And I’m not denying the struggles that many girls and women around the world face, or claiming that mine are equal to theirs.īut it’s not true to say that sexism is dead. There’s a lot of truth in this argument: Women have come a long way, baby.Īs a woman, I’d rather live here and now than almost any other point in history. Western feminists are just whining, nit-picking, and enjoying feeling victimized instead of appreciating the freedoms we have.” But now women have reached equality: We can vote, we have the same access to jobs and education as men, we’re allowed to dress how we want and are considered equal partners in relationships. There are good reasons not to, including the ways feminism has failed to be intersectional and meet the needs of people of colour, trans and gender non-conforming people, and others.īut if you are anti-feminist and agree with some of the quotes that I started this article with, I’d ask you to read on and consider that the truth about feminism might be more complicated. I’m not here to say that all women should call themselves feminist. Non-binary people may recognise themselves in these experiences as well, but those experiences (especially insofar as erasure is concerned) are unique, and I’m not qualified to speak on them. And in order to address those specific misconceptions, I’m going to speak from that place. Not only men and women exist, and they’re not opposites in a binary.īut a lot of the ways in which anti-feminists conceptualise feminism is based on this untruth about women versus men. In truth, not only should feminism benefit everyone, as it works to dismantle all systems of oppression, but it shouldn’t be based on this binary gender thinking in the first place. One of the biggest misconceptions about feminism is that it’s a movement for women, by women, and made up of women in opposition of men. ![]() But I did learn over time, through getting to know more people who identified as feminists, that the things I thought were basic and fundamental to feminism were exaggerations, or belonged only to some more fringe groups. Nobody can speak for all of feminism, including me – and I especially can’t speak for how a/gender minorities besides cis women experience feminism. Some of it was taking the words of one or two feminists and assuming they spoke for the whole. Some of it was just myth, things that anti-feminists said feminists believed. What changed my mind was learning that a lot of what I thought feminists believed was false – including the idea that gender oppression only affects women. I thought feminists were only doing harm to themselves and others, and I proudly proclaimed that I was not a feminist. I used to agree with a lot of statements like this. “I’m not a feminist because I don’t hate men.” “I don’t need female empowerment, because I’m not weak!” ![]() Originally published on Everyday Feminism |įeatured Image Source: Soman/Wikimedia Commons
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