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A Response to ‘Women Against Feminism.’

Imagine this:

The year is 2014. You are a white Western woman. You wake up in the morning in a comfortably sized house or flat. You have a full or part-time job that enables you to pay your rent or mortgage. You have been to school and maybe even college or university as well. You can read and write and count. You own a car or have a driver’s licence. You have enough money in your own bank account to feed and clothe yourself. You have access to the Internet. You can vote. You have a boyfriend or girlfriend of your choosing, who you can also marry if you want to, and raise a family with. You walk down the street wearing whatever you feel like wearing. You can go to bars and clubs and sleep with whomever you want.

Your world is full of freedom and possibility.

Then you pick up a newspaper or go online. You read about angry women ranting about sexism and inequality. You see phrases like ‘rape-culture’ and ‘slut-shaming.’ You furrow your brow and think to yourself: ‘What are they so angry about? There is no such thing as sexism anymore.’

Now imagine this:

The year is 2013. You are a 25 year-old Pakistani woman. A few months ago, you married the man you love. A man you choose for yourself. You are also pregnant with his child. You see your life stretching out before you, filled with hope and happiness. Suddenly, you and your husband are dragged away from each other. You are both beaten with bricks and batons. You can’t fight back. You can’t escape. No one comes to help you. Through your fading vision, you look up, and look into the eyes of one of your assailants: into the eyes of your father.

The year is 2013. You are a 23 year-old Indian woman. You are a physiotherapy student with a promising career ahead of you. You are sitting on a private bus travelling home alone on a warm December evening. You gaze out of the window as the buildings of New Dheli rush past you and feel content. Suddenly, a blunt force hits the back of your head and you fall to the floor of the bus. A group of strange men are standing over you. They bring the metal bar down on you again and again and again until all you can taste is the blood filling up your mouth. You pray that you will die soon. And you do, but not then. You are raped, beaten, and tortured over and over again. Death is slow and agonising.

The year is 2014. You are a 13 year-old girl from Niger. You no longer live there though. You are now living in the neighbouring country Nigeria, sitting alone in small room on a small bed in a small apartment high above the city of Kano. You are not allowed to leave. Your stomach is swollen from the unwanted life growing inside of it. You had no choice. The father is a man in his 40s. He is a businessman. He has bought you as his wife. You were a penniless, uneducated girl when he came for you. You don’t know of any life you could have had. Neither did your family: just one less mouth for them to feed. You still have the body of a child, and it’s straining under the pressure from the one inside of you. You feel like you’re about to be split in two. You don’t wonder if you will survive the birth. A part of you doesn’t want to.

These are fictionalised accounts of real events that have happened to real women living in our world today. They follow the past 250 years of women and men campaigning for women to be given equal rights to men to prevent these kinds of injustices and abuses on the grounds of gender taking place. Over the course of this time, campaigners – Feminists, both female and male – have been locked up, beaten, tortured, and even killed, in the pursuit of equality. They did this with pen and ink and print; they did this with their voices; they did this with their bodies; they did this with art and music; they did in courts of law and halls and houses of government that they fought be to allowed into.

They did this so that women would no longer been seen as property, livestock, breeding machines, sex objects, punching bags, or infantile morons. They did this not just for themselves, but also for their daughters, and their daughters, and their daughters for generations to come. They did this for women they would never meet – women who lived across countries, across vast oceans, across the entire globe, and even across time.

They did this so that women like me – a white Western woman – could attend school and university; to learn to read, write, and think critically; to gain a degree; to get a job and be paid an equal salary to a man in the same position; and to sit here with my own computer and type all of this.

Feminism is a movement for freedom, equality, choice, love, compassion, respect, solidarity, and education. We may argue, we may disagree, we may struggle to understand the choices and perspectives of others sometimes, but these core beliefs of the movement have never changed, and they never will.

That is why I am a Feminist.

If you feel that you have so far lived your life unaffected by even the mildest form of sexism – anything from feeling uncomfortable when a man catcalls you in the street, to feeling scared walking home alone at night in a secluded area – and are treated with love and respect by every man in your life, then to you I say: I’m glad for you. If you don’t think you need feminism, then that is a victory for the movement. You have fulfilled all those dreams that every suffragette being force-fed in prison and every ‘witch’ burnt at the stake dreamed you would one day.

But perhaps take a second to consider the life of the Pakistani woman who was beaten to death by her own family for marrying a man of her choosing. Or the life of the Indian woman who was raped, beaten, and murdered on a bus by a gang of men. Or the life of the little girl in Niger who was sold to a man more than twice her own age and forced to carry a baby that may kill her to deliver. Do they still need feminism?

And perhaps take a second to consider this too: Even in our liberal, Western world, why do women still only fill 24% of senior management jobs? Why are more women than men domestically abused or even killed every week at the hands of their male partner or ex-partner? Why is there still a pay gap (in the UK specifically) of 15% for women doing the same jobs and working the same hours as men?

And what about on a cultural level? Have you ever noticed how comedy panel shows usually only have one female panellist compared to 4-5 male ones? That almost every dieting product on the market is solely aimed at women? How a lot of newspapers and advertising campaigns will use a sexualised or pornographic image of a woman to sell news or products that have nothing to do with sex?

