When Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said she doesn’t consider herself a feminist, I thought, “how is it possible that such an intelligent woman could say that?” To be honest, I immediately lost a certain amount of respect for her.
Then I started thinking: why would she say that?
Let’s start with this: What does feminism make you think of?
Burning bras? Extremism? Hairy armpits? A jaded and unattractive woman in a pant suit? A beautiful women in a sundress?
For the past century, the male-run mainstream media has tried to make the association lie with the first four, but not the fifth.
Now, what does feminism mean?
A movement to help women be seen, treated and respected as equal in value and capability to men, and to have the same opportunities. Yup – it’s that simple.
More specifically, feminists want women to get equal pay for equal work, and to be seen as candidates for jobs like CTO, CEO, Chairman Chairperson, Senator, President… To let women into the same private clubs where deals are made and promotions are decided on. To get to the point where what a women has to say matters more than how she looks.
What does a feminist really look like?
Me, my husband, and all of my friends–simply because I wouldn’t be friends with someone who thinks women are second class citizens and deserve less respect than a man. Women and men in all industries, who dress well and shave their pits–or don’t! To each their own!
Why is feminism still important?
It wasn’t that long ago that women weren’t allowed to vote. Women were handed off from their patriarchal parent’s house to their husband’s house — ordered around by one man or another, never allowed to make their own choices.
Men didn’t let them into the best schools or clubs, or give women good jobs, or let women take credit for their inventions because they didn’t want women to feel an ounce of freedom. And if one man thought differently, he was quickly bullied into getting back in the patriarchal line.
Women have been living in a society strategically designed by men to give women as few options and as little independence as possible. In a nutshell, it’s been this way for centuries so that men can have the freedom to behave badly and their wives won’t feel like they can leave them. So that men can have complete control over women.
Men (not every man, but on the whole) wanted women to feel desperate and rely on them. So they perpetuated the falsehood that women aren’t competent enough to have higher-up positions, or that it simply wasn’t their ‘place’. (You’ve heard ‘a woman’s place is in the kitchen’, I assume? Shaming mother’s who choose to work is the current way of saying this.)
Lest you think that this is some sort of natural world order, know that girls have the same aspirations as boys until a certain age where they start internalizing the messed-up messages from Disney films and their sexist Barbie toys. The media continually sends messaging that women should be cheery, docile, simple and sexy (but not slutty!), and then have babies and stay at home. That your value as a woman lies in how pretty and carefree of a toy for men you can twist yourself into.
Women are continually objectified and told that their beauty is all they have, pitted against each other in competition for men. This is by design, to keep women from having strength in numbers. Women are taught that they’re ‘past their prime’ at age 30, so that they’ll believe that no other man will want them (giving the power to their husband), and so they’ll be jealous and hateful of younger women….
It’s so ingrained in our subconscious that many women don’t want to believe they’ve been duped and that they could’ve dreamed bigger. Hence, the ‘I don’t need feminism’ movement.
Did you know that only 6.6% of Fortune 500 companies have female CEO’s? Yes, in the year 2020. Still.
This is slowly changing, but we’re still far from at equality — and we seriously risk slipping backwards if we keep electing openly sexist men like Trump, who actively reinforce gender stereotypes, focus on women’s looks while discounting what they have to say, and chip away at women’s rights.
How did we get this distorted idea of what a feminist is?
Put simply: the word feminism has been dirtied by the media. Media and advertising have traditionally –and continue to be– industries run by men. It’s a fact that when the male-dominated media is threatened by a movement or shift in culture, they find many ways to subtly (or not-so-subtly) demonize the movement and the people involved.
It’s a fact that the media is the most thought-altering force in humans lives.
I mean, God forbid women take over and stop perpetuating unhealthy beauty ideals, thereby threatening mainstream women’s magazine’s very business model (beauty and fashion advertisers rely on magazines and their ads to make women feel insecure and competitive with other women — it drives sales).
