Why ‘Social Justice Warrior’ Abuse Is Actually A Good Sign For Feminism

This post was originally published on Fanny Pack on July 1st 2016.

On 17^th June, Cracked – supreme purveyors of pop culture cynicism™- released a video through their YouTube channel that poked holes in the wildly popular ‘Follow Me’ Instagram account. If you’re unfamiliar with the account, it’s basically a globally staged re-enactment of The Police’s ‘Every Breath You Take’ in which a photographer stalks his unfairly beautiful girlfriend around exotic locations whilst slowly leaning in in between each Photoshopped shot to sniff her hair like a serial killer. (Disclaimer: I may be lying slightly.)

Picture from the ‘Follow Me’ Instagram account, @followmeto Source: Murad Osmann on Instagram

Seems fairly innocuous, right? And Cracked (as usual) made some good points, calling the account out on everything from the slightly leering way the camera always seemed to focus on her exposed back or butt, to the objectifying nature of keeping her continually faceless, to the nauseating cultural tourism of two rich, white people dressing up in each country’s national costume.

None of these points brought about the kind of outrage in me that should be reserved for terrible cases of injustice such as the Brock Turner rape case, but as I said before – reasonable points about a slushy Instagram account well made. But just before I ‘Liked’ the video and moved on with my life, I noticed the huge amount of Dislikes filling up most of the bar, and – upon scrolling down to the comment section (always a risky move) – was dismayed to find a slew of comments like these:

Source: YouTube.

Source: YouTube.

Source: YouTube.

It’s completely fair to dislike a video if you genuinely disliked it, that’s what the bar is for. But throwing around the ‘Social Justice Warrior’ (SJW) label to totally dismiss it out of hand? That’s not really fair. And sadly, the use of the slur has become unfortunately commonplace to shut down cases of sexism – or any other ‘ism’ – being reasonably pointed out in the media that we all enjoy. However, the fact that is it so prominent may conversely mean that we, as feminists, are actually doing something right. Bear with me on this.

As with most slurs, SJW is a phrase that has had its positive or neutral origins manipulated to become harmful through contextual usage. Although – according to the Oxford English Dictionary- the term “social justice” dates all the way back to 1824, in 2015, “social justice warrior” was also added to the OED as:

“A pejorative term of an individual promoting socially progressive views; including feminism, civil rights, multi-culturalism, political correctness, and identity politics.”

This negative use of the term originates in 2011, when it became the weapon of choice by proponents of the infamous #GamerGate dispute thanks to popular usage on Reddit and 4chan, and since then, seems to have exponentially seeped out into every corner of the web – the most recent victim being the comments section of Cracked’s YouTube channel.

As a figurine-buying, comic–con-loving, feminist nerd, I have been thoroughly disheartened to see this obstinate toxicity used to smother every slight criticism of any comic book, video game, or film considered infallibly sacred by the more knuckle-dragging members of my fan group that bore this slur. The ‘debates’ in one particular Facebook group I was an active member of become so one-sidedly anti-SJW recently in the wake of both the X-Men: Apocalypse poster scandal and Nintendo’s sexist excuse for not including a playable female character in the upcoming Zelda game, that I felt forced to leave – feeling thoroughly unwelcome in a community I had considered to be my own.

Here’s a few responses posted in the group to the aforementioned contraversies.

Source: Facebook.

Source: Facebook.

Although to be honest, all of the above is really just typical of the usual smatterings of casual sexism continuously posted to the group anyway.

Source: Facebook.

But these aggravatingly misinformed opinions and ‘jokes’ are really just the tip of the iceberg. Last year, a group of tin-foil-hat-wearing Redditors began to suspect that Reddit was being taken over by an “SJW Cabal” made up of lesbian, Jewish leftists (no, seriously). “There was a time when the fringe truly existed on the fringes of society,” Gawker observed at the time. “But today, conspiracies as manifestly deranged as this one rocket in popularity, empowered by the simple software behind sites like Reddit and 4chan. There have always been and there will always be right-wing lunatics who think creeping “transsexual feminism” is an existential threat; but now those people share real estate with all the rest of us. They’re just one click away.”

It is illogical psychosis such as this that makes the anti-SJW movement (if you can even call it a that) so difficult to argue with for anyone who supports the frankly common-sense ideals of social progressivism and equality. Often, those that subscribe to the SJW conspiracy seem to either feel that accusations of offensiveness in pop culture are simply disingenuous, or that pointing them out is evidence of a general ‘over-policing’ of culture and free speech. The problem with this is, as Vice points out, “[SJW] is not a real category of people. It’s simply a way to dismiss anyone who brings up social justice – and often those people are feminists.”

