Gender war can’t promote feminism
I SUSPECT I’ve lost 95 per cent of female readers over the past two weeks during the first two of my gender-relations trilogy.
In Part I, I blew the lid off chauvinists’ cookie jar containing a fetid, flaccid fantasy called “what men want in a woman”. Last week, I dispelled an illusion called “the Patriarchy” created by women to maintain their competitive edge over other women. For the five per cent female readership that survived these assaults on political correctness, I expect you to leave in disgust as I close by examining the feminist movement.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines feminism (noun) as “the belief and aim women should have the same rights and opportunities as men; the struggle to achieve this aim”, and feminist (adjective) as “having or based on the belief women should have the same rights and opportunities as men”.
Merriam-Webster defines feminism as “1: the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities; 2: organized activity in support of women’s rights and interests”, and feminist as “a person who supports or engages in feminism”.
Note the absence of sex/gender-oriented categorisations. Even Merriam-Webster, from the country whose nationhood was based on a misogynistic lie that it believed “all men are created equal”, provides any “person” can be a feminist. Despite what you might think after my last two Sunday columns, I consider myself a feminist.
Note that standard British understatement defines “feminism” as “belief” and “aim” or “struggle”,
while Americans specify “organized activity” (i.e. Movement). Shockingly to many, feminism didn’t start with #MeToo. In the USA, the movement formally began at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention where 300 men and women rallied to the women’s equality cause. Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the Seneca Falls Declaration, calling on women to fight for their constitutionally guaranteed right to equality as US citizens.
Early on, although focused on suffrage, feminism was interrelated with temperance and abolitionist movements. Despite resistance, mainly from conservatives, discussions about the vote and women’s participation in politics led populations to examine differences between men and women’s roles as then viewed.
The UK’s suffragette movement started in the Victorian era; became a national movement in 1832; shifted sentiments in favour of woman suffrage by 1906; and finally succeeded via laws in 1918 and 1928. In the USA, feminists won the women’s vote when the 19th Amendment – “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” – enfranchised 26 million American women in time for the 1920 elections.
THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE
But the powerful women’s voting bloc feared by conservative male politicians didn’t materialise for decades. After securing the vote, the USA feminist movement’s curve flattened until a second wave was triggered by Betty Friedan’s
The Feminine Mystique (1963). This phenomenal book sold three million copies in three years. It revolutionised feminism not by its ideas (weren’t new) but by its reach. In a pre-Internet/social media age, the book was read by housewives, their friends, and a network of educated middle-class white women, each with 2.5 children and a picket fence. Inextricably intertwined with the sexual revolution, it taught these women that they deserved orgasms AND to exercise creative and intellectual abilities.
The Feminine Mystique created angry women (previously told their only place was in the home); a feminism spike; and a second wave lasting 20 years. It scored legislative successes but failed to win an equal-rights amendment after opposition from a coalition of insecure, conservative white women fearful of losing societal status to liberated women.
In theory, The Equal Pay Act 1963 outlawed the gender pay gap; Title IX gave women the right to educational equality; and a series of landmark Supreme Court cases (including Roe v Wade 1973) guaranteed women the right to birth control and reproductive freedom. Jamaica’s contribution was the Employment (Equal Pay for Men and Women) (1975) and Maternity Leave (1979) Acts. But the second wave’s greatest achievement was to change how society perceived women. The USA was forced to recognise and acknowledge systemic sexism. But while tackling middle class white women’s needs, it failed to address black women’s concerns.
American feminism (1960s-80s) wasn’t for ALL women.
1970s black women didn’t care about rights to work outside of the home. Been there! Done that! Already typecast as maids/ office helpers. To white women, reproductive freedom meant birth control and legalised abortion, but black women were more concerned with stopping forced sterilisation of people of colour or with disabilities. From the earliest days of feminism, ambivalence to black women’s concerns was highlighted by women like legendary black female activist Sojourner Truth who demanded, “Ain’t I a woman?”
THE THIRD WAVE
Feminism’s third wave began in 1991 when Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexually abusing her. She failed to block his nomination but triggered an avalanche of sexual harassment complaints, which is the focus of feminism’s fourth wave (# MeToo). Third-wave activism was concentrated on workplace harassment and increasing the number of women in positions of power. The realisation was that women’s rights would never become systemic until women controlled the corridors of state power.
In 1992, twenty-four women won House seats and three more in the Senate, but female representation since flattened. So the third wave became a diffuse, unfocused movement without the first two’s strong cultural momentum and can claim little legislative success. It did conceive and give birth to #MeToo, which expanded the mission to embrace the fight for trans rights as a fundamental part of inclusive feminism.
But feminism is about equal rights for women. It was born out of a revolt against the “Cult of True Womanhood”, which brainwashed men and women that the only “true woman” was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family. The philosophy of feminism was the uplifting of women not suppression of men or masculinity, both of which are as important to species survival as femininity.
Feminism’s recent embrace of transgenders and persons who transitioned from assigned to identified gender was an enlightened acceptance that all humans are entitled to equality under the law and equitable treatment by society. The message was that depending on philosophical belief, NOT sexual orientation or gender identification, anyone can be a feminist.
TRUE FEMINIST
A true feminist believes that women and men should have equal opportunity, equal rights, and equal responsibilities as citizens. So feminists should be seeking nothing more than treatment on merit. There’s no need to disparage the male sex in order to strengthen the female, so this “all men are trash” mantra pervading social media and beyond isn’t helping feminism. The #MeToo movement, created as a pushback against sexual harassment/ assault of women in workplaces, has been more enthusiastic than effective. Without more, targeting powerful men and causing them to lose reputations and/or jobs hasn’t, can’t, and won’t change society.
The disrespectful, unethical, and downright despicable behaviour of some of these men should be taken in the context of the businesses involved; those businesses’ traditional practices of excesses; and (shoot me, I don’t care) the contribution of too many women in the businesses to those excesses leading weak, insensitive men to believe that they were acceptable. So, two years into the #MeToo
movement, systemic sexual harassment, assault, and misconduct in society remains endemic.
Jamaica just completed a very public, very political song and dance to pass a Sexual Harassment Act penalising, inter alia, “the making of sexual suggestions, remarks or innuendos” subjectively “regarded” as “offensive”. I kid you not! Well that does it for my public writing!
Jamaican women still don’t have reproductive rights, and based on the historical effectiveness of laws against more serious sexual crimes and political gymnastics practised with the Sexual Offenders Registry, I bet dollars to donuts that this latest piece of legislative hoopla won’t alter real life.
The feminist movement seems to have lost its way. #MeToo’s focus appears to be to destroy powerful men like Harvey Weinstein and put 83-year-old Bill Cosby in prison for 10 years (subsequently overturned on appeal).
Feminists might consider keeping feminism within achievable and ethical parameters by focusing on equal rights for women (including reproductive rights). Public hostility against men is unlikely to further fundamental feminist causes. Best strategies for reducing male perversion ( we KNOW there are no female perverts, right?) include educating our children in respect, manners, appropriate gender relations and insisting that school curricula include these lessons taught by empathetic teachers. Current perverts should be prosecuted by law enforcement (no excess public fuss or commotion required) and persecuted by the Church (packed with professional, experienced persecutors and perverts).
Gender war can’t promote feminism. Wars only kill, maim, and create generational enemies. Feminists should recall how they acquired their values and attitudes and pay them forward.
Peace and Love!