Or perhaps on a personal level: Do you choose to wear certain clothes because you want to or because you feel ‘unfeminine’ if you don’t? Do you choose to cover yourself up because you want to or because you feel ashamed or intimidated by a man looking at your body? Do you shave your legs and underarm hair because you want to or because you will look ‘ugly’ if you don’t? Did you parents dress you in pink as a baby because they liked the colour or because you were born a girl? Do you want to have children because you want to or because you are a woman?

When you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, do you see yourself through your own eyes, or through the eyes of the men that will look at you when you walk out the door?

The fact is, like it or not, you still live a world where gender matters. Where gender controls not just the entire course of your life – but the lives of women all over the world. Every second, a child will be born female in a country where she will persecuted for this random biological occurrence for the rest of her life. So before you hold up your anti-Feminist placard proudly and smile at your own sense of empowerment, think not what Feminism can do for you, but what it can do for that one girl. She needs someone to stand up for her. That someone could be you.

UPDATE: Click here to read my follow up to this article: ‘Equalism: The Feminist Alternative?’

This is a response to ‘Women Against Feminism’ groups on Tumblr and Facebook.

The stories of the women mentioned in this post were sourced from these sites:

http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2014/05/29/pakistani-woman-stoned-to-death-for-marrying-a-man-of-her-own-choosing/

http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2013/01/02/indias-tipping-point-death-of-rape-victim-sparks-global-outrage/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27619295

Other facts and statistics were sourced from here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/international-womens-day-2014-the-shocking-statistics-that-show-why-it-is-still-so-important-9177211.html

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  1. Obi

    I am a man and have many wonderful and very dear females in my life. My wonderful wife, my ever loving mother, my sister, and a girl of 6 who is my absolute sunshine and many more. That’s a big part of why I’d call myself a feminist. But the biggest part is common sense. Equality just equals sense.

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  2. Blueneely

    Very well written piece. You had some great points. I just thought I would give my opinion 🙂
    Comparing East to the West is like comparing apples and oranges. As a woman from a third world country and also one who now lives in a western country and one who has been through abuse, I can say that there are no options for women in third world countries.

    For instance, my father was a very abusive man. My mother didn’t speak the language here but when she realized that she has the option to receive financial help and does not need to rely on my father for shelter, food etc. she packed up with all five of her children and moved to a women’s shelter where she received the help she needed.

    Now if she were living in a third world country, with both of her parents gone and her brother living abroad she would not have had any options to leave her husband no matter how abusive he may have been simply because there is no such thing as a safe house for women or aid for women being abused.

    There is so much corruption and poverty that no one has the drive nor the means to instate those types of structures. There is no welfare state. It is literally everyone looking out for themselves.

    There are however, plenty of women that live as they please. Maybe even better than what they would have in the West. They speak freely, they marry freely, they live freely… Those are the women of wealth. If you come from a wealthy family with powerful connections then you have nothing to fear, even as a woman.

    But if you are not rich or highly connected then whether you are a man or a woman you are not protected. The legal system is corrupt and slow. The welfare state does not exist. The government does not protect its people. And of course, as everywhere else in the world women are at the very bottom of the totem pole.

    Women are not safe at work, not safe on buses, not safe in schools not even safe in their own homes. Majority of the population’s main worry is where and whether there will be a next meal. When there is a choice of protecting your daughter/sister etc. by keeping them at home as opposed to having them work or be in school then people will chose to protect and if that means keeping them tucked inside the house then that’s what they have to do.

    I know of many personal stories one which involved an acid attack. The girl used to walk to school with her sister when a boy started harassing her. She did not respond as that would bring shame to her family or worse she could be abducted/raped/killed. The boy decided to throw acid in her face. Now she is deformed for life. The parents pulled their second daughter out of school because they were afraid of something like that happening to her. The repercussions for the boy? not much… Got a slap on the wrist and went about his business.

    There is no way to help women in countries with lack of government or enforcement of laws and protection and that is what the West needs to recognize. Until people’s bellies are full and there is some sense of security, there are not going to be any major strides towards women’s movements in third world countries.

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  3. REBLOG: A response to IWANTEDWINGS: why feminism isn’t enough. | Rackie Writes

    […] with the original “A Response To Women Against Feminism” post, I agree with certain salient points that A Day in the Life of Ana is makes here. […]

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  4. star wulfiam

    I want those things for ALL people, not just women.

    That’s why I am a HUMANIST.

    “Feminism is a movement for freedom, equality, choice, love, compassion, respect, solidarity, and education. We may argue, we may disagree, we may struggle to understand the choices and perspectives of others sometimes, but these core beliefs of the movement have never changed, and they never will.

    That is why I am a Feminist.”

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    1. Manny Alvarez-Jacinto

      You make it seem like these two words are mutually exclusive. The thing is that feminism wants those things for ALL people, not just women. Humanism and feminism are, essentially, that same in principle, except humanism ignores the reality of gender power relations.

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      1. Manny Alvarez-Jacinto

        *the same in principle

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  5. RedJezka

    MONICA, that is simply not true. There are many feminist organizations that focus on bringing education, occupational, contraception, medical supplies to women in the third world as well as items for infants and children. Maybe you should investigate before you make such claims.