By now, you may be feeling pretty depressed about all this. But believe it or not, there is something positive to take away from all this online hate. Internet hate-mongers such as anti-SJWs are nothing new or special, but simply the latest in a long history of backlashes against organised social justice movements like feminism. Susan Faludi famously dedicated an entire book to this subject in the 90s.

“Different kinds of backlash against women’s mostly tiny gains – or against simply the perception that women were in the ascendancy – may be found in the rise of restrictive property laws and penalties for unwed and childless women of ancient Rome, the heresy judgements against female disciples of the early Christian Church, or the mass witch burnings of medieval Europe.” – Susan Faludi.

In a recent interview with Broadly, Tristan Bridges, co-author of ‘Exploring Masculinities: Identity, Inequality, and Change’, explained the link between this historic backlash and the newly mainstream nerd culture of today. “Nerds are, as a cultural ‘type’, emasculated. But it’s also true that there is a lot of toxic masculine behaviour in nerd cultures. Think about it: #GamerGate happened among the nerds, not the jocks.” He added that this behaviour stems from the idea that men are becoming disenfranchised as women make more and more gains:

“As societies redistribute gender privileges that had been largely reserved for men, it’s not uncommon to see spikes in violence against women as an early reaction,” Bridges said. “People like to think that social justice is a steady, constant progress… But research on inequality has shown is doesn’t work like that. Sometimes when we take one step forward, we take two steps back.” – Tristan Bridges.

Probably the most stark evidence of this “one step forward, two steps back” progression can be seen in the LGBTQ+ community, where Marriage Equality parallels an increase in homophobic hate crimes in the last decade – most recently the Orlando massacre. Although Internet trolls seem pretty trivial compared to horrendous acts of terror, they are all part of a wider cultural hatred that is fostered online and – if allowed to grow – can and does poison the real world like bacteria. So the next time someone thinks that accusing you of being an SJW is an insult, just know that you must be doing something right – and keep doing it.

Featured Image source: Hextrovert/Etsy.

Comics, Feminist/Gender Theory, Pop Culture, Superheroes, Visual Cultural Theory

A Female Character’s Waistline Should be as Realistic as Her Job Description

Originally published on the Fanny Pack Blog.

There’s no denying that body image is a prickly issue within Feminism and our cultural landscape in general. As women, we live in a confusing world in which certain cosmetic companies *cough Dove cough* tell us to love our imperfections whilst simultaneously selling us products to fix imperfections we never realised we had (dry underarms, anybody?); in which we are apparently dicing with death when we order diet pills from the Internet; and in which our most shamed body parts one month could become our most fantasised about the next, depending on which female celebrity ranks highest on Google.

Dove ‘Beautiful Underarms’ Campaign

It is no surprise then that our precious imaginary worlds, both on page and on screen also suffer from the same real-world problems. A recent trend happening online that has caught my attention has been identifying and even ‘fixing’ the unrealistic proportions of our favourite super heroines and Disney princesses. From hair, to historical accuracy, to waistlines – if there’s something to be changed, there’s someone with a Photoshop brush poised to change it.

Disney Princesses with ‘Realistic’ Waistlines

The reason is certainly well-intentioned. These fictional characters – however much we kid ourselves – are intended for the consumption of younger audiences, and as such, impractical standards of beauty can have a negative impact on their perception of it and their sensitive self-confidence. But, does that mean that every ridiculously proportioned female character rendered in ink or animation is a problem waiting to be fixed? I would argue no, or at least, not in certain circumstances.

This thought struck me after I came across this particular image of Wonder Woman from Bulimia.com, whose creative team came up with the idea of giving superheroes ‘realistic waistlines’ after seeing people do the same for Disney princesses.

Wonder Woman Parody from Bulimia.com

The incentive was completely worthy: highlighting to young people that these fictional characters sport similarly fictional body shapes. Whilst it’s pleasing to see that adding a few extra pounds has certainly not lessened these super heroines’ appeal in the slightest, I did take issue with this treatment being performed on Wonder Woman specifically, and let me explain why.

I grew up in the late 90s/early 00s glued to the exploits of small-screen action heroines like Buffy and Xena as they high-kicked and shrieked their way through their improbable lives. They may have worn short skirts and metallic bras, but they were, and still are, hugely empowering to me, and their athletic physiques were a big part of that.

