Rae's Rules to Remember #2: Feminism Myths
When I was in uni our Center for Inclusion and Diversity held a Diversity Awareness Program. It was really good. I always go to events like these so it was nice to see unfamiliar faces.
At one point the instructor says “Raise your hand if you do not identify as a feminist” One girl raises her hand, so he asks her why. She says that she doesn’t want to identify as a feminist because she believes that all people should be equal…
The instructor then says, “Raise your hand if you believe that men and women should have equal rights” EVERYONE (including this girl) raises their hand. The instructor says “Congratulations! You are a feminist”
Later, all of the women were asked to sit in a circle in the middle of the room and discuss men (anything about them). Someone brings up an observation about participation between men and women in a sports related class (Sports Marketing was a big thing for us). This lead to someone asking how they feel when they are lifting weights next to a guy in the gym vs next to a girl. Someone else goes on to mention that sometimes they feel intimidated next to guys *side bar* I understand the intimidation thing to an extent. Honestly, I’m the kind of person that just doesn’t get intimidated often, because people can judge me all they want and it has no affect on me. Why should it? But my issue with this is that most of the time guys are going to be able lift more than girls. It’s just the way their bodies are built. On the other hand, there are some girls who can lift like it’s their job. Everyone is different, it’s really not that big a deal. *End side bar* So then, the instructor asks for thoughts on how the conversation went and this same girl says “I think it’s interesting how the conversation ended up being about how men are bad…” WHAT?! WTF? SERIOUSLY, NO ONE SAID THAT! No woman in this room thinks that men are bad. The conversation was simply about how some women feel intimidated at the gym. How the hell does that correlate to men being bad?
By the end of this two hour session, this girl still felt that feminism was a bad thing. I don't know why or what stigmas still cause her to feel that way, but we tried to explain and nothing was getting through to her.
So, that and a few other things have made me wonder where these stupid, misleading stigmas about feminism came from. Feminism is not about burning your bras, or hating men. Being a feminist (and yes, I am a feminist) means that everyone (regardless of gender, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. should have equal rights and access to resources.
For anyone who doubts it, yes sexism still exist. That does not mean that the feminist movement is about women "overshadowing men".
Again, this is about gender equality. Which means that men and people who are gender fluid/nonbinary should also have all of the resources that women do. For example: A lot of people have a false belief that men can't be victims of sexual assault. News flash: they can and are. There are tons of counselors out there and shelters for women, while men don't have nearly as many resources.
There’s also some sort of hatred for the word feminism that I don’t get. I literally had someone tell me that they didn’t want to identify as a feminist (even though they believed in everything that it stood for) because they didn’t want to be associated with the negative stigma of the word. Basically, she was choosing not to identify as something that she was, all because she was afraid of what other people will think.... Who the hell cares what they think. If you're a feminist, you're a feminist. If you don't like the word and want to call yourself a humanist or a womanist or whatever, that's your choice just remember what you actually stand for. I've had way too many people try to attack me for being a feminist when we agreed on so many things.