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    1. RedJezka

      Correction, *occupational training*

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  6. Sara Isayama

    This article shows that the author has not even made the slightest attempt to see what the WomenAgainstFeminism group/movement is saying.

    They are, essentially a feminist group. They fully support women’s rights, equality between the sexes, they very much agree that traditional feminism is very much needed in developing countries.

    What they ARE criticizing, is “feminist culture”. They are not criticizing supporting women’s rights or gender equality itself.

    They are against the kind of “feminist culture” that has developed in the west along with the kinds of “cultural norms and expectations” that go along with said culture.

    They do not agree that they need to be a part of a “feminist sisterhood”, or that they need to identify with a “feminist” brand image, in order to be for women’s rights.

    They may disagree with many famous feminists, or with aspects of “feminist theory”.

    And, most importantly, they don’t agree with the completely juvenile and inappropriate way that many who identify as feminists handle or accept criticism.

    They don’t agree that it’s okay to refer to someone who disagrees with you as “ignorant, uneducated, stupid, idiots, uninformed, just need to read a dictionary, just need to know feminist history, etc, etc.”

    They don’t believe that shaming, guilt-tripping, insulting behavior, psychological manipulation, Machiavellian behavior, queen-bee clique behavior, devaluing others, and so on are acceptable behavior for adults.

    They also don’t agree with many actions of mainstream feminist organizations such as NOW.

    And, they don’t agree that it’s okay for the feminist movement to criticize others, while not being okay to be criticized itself. They view that as hypocritical.

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    1. Michelle

      Thank you thank you thank you. This needed to be said. I get so tired of people lying about WAF.

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    2. Malaika

      Okay so these women we’re talking about here all agree that women should have equal rights to men. Yes? That is feminism. Calling themselves ‘women against feminism’ isn’t the best idea for something that is ‘essentially a feminist group’. In fact, that could easily be called hypocritical.
      Yes, obviously every individual has different opinions and there will always be people who disagree. But by creating an antifeminsm group these women have just further contributed to the social idea that feminists (ALL feminists) are crazy and shouldn’t be listened to which obviously isn’t the case. A person doesn’t need to disagree with ‘some aspects of “feminist theory”‘ to be an antifeminist for god’s sake! That’s like saying a person with a nut allergy shouldn’t eat any food at all.
      IS the feminist movement not okay with being criticized? That may be a colossal overgeneralisation.
      Lastly, why the hell DON’T women want to unite and identify with this ‘feminist sisterhood’ if the sisterhood is doing a good thing? Do these individuals hope to achieve more for women’s rights on their own? Do they think that by dissociating themselves with women who are trying to fight for equality in patriarchal society they as an individual on their own will somehow be able to make it all better?

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    3. Sam

      I think they may want to try a different approach because from what you’re saying, it sounds like these women are feminists. So they should be “Feminists against harmful stereotypes” or “Feminists against male prejudice in feminism,” or something along those lines. Instead of rejecting feminism because of the extremists, why not create a movement of “modern-feminism” in which we redefine what it means to be a feminist and what it means to support equal opportunities for women while also supporting men who are affected by gender-related issues? I just worry that if too many woman say they are anti-feminist, not everyone will understand their deeper and less obvious message of equality for all, causing us to progress backwards. It’s really only a matter of word-choice, but the words we use in searching for equality are incredibly important, and anti-feminism has such a negative connotation and invites perhaps the opposite of it’s goals.

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  7. Mati Caplansky

    La argumentación es muy justa.
    Las mujeres q atacan al Feminismo y q gozan de los logros obtenidos gracias a la lucha perseverante, cruel y dura de decenas de años son ..como llamarlas.? inconsecuentes? Envidiosas? Tontas? Sometidas?
    O es q no,pueden ver las injusticias claras y evidentes a través de la historia de la humanidad…

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  8. Sonja

    Great article. However, I disagree that dressing your baby in pink clothes because she is a girl is something we need to fight against. Are we trying to fight for equality, or get rid of gender norms altogether? When it comes to arguing against small-scale physical expectations for both men and women, like shaving certain areas of the body, we are leaving the realm of human rights and feminism, it seems to me, and going toward something completely different, the complete removal of gender signs. The most important thing to me about this point I’m making is that I feel that girl and boys are equally criticized in BOTH directions, for instance, being too girly/”feminine” can be just as much of a curse in American middle schools as being not feminine enough. Boys get teased and rejected equally as much in that scenario in the United States. You should be careful to make your point clear, if it is that females get more grief for this type of things than males, but it isn’t fair to target women who shave their legs and assume that they do it because they are brainwashed into thinking that is feminine. What does “brainwashed” mean here? They have that right as well; people do a lot of things because that is the accepted aesthetic – are we going to say: “do you wear blue jeans because that’s what others think is cool? DON’T.” Being affected by society’s trends and aesthetics, for both males and females, will never change. I think we need to choose our battles, because even if gender norms are socially abolished, every aesthetic will still, at some point, be criticized by someone. For all of history, humans have been judged on how they look, sometimes having to do with gender, and many times not. I think that it is a similar argument to the idea that races should not just be treated equally, but that race should eventually go completely unnoticed and unaddressed in all situations. How about culture? Heritage? Ancestry? Community? Sometimes, these things are heavily associated with race and I do not think we should stop seeing and talking about race altogether, but just give each person of any race equal rights. We will never achieve a world in which people are blind to the way people look, or blind to gender, and I’m not sure we want to. There is a difference between sexualization and femininity – these are two separate realms which should not be addressed as part of the same issue. One has to do with rights, and the other has to do with breaking down norms. If we so choose, we should be able to stand up for one and not the other within the feminist movement.