“‘Sup, Bro?”

As the grand matriarch of all our pop cultural warrior women like Buffy and Xena, Wonder Woman still looms large today as the physical embodiment of female strength; the kind of strength that enables her to go toe-to-toe fearlessly with her muscular male equivalents. She is a warrior, a Goddess, and a champion of women’s rights. She’s the comic book answer to Rosie the Riveter.

The crux of what I’m saying is this: A female character’s waistline has to be as realistic as her job description.

If she was raised on an all-female island of warrior women, then she should have a warrior’s body. However, if she was raised in a fairy tale castle where her only physical activity was to sweep the floor and cook dinner for an ungrateful and demanding surrogate family then there is no logical necessity for her to sport a 24” waist and tiny slipper-sized feet. The same goes for nearly every princess in the Disney school of character design, in which being impossibly slim is as requisite as singing to birds and having at least one dead parent.

Not only can excessively small waistlines be a problem, but excessively sexualised ones too. And whilst exaggerated idealisation can be acceptable for certain characters as I’ve discussed, exaggerated sexualisation is often totally unnecessary and voyeuristic. This usually comes through not in the way that certain female characters are built, but how they are clothed and posed, and one that has attracted a lot of scrutiny recently is Starfire from DC’s Teen Titans.

Starfire, from Red Hood and the Outlaws #1, 2011

Like Wonder Woman, Starfire is a warrior princess from a faraway fantastical place and as such she is pretty darn ripped. Her idealised toned body poses no problem to me, and her hyper-positive personality makes Starfire one of my favourite members of the Titans. However, her wrestling-inspired barely-there costume and the leering angles artists often choose to draw her at distract from her ungendered qualities as a powerful crime-fighter to make you constantly aware that she is a woman with very womanly parts.

There is of course nothing wrong with female characters utilising their feminine wiles. Poison Ivy and Catwoman, for example, use the femme fatale shtick as part of their villainous arsenal, and Starfire is in fact a very playful and flirtatious character – she even worked as a model at one point in the 80s. But I refuse to believe that even such a body-confident beauty like Starfire would decide that an outfit that risked her boobs popping out every time she threw a punch.

The Bulimia.com parody artwork was of course not intended to criticise comic book art as a whole, but it did unintentionally hit upon the solution to the problem of unrealistic proportions in fictional characters: Diversity. As I said earlier, if we want our heroines to look more positively ‘realistic’ then the parameters of their realism need to be defined by their individual lifestyles just as we real women are defined by ours. If a female character is a brawler that spends every night kickboxing street thugs, give her a six-pack and killer thighs. But if she’s just rocked up as a new student at the Xavier institute with the power of telekinesis then she could be either over, under, or of an average body weight and it wouldn’t make any difference to her abilities or our ability to connect with her as a character.

Thankfully this positive change towards body diversity is already alive and well in pop culture as exemplified by excellent comics such as Rat Queens and excellent cartoons such as Steven Universe, which both feature refreshingly female-orientated super-powered teams of diversely powered and sized heroines to love and relate to.

Rat Queens

Steven Universe

In terms of costume, it’s also pleasing to see the small but significant changes made to powerhouse heroines recently like Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel, and (yay!) Starfire, whose idealised but practical bodies are finally matched by practical clothing.

Wonder Woman, Starfire, and Ms Marvel Costume Re Design

(From left to right, clockwise) Wonder Woman (2015), Starfire (2015), and Kamala Khan, aka the new Ms. Marvel (2014)

We still need our Goddesses, warriors, and sirens, but there’s more than enough room for our chunky, scrawny, or just plain averagely shaped heroines to inspire us as well.

Feminist/Gender Theory, Pop Culture, Visual Cultural Theory, Wicked Wiles

Wicked Wiles – Cinderella (1950)

Originally published on the Fanny Pack blog.

This article is the third in a series. You can read the introduction to Wicked Wiles here.

“A pretty plot for fairy tales, Sire. But in real life, oh, no. No, it was foredoomed to failure.”

Based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault, Disney’s Cinderella (1950) is set in a ‘far away land long ago’ where a girl named Cinderella lives happily with her family. Sadly, this doesn’t last. Her mother dies and Cinderella’s father remarries a woman with two daughters, who turn out to be cold and cruel. Upon his death, they force Cinderella to become their maid. Meanwhile in the royal castle, the King – longing for grandchildren – plans a ball for his son the Prince to find him a suitable bride. Invitations are sent to every eligible lady in the land, and Cinderella begs her stepmother to let her go. With the help of her mice friends, Cinderella fashions a beautiful dress to wear, only to have her stepsisters tear it to shreds and her dreams of happiness destroyed.

