I recently participated in Midd Uncensored. For those who don’t remember this event, it is basically an intense get-to-know-you activity. The most notable exercise is a “stand up, sit down” game. In it, a facilitator reads prompts and asks the audience to stand up if they identify with the statements. The prompts vary in terms of how personal they are. Some of them could pass as small-talk questions, like the prompt: “I was born in the United States.” Others, such as, “I feel strongly connected to the LGBTQ community” aren’t exactly questions you would casually drop at a dinner party. The prompt that stuck with me most, however — or rather, the audience’s reaction to it — was: “I am a feminist.”
When the facilitator read that sentence into the microphone, I’d estimate that about three quarters of the room stood up. While this is good because it means that there wasn’t a 50/50 split where only girls identified as feminists, the division is still worrisome.
Too many people don’t know what it means to be a feminist. And furthermore, too many people get nitpicky about that definition and in so doing disintegrate the cause.
So, let’s clarify. According to my computer’s convenient Apple dictionary, feminism is: “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men.” Put simply, feminism is gender equality. Thus, I wonder why every single person at Midd Uncensored didn’t stand up, especially all the women in the room.
I looked into this. A Google search of “feminism” proved fruitful to my inquiry. It led me to a Tumblr blog entitled, “Women Against Feminism,” a publication that, in my eyes, is staining the record of human existence by being one of the most demoralizing media outlets of the modern day.
That might seem a bit extreme, so let me explain. The blog consists of various pictures of women holding signs that read why they are not feminists. Some common themes were, 1. “I am not a feminist because men are not the enemy,” 2. “I don’t need a movement to speak for me,” 3. “Feminists are complainers and that gets you nowhere” and 4. “I don’t like labels.”
Ok, so here’s the thing. To be a feminist does not make one a man-hater — if anything, it brings men and women closer by setting them on the level playing field of equality. Being a feminist does not involve conforming, nor does it require sacrificing one’s individuality; in fact, the simple act of identifying as a feminist has the profound effect of widening the movement’s base and increasing the chances of gender equality’s success.
As for point three, in order to incite change and get people’s attention, one must complain, at least at the beginning. And finally, for number four, sometimes a clear label acts as advertising to attract people to a cause and a unifier for all those involved. Therefore to me, points three and four are moot.
Just repudiating these claims is not enough; the problem is that those women uploading webcam photos to “Women Against Feminism” aren’t the only ones with flawed perceptions of the movement. Many people, in addition to those women on Tumblr and that quarter of the crowd at Midd Uncensored, would not stand up for the “I am a feminist” prompt. I have one particular group in mind — the Republican Party.
Ever heard of the “Republican War on Women?” This politically in-vogue, liberal catch phrase references G.O.P. policies that restrict women’s rights —namely reproductive rights, rights concerning prosecution of violence against women and rights in the workplace.
While it’s sad that the Republican Party has been painted with such a broad and accusatory brush, it isn’t exactly inaccurate. Looking at the last claim specifically, that Republicans oppose women’s rights in the workplace, there is evidence that Democrats are the party of progress on gender equality and Republicans are the party of stagnation if not regression on the issue.
In 2009, as one of his first acts in office and serving as a bellwether for future Democratic feminist policy pushes, President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. In so doing, Obama and the Democrats who supported him overpowered the actions of Senate Republicans and Republican Presidential candidate John McCain who opposed the bill.
Good triumphed over evil that time, but we cannot assume that the job is done. Because while there might now be legislation ensuring equal pay for men and women, there is no gender Magna Carta in the heart of every citizen. For reasons beyond my understanding, some people – Republican politicians, those women on Tumblr and even Middlebury students -– still are not standing to call themselves feminists. While I realize that this does not necessarily mean that they are against equal rights for women, in my opinion, not identifying with the movement might as well make it so.
Because there still is not parity among the genders, as evidenced by the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act debacle, the stakes are too high to have a nuanced, “I’d-rather-not-label-myself” view of feminism or misperception of the movement. I urge anyone with whom the message of this article resonates to stand up from now on because we are stronger as a whole, not as three-quarters, and equality for every person is a movement we can all stand behind.