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  9. Kali Justice

    It would be a simple world if we humans could forget we are made up of 2 sexes. Unfortunately, this will never be forgotten by those who benefit from remembering. To suggest we are at a place where we can ignore the issues of women is naive and to suggest feminism is only about women is a sad statement which shows (western) society has not progressed as far as it claims.

    There is no ‘one way’ in feminism, however, if you believe women have rights, choices and freedoms and if you believe in equality between the sexes, that one’s sex should not seal one’s future from birth and that the misogyny is still rampant, however well hidden, then this is feminism. You may choose to call it ‘equality’, ‘Humanism’, or ‘common sense’ but it is Feminism nonetheless and the visceral reactions this title creates is as concerning as the issues it highlights.

    However, Feminism does not mean removal of women’s rights to choose motherhood over career for example – the key word is ‘choice’ and for many women, this is something they do not have in any aspect of their lives! We do not live in a ‘post-feminist’ word, more’s the pity, we live in a world where social media has played a role in making many young women feel like victims, whilst others believe feminism is being naked in a pop video or sending suggestive texts to older men. Where the term ‘feminist’ has been bastardised by those who profit from women being viewed as unimportant. Women are still suffering from genital mutilation, forced marriage and marital slavery. Girls are being shot by the Taliban for wanting an education. Feminism is important and the more people fight against the need for a means for women to express their specific issues, the clearer it becomes that it is an essential tool by which to voice the injustices and abuses women experience every day.

    To suggest, even for a second, that Feminism is ‘us vs them’ does men a huge disservice, invalidating the courageous and dedicated men who actively supported the Suffragette movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Frederick Pethick-Lawrence is a good example.. I am very lucky to be married to a feminist man, whose support and perspective are invaluable in the full understanding of equality and strength as supporters of one another.

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  10. Boris Vecker

    “Women in third world countries are discriminated against, therefore white privileged women in the US should be 50% of CEOs.” Seems legit.

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  11. iceturtlegirl

    Reblogged this on The Life & Times of Ice.

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  12. Arnold Jackson

    Religion and State define this debate. Change will be impossible for a large proportion of women until these institutions become more humane throughout our little planet.

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  13. Jessica

    Awesome article. It amuses me how many use Jesus and God as a source of argument. If I tell them the Spaghetti Monster says otherwise, does my argument hold equal validity? You bet it does, lol! Neither is a source of fact or reason.

    For those anti-feminists who object to feminism due to certain interpretations of feminism…well, what the heck do they think they will accomplish by further damaging the term?

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  14. Joanna Traugh

    I call myself a feminist, and sometimes, a militant feminist. I’m old enough to have been through the “go along to get along” era where women knew their place and knew better than to attempt to change it. I was fired from my first job after two weeks because the boss’s wife was office manager and her husband was coming on to me. I never was paid the same as men doing exactly the same work because “They had families to support”. There were many other indignities that women learned to tolerate but never accept.
    What causes me to get on my feminist soapbox now is trying to talk to younger women who have no concept of what it was like for women and how hard it was to
    change it and have no interest in the political “War on Women” taking place now.
    They state quite frankly that they don’t have time to be “bothered” with politics; that nothing is going to happen to take away any woman’s rights so don’t worry about it; that they don’t want to get a bunch of emails that getting involved would generate; why should they have to pay for some other women’s contraceptives; if you don’t believe in abortion, don’t have one, etc.
    Feminism is more than reproductive issues; it’s more than money issues; it’s more than power issues–it’s a basic respect and fairness and even common sense that
    enables us to live in harmony and hope where the stranger is no longer the danger
    but simply another human like ourselves.

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  15. Rebecca Meyer

    What a powerfully written post. I think that these feminist issues are so important today because even though it’s 2014, there are violent acts against women happening around the world, every day.

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  16. Sanj Hammid

    http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/20-30-of-fifty-shades-of-grey-readers-are-men_b61597
    quick note (you are an idiot)

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  17. Rachel M

    Way too many comments for me to read them all but just want to say great article!

    I like what British feminist Caitlan Moran says to women who object to feminism:

    What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay?

    Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/939363.Caitlin_Moran

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  18. Mama Mandela

    Reblogged this on To Mandela with Love and commented:
    Sometimes all the things I want to say have already been so eloquently written…

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  19. darcil

    Reblogged this on darcil beyond abroad and commented:
    Even the little things. In Thailand, most schools require uniforms, meaning girls in skirts and boys in pants. My katoey students, who identify as female, are still required to male uniforms, regardless of preference. Though I, myself, am not really that much of a skirt person, working for a government office as I do, I am also required to wear skirts. I have to be extremely careful about my neckline and my skirt length. And it’s not that THAILAND is all that conservative in dress, go clothes shopping in Thailand and you’ll find all sorts of what might be considered club-wear in other places. Women who are educated and hold high job positions are often considered unfeminine and remain unmarried. Women who marry young often remain uneducated. Men regularly cheat on their wives – not because they have a consensual open relationship, but because it affirms the male’s power and masculinity. Several times since I’ve been here, I’ve read of women snapping and castrating their male partners. (The joke goes that this is why Thai doctors as seen as good place for gender reconstruction surgery; they’ve gotten good at putting back on penises). Pushed to the brink. In the first 4 months here, I listened to a girl have an absolute fit, and many people, instead of helping her – she so obviously needed help – seemed disgusted. Males left her to other females. She was a university student, not some recent mental hospital escapee. The same thing happened to my building manager’s daughter-in-law whose husband left her while she was pregnant. She had nothing except her mother-in-law, who was her boss, and what kind of safety is that for an abandoned-mother-to-be? The diet/beauty marketing here? Holy hell. I’ve never seen the like of body shaming anywhere that I encounter here. Some of the before/after shots for weight loss/hair growth/skin whitening/etc are SO TERRIBLY PHOTOSHOPPED, and yet they work. You shame them over and over and over, and it works.
    I’ve found this to be an extremely interesting country. Machismo is such a strong force here. So many women are treated like shit. So many women accept that being treated like shit is just how things go. But then I meet groups of women who are tough as nails. There are feminists here, and they fight as well.

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  20. Dannielle Stewart

    Reblogged this on Steinbeck Novels & Hot Chocolate .

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  21. Aphrodite Priestess

    Reblogged this on Aphrodite Rises and commented:
    Yes. So much yes.

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  22. tom

    Being a minority who was discriminated against all my life, I’ve also noted that when a particular group calls for equality, they just want extra privileges. They hide behind the mask of equality.

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  23. Michelle

    Please tell me why I should belong to a movement where people have said “I need feminism because I want to be a professional video gamer.” Feminists have told me thr hope I get raped and I deserve to get raped. I already have been. Twice. I do not hate men, but I believe in equality across the board. Not feminism. No one should get any kind of special treament. Period. Also, you have COMPLETELY ignored the fact that plenty of men are DV and SA victims and THOSE men-they have less acceptance, understanding, and support than any woman in their situation ever could. I’m a victim’s advocate, trust me I know these things. I am completely against the way Westerners view feminism. Stop complaining about a pay gap when we have it MUCH better than tens of millions of other women. Focus on thaf part of the world. Think of how many femle pre-k and elementary ed teachers you see. More than men. You also COMPLETELY misrepresented the point of WAF which I am unsurprised with and that disappoints me because once again people twist the truth and leave parts out to suit their own purpose. Western “feminism” is not feminism. As long as your members talk to other women the way they do, you can count many of us and count on many more to believe you are childish and not worth the time to pay attention to. We have so many problems with our own country, yet we feel the need to gallivant around saving others and then we wonder why the country is falling apart. Not hard to figure out.

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  24. Caroline Lafargue

    Thank you so much for this article. It rings a bell deep inside, and it rings true.

    I took the liberty of translating it to French and reblogging it on our feminist/parenting blog, so it could reach even more people, as the message it sends is so in tune with my own thoughts and our blog’s perspective.
    I also took the liberty of translating Mia’s comment, as I think it will perfectily relate to young women who don’t quite realize how many dayly little fights they have to face.
    A big big THANK YOU, really.
    B.

    Our French translation is available here : http://vmleblog.canalblog.com/archives/2014/07/30/30333624.html#comments

    EDIT : As you can see it has been shared quite a lot, proof of how much your words echo in people (both men AND women), whatever their country.

    Here’s one of the comments we had, as it is addressed to you, I wanted to share it with you :

    Merci pour cette lettre ouverte. Vous avez su si bien dire ce que je pensais si fort !!
    Née en 1957, j’ai profité une fois devenue femme des nombreux acquis obtenus de longue lutte par toutes les femmes de la génération précédente et je leur en serai toujours reconnaissante.
    Je suis souvent choquée des commentaires des jeunes femmes actuelles concernant le féminisme et il n’est pas toujours facile de trouver les mots pour leur faire comprendre combien ce mouvement est encore important de nos jours. Car rien n’est totalement acquis et il reste tant à faire !!!
    Alors merci encore d’exister. Vous me mettez du baume au cœur.
    Caroline.

    Thank you for this letter. You have found just the right words to say what I thought so loud ! Born in 1957, I enjoyed all the rights that women from the past generation had fought so hard to have, and I’ll forever be in their debt. I am often shocked by the comments young women make about feminism and it is not always easy to find the right words to help them grasp how much feminism is essential nowadays. Because nothing is set in stone and so much remains to obtain !
    So thank you once again for this letter. You have soothed my heart.
    Caroline.

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    1. iwantedwings

      Thank you for sharing the comment! And for the translation of my article. 🙂

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  25. Machelle Dobbs

    Jesus our Lord was was the one to treat women as equals with men in all Western countries where Christianity was the foundation for educating women.

    Feminism makes me feel undervalued if i want to be the best mother i can.

