, people are well aware of the inequalities people suffer on a daily basis and majority of these people are also against these. Feminism is basically fighting to eradicate the inequalities which persist in our society; and if so, then why do most people choose to remain indifferent to a movement which has the same ideals as they do? "According to the poll [conducted by the Huffington Post and YouGov], only one-fifth of Americans identify as feminists. What’s interesting is that in the same poll, 82 percent of Americans believe that men and women should be equal” (Wilks). The rise of various anti-feminist campaigns such as Women Against Feminism, and the rejection of the contemporary feminist label in general is largely caused by the most common misconceptions that undermine the movement. Proper education and visibility would prove how feminism is still relevant today.

Feminism mainly targets the gender inequalities that persist in society which in most cases put women at a disadvantage; this focus to help women creates one of the movement's most common misconceptions which is that feminism is all about man-hating. This misconception is not new to the movement for even in the early beginnings of feminism, it was already viewed by most of society as a coalition to bring men down. On the contrary, the movement attacks the injustices that people suffer because of things they are not in control of, in this case, their sexual orientations. As Pateman asserts, “Feminism is not a movement of women or for women, but it is about a type of injustice, the injustice suffered by women because of their sex. Thus, there is nothing distinctive about feminism; it is merely one type of response to injustice that, in this case, happens to concern women”.

What most people overlook is the fact that feminism is not against men, but rather the system which deems them as the superior gender. “Feminism is not about hating men; it works to topple the patriarchal system that keeps men in a dominant position” (Goldberg). Despite feminism’s intentions to level the field of opportunities for everyone, there have been difficulties for society, especially for men to adjust to the change of removing the predominant position which they have been in for a long time. Breece explains that “The problem is when someone has a privileged status, that person can perceive someone taking away that advantage as having their status lowered”.  In result, men would psychologically tend to think that feminism is against them, when in reality, the movement seeks to equalize their state with that of women’s.

Despite feminism appearing as a movement concerning women, men play a significant role in achieving its goals. As feminism moves toward gender equality, men too are being transformed as well as the society around them, shifting to satisfy the rights of men and women alike (Heath 1). Regardless of the misconceptions about the movement being anti-men, feminism remains true to its goal of addressing the various inequalities in society. Whether men like it or not, they are greatly affected by the changes happening economically and politically as the system around them reconstructs to cater to the needs of the majority. Feminism after all, was made to benefit all genders.

In the same way that feminism proves to be gender neutral, the movement, as opposed to the thoughts of many anti-feminists, is not geared towards matriarchy, but rather gender equality. When people ask why feminism focuses on the women more when its goal is supposed to be gender equality, it is only because women are the oppressed group which is why they are more affected by gender inequalities and are at a disadvantage politically, economically and socially (Goldberg). Since the olden ages, women were already considered inferior to men, which is why majority of oppressions happen to concern women especially in countries which have not completely accepted the idea of gender equality.

“We are at separate ends of the same quicksands." Men and women alike are affected by women's movements for they live and work in the same domain as women do. They are inevitably a part of what feminism is fighting for (Rowbotham 155). The movement struggles to equalize the field and eradicate all the predominant biases which society insists on giving people based on their gender. “Choice-set equality requires that women and men face the same choices having the same meaning and the same degree of attainability” (Yuracko 88). It is not a matter of superiority or replacing patriarchy with matriarchy; but in this fast and ever-changing system where everyone has the potential to thrive, feminism fights for equal chances for the benefit of both genders.

Multiple reasons featured in the anti feminist campaign Women Against Feminism and other anti-feminists in general, claim that feminism victimizes women and makes them seem weak; however on the contrary, the movement actually empowers women to reach their fullest potentials. “We say to girls, ‘you can have ambition but not too much. You should be successful, but not too successful otherwise you will threaten the man’” (Adichie qtd in Wilks). Women have been living under men's shadows for centuries, settling for domestic roles, and adhering to the identity they were told to be. One of feminism's main goals is to address the fact that women are no less than their male counterparts, nor are they any less capable to step out of the boundaries trapping them. Yes, women were and are victims of the gender inequalities present in our society. Making this victimization visible to everyone does not make women seem inferior in any way, rather it empowers them to fight out of this victimization and prevent it from happening to other people.

"...ideological mystification obscures their origin and nature by blaming the victims. Responses to people's pain if they are to be truly and lastingly effective, must be aimed at the system: at capitalism, sexism, racism, imperialism, homophobia, the bureaucratic state, and the domination of nature” (Gottlieb xiv). Oftentimes, the systems dominating society hide the structural flaws and perspective by putting the blame on the victims themselves. This could be seen as double victimization while simultaneously letting perpetrators walk free. Being a victim is nothing to be ashamed of and feminism puts on light the idea that victims are not at fault. On the contrary, it fights to disassemble this notion of victim visibility as dependency, but rather present it as bravery to come forward, spread awareness of the injustices and oppressions, fight against it and not settle to just being a victim.