Luckily, Cinderella’s laments are heard by her Fairy Godmother, who whips up a new dress, a pumpkin carriage, and some glass slippers that will last until midnight. Cinderella charms the Prince at the ball but is forced to run away prematurely as her curfew approaches leaving only a glass slipper behind. This forces the King to send out a search party to try the glass slipper on the foot of every woman in the land in the hopes of finding its mysterious owner.

The film’s character are mostly female, consisting of:

Cinderella
Cinderella’s stepmother (Lady Tremaine)
Anastasia (stepsister)
Drusilla (stepsister)
The Fairy Godmother
An unnamed female narrator at the start of the film.

Yes – Cinderella’s stepmother and her two daughters.

Jealous of Cinderella’s ‘charm and beauty’, her stepmother forces Cinders to become a servant. This also kind of makes financial sense as she presumably cannot afford to employ actual servants after squandering her late husband’s wealth – as the narrator reveals at the start. Just like Disney’s previous Princess film – Snow White – the jealousy of a bitter stepmother provides the only villainous motivation. The difference this time being that Cinderella’s stepmother is not an evil Sorceress. She’s just plain evil.

Anastasia and Drusilla are described as ‘vain and selfish’ by the narrator and are not forced to do any work around the house due to their mother’s favouritism. The stepsisters aren’t exactly ugly, but certainly plainer and ‘less feminine’ compared to Cinderella. During the fitting of the glass slipper scene, for example, the mislaid slipper barely covers either of their feet – implying both sisters lack the aspirational feminine trait of small and dainty feet, which by default Cinderella must have. This also follows the Disney tradition of personality dictating appearance.

cinderella step sisters disney fanny pack wicked wiles gender feminism

Anastasia & Drusilla.

In the case of the step-family, however, this rule seems unbalanced as their personalities really are worse than their looks. Upon receiving the invite to the ball, Cinderella’s stepmother agrees she can attend on the condition that Cinderella completes all of her chores and has a suitable dress. When Anastasia and Drusilla object she repeats her condition: ‘I said if.’ Obviously she has no intention of letting Cinderella attend, but clearly gets some sick pleasure out of dangling hope in front of her unfortunate stepdaughter so she can rip it away from her; a metaphor that turns out to be literal when she manipulates Anastasia and Drusilla into tearing Cinderella’s dress to shreds.

This glimmer of hope is both a fantastical and tangible thing for Cinderella as the narrator tells us that the kingdom is ‘tiny’ and she can see the castle in plain view from her bedroom window. Yet, I would go so far as to say that if you look a little closer than the film would want you to look, that glimmer of hope is a thematic thread for all of its characters, including the villains, and provides their real motivation.

cinderella disney wicked wiles gender feminism

The iconic Disney castle.

This realisation struck me when Anastasia and Drusilla complained to their mother that they had no new clothes to wear to the ball, and I remembered that narrator explained that the stepmother had married Cinderella’s father for his money – all of which she and her greedy daughters spent. The implication is that the stepmother is a ‘gold digger’ – yet another demonising female quality. Having sucked one source of income dry, she is now forced to set her sights on marrying a daughter off to the bachelor Prince in that oh-so-visible-castle-from-the-window to sustain the opulent lifestyle they have become accustomed to.

But let’s consider the social context of this: In the not-so-long-ago times when either a rich father or husband was the only means for a woman of status to survive, what other choice did the stepmother have? To Cinderella, the castle represents freedom from her oppressive stepmother, but to her stepmother the castle represents financial freedom in an oppressive society. And whilst she cannot be excused for it, perhaps her cruel treatment of Cinderella is a venting of frustration upon the remnant of a marriage she hoped would afford her security, and an added burden of an extra mouth to feed with money she has (stupidly) frittered away.

The motivational jealousy she feels at Cinderella’s ‘beauty and charm’ is because those natural qualities that Cinders has been gifted with mean she could easily find an affluent husband… if she is ever allowed out of the house.

From start to finish, all of the interactions between the film’s central female family members are irrefutably negative. As the maid, Cinderella is unquestionably submissive to her rude and demanding stepmother and stepsisters, with the exception of bravely asking her stepmother’s permission to go the ball.

cinderella step mother disney fanny pack wicked wiles gender feminism

YOU SHALL NOT GO TO THE BALL.