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  26. Lisa Kendrick

    I think you did a great and courteous job explaining feminism. I only scanned some of the comments against your post and, after your calm tone, many of them seem angry, ignorant, and in complete denial. The fact of the matter is that EVERY female in the world who wants to get up in the morning and choose her clothes, choose her lovers, receive equal pay for equal work, and plan the route her life will take IS A FEMINIST. This splintering among the ranks of women does nothing but weaken our rights. Who cares if some women want a ‘feminist culture’? Who cares if some women are aggressive in regard to their rights? Denying the existence of a women’s rights movement and stereotyping women from both sides of the coin does us all a disservice. There will always be women on one side who want to celebrate feminism and their independence and there will always be women on the other side who just want to be traditional moms. We all want to be able to make a choice. In America, women’s rights are in TRUE jeopardy. If we can’t even guarantee women’s rights in a ‘democracy’, how can change be orchestrated elsewhere? The conservative right in America does a happy jig every time another group of women splinters from the women’s rights movement because they know that divided we can be conquered. Am I angry? You better believe that I am motherfucking angry. I live in a rape culture and over the last couple of years I have watched my rights dwindle state by state and a sadistic right wing agenda to strengthen a religious patriarchy become shockingly clear. It isn’t just about me. I can take care of myself and leave the country of my birth when the pitchforks and torches come out, but I have daughters. It is for all of our daughters that we have to stop arguing semantics and stand together.

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  27. CourtneyW

    Some good points made. However, in western society, as I can only speak as a dweller in western society. I don’t always think that men are our only threat or problem. We, women that is, turn on each other so easily. The intrinsic ‘bitch’ is our biggest foe. Feminism is good, but how do we stop ourselves from turning on each other?
    I also think that women don’t take as many high profile positions compared to men as there are a significant percentage of women who feel being a mum is more important than having a high profile job. This will always be the case and women shouldn’t feel less than men for wanting that nor should women put women down for choosing it either. Choosing motherhood is part of what feminism is all about. It is a blessing and seperates us in a positive way from men.

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  28. Richard T.

    The militant ‘anti-men’ unfortunately hijacked the word ‘feminism’, and one should come to terms with the fact that the word really gained a stigma of a female sexist ‘macho’, who hold a grudge against all males.

    Should one decide to stick to the term, one will be unavoidably mixed with the above mentioned kind. And I’m not sure that this particular fight is worth fighting – unless, of course, you really are among the unpleasant ones and subscribe to the philosophy of sexism.

    Many words changed their meaning with time. The word ‘awful’ used to mean ‘full of awe’, but if you call yourself today ‘awful’ – you’ll be frowned upon.

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  29. Yvonne

    Yes I identify myself as a feminist and proud of it…and I thank all those women and men over the 100 or so years who fought to achieve what we now take for granted..so to all those women who are against feminism…think about who paved the way for you to enjoy your current place in society…all those women who fought for the right of women to vote, to study, to equal pay, to safe contraception etc….Be grateful and research history to better understand why we needed and still need feminism..

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  30. Olivia La Bianca

    I do not identify as a feminist or as a WAF, but I think that implying anyone but feminists are okay with this kind of slavery, rape, racism, and murder is WRONG. These are real issues, not touching anecdotes feminists can use to segues into complaints about how few female comedians there are or why shaving your legs is a form of subconscious patriarchal dominance. If you are self conscious about your gender, at least have the lady-balls to come right out and say it. Don’t hide behind the death and torture of other women. And for heaven’s sake, don’t play the race card just to get points. That’s what politicians do.

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  31. Ilias Bartolini

    I really liked this article, actually one of the best short and sharp messages I read on “why we still femminism”.
    I’m glad you worte and published this and that I can share it with my friends.

    The stories from the global South are framed in a very good to catch the attention and empazise with those women but I would recommend to balance the point of view on those realities.
    Yes, we need to support and help the realities more in need first. But we neet to avoid the Western white saviour industrial complex.
    Yes, this more unjust events happen more frequently in those countries. But in the global North we are not free from these forms of extreme injustice.
    Especially when we cross cultural distances we need to listen and support first the people that who already are fighting for the same values in those distant realities.

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  32. lylaalsayyid

    While I agree with this article in many aspects, and the parts about sex objects, property and and not giving women freedom of the right to choose whatever the want is true. I just want to say that the Western standard should not be seen as the ideal. Because many women would love to have freedom within their own beautiful and diverse cultures. What we value in the West as a woman and what a woman in the East wants and values for herself could be two very different things

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  33. FuckingTired

    I’d take the feminazis more seriously if they went to India and Pakistan and took a stand there instead of screeching like fucking banshees whenever someone holds a door open for someone. Seriously, it’s goddamn embarrassing to see them wail and moan about things that are impossibly small here in the states when other countries have it far worse than having to worry about the man opening the door.

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  34. Pat Cullum

    Well done Sarah – Dad

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  35. Meilin

    Calling the examples of violence against women “crimes against humanity,” while true, ignores the fact that these acts are not simply acts of aggression. There are sexist ideologies and misogyny driving these acts, too. That’s why they happen to women and not to men (and men are subject to certain kinds of aggression that women are not). Feminism is concerned with the same goals as “humanism,” as people here are calling it, but also pays attention to the way that violence and inequality are gender-specific, for both men and women.

