The ‘f’ word

Katie Dalton complains that common perceptions of feminism degrade an ongoing struggle for equality

“Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” So said the then chairman of the Christian Coalition, Patrick Roberts, in 1992. While not many would go this far in a description of feminism, it is still a fact that in today’s society, feminism has a very bad reputation. The reasons are manifold, yet the backlash against feminism has stemmed mainly from the radical feminist movement of the 1980s. This movement was characterised as unswervingly anti-men and scarily threatening, requiring unfailing dedication to the ‘sisterhood’ (not to mention lesbianism). It conjures up images of humourless, angry, intimidating groups of women, demanding that any fun in life is sacrificed to the cause.

How did this happen? Simply put, the stereotype of the radical feminist was one that stuck. The majority of second wave feminists weren’t virulent man-haters, yet the media (reflecting, as it did, the gender inequality within influential jobs) loved the image of the angry lesbian and created a derogatory image of the ‘feminist’, which stuck to the word like glue. This conception has led to an attitude which holds that feminism is no longer relevant and ‘feminist’ is an undesirable label. Take a look around, this attitude says, and see all the high-achieving women who are just as successful as men. In our immediate environment, sexism simply isn’t an issue; it would be more worthwhile to worry about something that is actually having negative effects on our lives. But, on every level, women are still getting a raw deal. Across the world, women are doing the lowest paid work with the least security. Women are facing domestic violence on a daily basis. Women get paid, on average, 85 percent of a man’s salary. Strange but true: equal pay for equal work isn’t a reality yet. It is a fact of life that female graduates will at some point be at a disadvantage to their male counter-parts in terms of their career advancement. Only three percent of company directors are women. In our country, and across the world, nearly every important political decision is made by a man. This isn’t even to mention what women are going through in countries where the inhumane subjugation of women is still a fact of life; where women have no real voice and live perpetually in fear and oppression.

Feminism is still around today, and Feminists are still trying to raise consciousness about such issues. It needs to go on; the job started in the 1920s needs to be finished. There is a danger, however, that feminism is being watered-down, as it becomes populist. Feminism, if it isn’t lesbianism and man-hating, is girl power, and empowerment by stripping off on page three. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is seen as a feminist icon because she can look after herself. Can a character created with the male gaze in mind be seen as such, or is this a non-threatening form of ‘feminism’ which totally misses the point? This leads to women believing that any form of personal advancement is somehow feminist, no matter what the methods. The reality is that t-shirts with “Porn Star” across the front are neither feminist nor empowering. This isn’t to say that some sort of move towards the personal, and individual conceptions of feminism, isn’t a good thing. It’s just that feminism is concerned with the rights of women; it doesn’t, therefore, come without some sort of social conscience. A feminist is concerned with issues such as abortion rights, economic disparities, domestic violence and affirmative action. And, to be honest, most of us are concerned with these things. Though members of our generation, unwilling to be labelled, are instinctively averse to declaring themselves feminist, in actual fact most of us are feminists, like it or not. Call it what you will, but it’s not so radical to believe that equal rights are for everybody; that people should get the same pay for the same work, that patriarchy isn’t always the best ideology or that women deserve more than they’re getting.

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