The only positive interaction Cinderella has between another female character is with the Fairy Godmother who is basically everyone’s ideal Grandma – lovely, huggable, and quirky. She comforts Cinders and works her magic to restore her self-confidence and get her to the ball. She even has the foresight to allow Cinderella to keep the remaining glass slipper after her magic fades, enabling Cinders to prove later on that she is the true owner of the shoes when her stepmother ‘accidentally’ smashes the other.

Cinderella is light on plot and high on filler, and by filler I mean lots of animals in clothes faffing around for too long (in my opinion). This makes answering this question tricky, but arguably it is the King who sets everything in motion to achieve his goal of having grandchildren, and the entire story revolves the ball.

The stepmother contributes only by blocking Cinderella’s opportunities to escape her control, and these are opportunities that are given to Cinderella rather than creating opportunities herself. The only time she asserts any kind of influence is when she asks to go the ball. In fact, Cinders is so lacking in drive that even after the ball when the magic wears off she shrugs her shoulders and trudges back home obediently instead of seizing her opportunity to run away for good.

The male characters are:

Prince Charming
The King
The Duke (the King’s aide)
Various animals that live in Cinderella’s chateau

The King states that he has no interest in which woman the Prince picks as his bride; as long as she can provide him with grandchildren: ‘What’s love got to do with it? Just a boy meeting a girl under the right conditions.’ The Prince also has no interest in any of the women at the ball – stifling a yawn as they are all introduced to him. That is, until he spots Cinderella entering at the back of the ballroom.

Obviously taken by her looks, he rushes over to meet her, and the pair spends the night walking and talking through the castle gardens. We never get to hear what they are saying (other than a weird telepathic duet) until Cinderella suddenly tells him she must leave as her curfew approaches. This is also the last we really see or hear of the Prince, as it is the Duke who is tasked with searching the Kingdom for the mysterious maiden that the Prince stupidly failed to get the name of his new crush despite all those hours of implied conversation.

“I have absolutely no character!”

I mentioned earlier that the castle represents hope, and this is also true of the Prince. He is a sadly tokenistic character – known only as ‘Charming’ – serving purely as wish fulfilment for the female characters; therefore a surprisingly weak male presence despite his narrative importance.

Just like Snow White before her, Cinderella’s skills are enforcedly domestically based. Unlike Snow White, Cinderella – although born into wealth – has to marry to attain Princess status and we don’t get to see what kind of Princess she becomes. (Although, if the King got his way, she’d most likely be spending most it popping out kids and little else.) Otherwise, she possesses natural beauty and charm, kindness, and the ability to communicate with animals – typical of a Disney Princess.

Unfortunately under my criteria it’s another negative Disney Princess film in terms of gender representation. Here’s why:

Cinderella barely influences the plot.
Negative interactions between nearly all female characters.
Cinderella is given the opportunity to follow her dreams but only to satiate the King’s need for grandchildren. He doesn’t care who she is, he just wants a woman – any woman – to marry his son and produce heirs.
The film missed opportunities to give depth to the stepmother and stepsisters’ jealousy – some kind of social context might have made it more balanced and more interesting.

Overall Message:

Positive –

The animals help Cinderella because she helps them, which shows that if you are nice to others they will return this kindness.
There is also a positive message about working hard and being rewarded, except Cinderella’s opportunities happen mainly by chance.

Negative –

Unfounded jealousy is the only motivation for female villainy.
Marriage is your only chance at happiness/means to financially support yourself, with no option to become self-sufficient.
The film is critical of women who marry for money alone, yet offers no context/solution to this problem.
Male characters are depicted negatively – either talking about women as baby-making machines, or treated as nameless and voiceless tokens.

Next in the Wicked Wiles series: Sleeping Beauty!

@SpannerX23 on Twitter.

By night, Hannah is a geeky feminist blogger, but by day she is a freelance artist who specialises in unconventional and unique illustrations. Check out her website here to see her portfolio.

Feminist/Gender Theory, Pop Culture, Society and Politics

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

iwantedwings

A Geeky Feminist's Musings On Pop Culture

Tag Archives: Equality

A Female Character’s Waistline Should be as Realistic as Her Job Description

Wicked Wiles – Cinderella (1950)

A Response to ‘Women Against Feminism.’

This post was originally published on Fanny Pack on July 1st 2016.

Featured Image source: Hextrovert/Etsy.

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