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  36. Meilin

    Also, some of the comments here seem unaware that feminism is not a white women’s movement anymore in the U.S. Even if you think that feminism is irrelevant to the lives of relatively privileged Western white women, there are plenty of non-privileged, non-white women in the West for whom the freedom and possibilities of feminism are still missing.

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  37. insanitybytes22

    It’s a bit ironic, “feminism” didn’t give women the freedom and security we now enjoy in the Western world, patriarchy and Christian values did. So what do modern Western feminists do these days? Bash patriarchy and Christian values!

    Western fems aren’t fighting for the rights of Pakistani women, they’re fighting for employer mandated coverage of whatever forms of birth control they choose. They’re fighting to ban the word bossy. They’re out having slutwalks. they’re mocking and ridiculing other women, women who choose to be wives and mothers, conservative women, Christian women, women who hold signs claiming not to be feminists. That is the work of modern day Western feminism.

    Long ago when the women in Afganistan were writing to President Clinton, begging for some help because they were being forced into burkas, thrown out of schools, and losing their right to drive, I thought feminism was about equal rights for women. Again when the women of Rwanda started acting like canaries in the coal mine and warning of the powder keg they were sitting on, I thought feminism was about equal rights for women. The truth is, the Western world practices a kind of first world feminism and it’s something so unrelated to equal rights for women, it’s gotten embarrassing.

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  38. tab

    I for one thought the article was beautiful girl, and it takes bravery to bring up the feminist cause.

    The bottom line is, the feminist movement needed to happen for any female to be voicing her opinion, and that needs to be respected. The fight is not over and if you can’t respect the women who have fought for you and you don’t “need” feminism, then don’t claim the rights it got you.

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  39. Alex H

    I’m going to answer some of the questions that were asked at the end of the article even if they were meant to be rhetorical.

    “Even in our liberal, Western world, why do women still only fill 24% of senior management jobs?”
    To answer that you need to look at the data for the ratio of male:female applicants to jobs that have the possibility to lead into senior management later in the career, and even if you had that data and it showed a ratio of 1:1, you still can’t assume that the ratio changed to 3:1 for senior management purely because of sexism, a lot of women give up their careers for various reasons for example, so that they can raise children. Also, the 24% doesn’t take into account the current day attitudes towards women, because let’s say it takes 25 years to get into a senior management position, then in order to see how sexist our opinions are nowadays we’ll have to look at the data for senior management in 25 years time.

    “Have you ever noticed how comedy panel shows usually only have one female panellist compared to 4-5 male ones?”
    Have you ever looked at how many more successful male comedians there are compared to female comedians? Admittedly there is a kind of cultural belief that women aren’t as funny as men, but then you can’t blame the panel shows themselves because they want to have as many viewers as possible and if male comedians bring more viewers, is this really their fault?

    “(Have you ever noticed) That almost every dieting product on the market is solely aimed at women?”
    Men have advertisements that almost solely intended for them, for example bodybuilding powders/shakes, or Men’s Fitness magazine, penis enlargement products.

    “(Have you ever noticed) How a lot of newspapers and advertising campaigns will use a sexualised or pornographic image of a woman to sell news or products that have nothing to do with sex?”
    they do that simply because that’s what sells, if the aim of the advert is to make money then that’s what the advert will try to do, and if people stopped buying products that were advertised in this way, then these kinds of adverts would cease to exist. Also, have you ever seen a diet coke advert? they sexualise men but I don’t complain because that’s what sells.

    For the personal level questions, I’ll just rephrase the questions as if they’re targeted at men: Do you choose to wear certain clothes because you want to or because you feel ‘unmasculine’ if you don’t? When you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, do you see yourself through your own eyes, or through the eyes of the women that will look at you when you walk out the door? Did your parents dress you in blue as a baby because they liked the colour or because you were born a boy? Do you want to have children because you want to or because you feel pressured by society (this is a problem for both genders)? Do you let your leg hair and underarm hair grow because you want to or because you’ll feel ‘feminine’ if you shave them?

    I’m not saying that there aren’t any difficulties for women in the west, but they have largely been evened out in the past few decades for example a couple of years ago, for the first time, there were more females accepted into medicine than males at Universities in the UK. And except for a blip recently, the pay gap between men and women has been steadily decreasing for the past few decades.

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  40. saintcharlotte

    Reblogged this on Sanctuary and commented:
    I’ve seen it time and time again — people rolling their eyes at the mere mention of the word feminism, and I’ve heard young women nowadays say that feminism is not needed anymore because women have come of age already. Hmmm … then I think, they should read this.

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  41. Rachel Minnaar

    Some of the comments about feminism in this make me sad, there is still this idea that feminists are just a bunch of “feminazi man hating” people who’s goal is to be better than men. I think that is so sad, as that has nothing to do with it.