Or what if women started demanding justice for the rampant sexual abuse these men dole out? Or the men started getting called out when ‘mansplaining’ and belittling women to make themselves feel powerful? Or men started having women as their bosses? That would be so hard on their egos! And what would happen to the ‘freedom’ that these old white men enjoy?? #SorryNotSorry #MeToo
Their answer: systematically suppress ‘feminism’ by making it seem like an un-feminine, man-hating, ugly fringe movement.
What can we do?
We can fight back by making it cool to be a feminist. Wear t-shirts stating that you’re a feminist, and post it on social media. Talk about it. Educate others.
Get the men in your life to agree to call out men who are sexist. Get them to find ways to support women. Watch films directed by women. Watch talk shows hosted by women (I never miss Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, or The Rachel Maddow Show).
Speak out when you notice a man being sexist. Demand justice if you were sexually abused — and don’t stop until you get an audience.
Participate in women’s rights marches — or organize them!
Stop being jealous of other women. Stop tearing other women down, and instead find ways to lift them up. Life is not a zero-sum game.
Because only if we work together, can we move onward and upward.
Feminism means educating both men and women about the proper treatment and respect of each other.
It also means allowing women to be individuals and to follow their goals, no matter what they may be. Why do some people only teach their sons that they can be the next president or star player on a sports team? Teach your girls to be what they want to be, not what others think they should be.
I’m not satisfied with just “equality”. There’s a lot of meaning behind being a feminist. Although empowerment and personal beliefs should come from life experiences and education and not just influences from someone else’s actions. We should always be striving for gender equality as well as empowering women, regardless of belief because that’s what being humane is.
If I had a pound for every person I’ve met who has admitted to being a feminist, I would have enough money for a Greggs steak bake to suppress my hot egalitarian tears.
Feminism is having the option to be a boss lady running the show, but it doesn’t mean that women should feel uncomfortable about opting to be a stay-at-home mum, for example, or a housewife if that’s what suits you best. The key driver behind your decision making should be what you want, rather than what society tells you what to want as a woman. Even news headlines regularly sexualize women, including irrelevant information about females’ outfits or bodies that have no pertinence to the news story that they are involved in. From an early age onwards, girls are pressured to conform to unrealistic beauty standards and are taught to associate their sense of self-worth with their appearance. When men or boys objectify or make suggestive comments about their female peers, we laugh it off as typical male behavior, never mind the discomfort it may cause. There are more situations like this! This is why we need feminism. We don’t need others pulling us down because of certain choices or unwanted situations.
A lot of people, both inside and outside the church don’t believe that Christianity and feminism are compatible. Sadly, the anti-feminist wing of Christianity is often the loudest and gets all the attention, even though Jesus stood for equality and against oppression. It’s so important to me that feminists have a voice in the church and that Christians have a voice in the feminist movement. Feminists have a lot of work to do challenging misogyny and patriarchal structures in Christianity, while the wider feminist movement benefits from the input of women of faith.
It’s my black and LGBT friends all getting jobs in, and freely moving around public spaces in which they would previously be shunned. Feminism in 2017, for me, is about micro-aggressions. I’m lucky to have it that way, but the way things are now isn’t enough.
Feminism can be good or bad, depending on who is using the label, and for what purpose. My feeling is that putting a label on anything to do with equality suggests some inequality.
A real feminist woman does not have a grudge against the opposite sex but knows how to take care of herself with or without someone by her side.
To me, a privately educated white woman from the South East of England, I don’t worry about not being able to drive, or being able to vote. But feminism to me is being able to be a CEO if I wanted to, and not having to tackle extra hurdles to get there. It’s being able to wear what I want and, if the worst happens, a judge not using my clothing against me. It’s being able to go out on my own without having my car key in my fist and my phone in my pocket, with my hand, hovered over 999.
Feminism as a word has ugly associations. Feminists are fond of saying that if you want an equal society for women and men then you are in fact a feminist. The problem is, women simply don’t agree. The question then becomes unavoidable: What do women think feminism actually is? Feminists would like us to believe that feminism = equality. They’d also like us to believe that “equality” means equality of outcomes, not equal human rights and equality before the law, as our parents and grandparents understood it.
It’s a good word gone bad.