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  42. Stephen

    Read a good number of replies that oddly enough reach a general consensus as to how we should be thinking; so I’ll keep my comment purely based on opinion for argument’s sake. First of all the author clearly has not thought this through, saw a bunch of comments she didn’t like and this drivel of an article is the result. Comparing apples to oranges never works, and yes the women’s rights movement played a pivitol role in history . . but feminism groups like any other group are the problem. The Rights Movement is over in the US, all these groups are doing (like the kkk, black panther party, feminists, -insert extreme view group here- etc ) is clinging to hate mongering and past prejudices. This sense of extremism is poison in todays society that makes the younger generation view each other in the ways that people like Luther King Jr and (forgive me but Right Movements history race/gender isnt my forte’) women’s rights movement leaders have fought against all this time. I dont know what this mens rights group is nor do I care, so if you want to call me their lackey then by all means make yourself look like an idiot. Point Im trying to make is that the fight for Rights is over, just live your lives for God’s sake. If you want to help other countries good for you, but dont sugar coat it to serve mindless cr-p like this author has.

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  43. The world is full of freedom and possibility. | Until Further Notice This is Essentially Just an End of Summer Blog

    […] https://iwantedwings.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/a-response-to-women-against-feminism/ […]

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  44. LePetitMondeDeGiovi

    Reblogged this on Le PetitMonde de Giovi's Blog.

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  45. feministepoetique

    Reblogged this on Feministe Poetique and commented:
    Every time someone says to me, “I am not a feminist but…” Or that they believe in equality but not feminism I think, but what about the feminists who fought for you right to vote, work, go to school and university and to be seen as the same as a man in the eyes of the law? If you enjoy possessing your rights as a woman don’t tell me you aren’t a feminist because those two things contradict each other.

    This is a great blog post. She has expressed pretty much what I wanted to express except I would have focused more on the fact that the battle is still very far from being won in the Western world regarding violence against women and the overriding lack of justice, pregnancy discrimination, discrimination against women as they move higher up the career ladder, street and online harassment, objectification and sexualisation of women etc.

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    1. Sara

      ❤ the perfect answer ❤

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  46. sreekanthpp

    Reblogged this on sreekanthpp's Blog.

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  47. w8screens

    Guten Start in die neue Woche wünsch ich 😉

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  48. Bunch o’ Links | The Complete History of the Universe: A Personal Journey

    […] Next is a powerful article on the women against feminism movement. […]

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  49. tanithteee

    Reblogged this on Just Tanith and commented:
    This is right on the mark. It is quite selfish to say that we don’t need feminism just because you feel satisfied with your life. Aside from the many inequalities that do still exist, not only in countries as mentioned in this article but in western worlds as well; if it were not for the feminism that people are so readily critiquing, we would not have these beloved freedoms.

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  50. Deb Maggiell

    You forgot sport, male sport on TV is highly promoted, female sport has always come secondary to that.

    You see in a world of equality there is no men’s work or women’s work .. there is just work people do.

    A while ago, well almost yesterday actually.. men called the work they did “MANLY”

    This title was a status symbol..”MANLY” meant work of importance and males would only do those jobs if they were referred to as manly .. and with this status symbol came all sorts of bonuses .. promotion solely for males, twice the pay of females, a high social standing and a given automatic amount of respect.

    However the jobs that men didn’t recognise as being manly they passed onto females and they regarded those jobs as menial and trivial and thought exactly the same of the women who did them.

    This work women did was never revered in the same way as the work men did.

    There was no status symbol attached to the work females did except it was regarded as menial, there were no bonuses, no promotion.

    All those were male privilege and the males in the culture made it clear to females exactly what they thought of them by telling them, they and their labour was less valuable, had less merit than theirs.

    It was very important to males in the culture to demoralise females to prevent them from escaping male control and it was imperative to keep women out of jobs that men did at all cost.

    Because the cost to men was their status symbol and all the bonuses that came with it.

    If women could do the jobs men did, then men could no longer claim those jobs were manly, because women could do them as well and they knew if women could do them, then the higher pay men received for doing them would automatically be reduced as would their status symbol they coveted so very much.

    It was in all the males interests in the culture to continually demean, demoralise and humiliate the female gender to keep them in their place, because it is difficult to claim superiority and maintain control over others if all those others are just as good as you ..

    Once the female gender is demoralised sufficiently in a male run totalitarian regime, then it is a very short step to exterminating her because by then the female gender has become so despised as worthless through this constant male propaganda, that her extermination is then rarely ever questioned or opposed.
    FEMINISTS CREATE DEMOCRACY..
    MALE SUPREMACYSTS CREATE .. MALE RUN TOTALITARIAN REGIMES …
    AND THAT ALL THERE IS ..
    ONE or the OTHER..
    Viva FEMINISTS ..

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    1. Rocky Reed

      If women supported women’s sports as much as men support male sports, such sports would be equally promoted. The WNBA was highly promoted, but has mostly failed due to lack of fan support, including the lack of women’s support. Women’s boxing got a simlar push that has, for the most part, failed for the same reason.

      Also, “Manly” work has always described work that requires physical exertion and or/physical risks. Jobs where you “get your hands dirty”. It has little to do with prestige.

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    2. mark stansbury

      Manly jobs? Construction worker, plumber, welder, coal miner etc., are manly jobs. The professions are where the moneys at. I don’t think well see women flocking to do manly jobs. And its the men in society that are disposable, feminist. Thank a vet for your democracy.

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