Dear Jessica Valenti, Your Tribalist Feminism Is Destructive.
Let’s just paint half the population with the same brush. Trust me, no one will get annoyed.
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On July 19th, 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave a speech, firmly establishing the woman’s rights movement now known as feminism:
“We are assembled to protest against a form of government, existing without the consent of the governed — to declare our right to be free as man is free, to be represented in the government which we are taxed to support, to have such disgraceful laws as give man the power to chastise and imprison his wife, to take the wages which she earns, the property which she inherits, and, in case of separation, the children of her love.”
This short introduction would begin the first women’s rights movement in the world — the Seneca Falls Convention.
In the past 170 years since the inception of feminism, the movement has found incredible success. Feminism no longer needs an introduction. The movement has exploded in the past 2 centuries. A mere 300 attended the Seneca Falls Convention — that’s puny to 4 million who marched across the US in 2017. Millions of feminists are making their voice heard, often writing on social media and blogs to further their cause.
Medium, in particular, has become a hotbed for feminist writers. Take Jessica Valenti, an incredibly successful “feminist author & columnist” spearheading feminism on Medium. You’ve probably seen one of her articles. Each gets thousands of claps and a ton of responses, and Medium itself often advertises her work in their weekly newsletters.
Just so we’re clear: I think most of the feminist articles here on Medium are fine, albeit a bit repetitive.
However, Valenti’s work specifically really troubles me. Really, it’s the common theme in her work that scares me: anger.
Frustration and outrage dominate her articles — broadly, these emotions have become the lifeblood of the feminist movement. According to Valenti, women are fed up — with who? Well, it’s pretty clear: men.
We are the problem, the villains of this world,
Every single one of us.
If you read these articles, all you find is anger and blind assumptions. Men are no more than loose, exhausting baggage — in fact, why not, let’s just wage war on all of them. They are the cause of all our problems after all.
Apparently, stereotypical “angry feminists” haven’t been around that long (although the writer does refer to men as “COWARDS” so that’s nice). If that’s true, where have such emotions come from? Is it a new marketing strategy?
If so, it sucks.
Neotribalism
Really, what feminism has become in the past decade is a form of tribalism. There’s an incredible article by Mark Manson on this if you want to read more, but I will try to summarize his points as best I can.
Neotribalism (noun): a sociological concept which postulates that humans have evolved to live in tribal society and thus will naturally form social networks constituting new “tribes” based frequently on ethnic, racial, or religious criteria.
So, what are some of the characteristics of tribal societies, and why is this so problematic for the progress of feminism?
Tribal societies are divided into ingroups and outgroups. In this clashing dynamic, the ingroup has two goals in its relation to the defined outgroup:
- To distinguish itself from the outgroup as much as possible
- To vilify and act hostile towards the outgroup
On this plane, liberals and feminists are pretty similar. Both have resorted to viciously attacking the other side. Take a news organization like CNN. Virtually 99% of the time, the headline contains Trump — and, as I’m sure you’re aware, it’s never in a positive light. For Valenti, instead of conservatives, men are the outgroup.
Men are immoral. Men are “delicate flowers.” Women shouldn’t have to “coddle” men into joining feminism since it’s the only moral option. Fantastic, we’ve boiled an important social movement (in theory) to basic insults.
Resorting to tribalism is immoral and destructive to society. It causes division. It’s the reason our government is in shambles. We’ve literally had the longest shutdown in US history for what? Because our representatives can’t compromise like actual adults? It’s a joke. Is this tribalism what feminists consider “moral”?
Guess there must be something wrong with me then. I’m pretty much the embodiment of a disgusting human being now. I should get that checked.
But why? For a movement that needs more supporters, why attack potential candidates?
Well, for many of these writers like Valenti, writing about feminism has become their job. They need to continue to produce bestselling articles or books to survive. Now, since their livelihood depends on how many people read their articles, a lot of feminists have chosen one out of two options to increase viewership, both of which are detrimental to the growth of feminism:
- Popping out more articles and finding more problems to complain about
- Turning to emotion (anger, frustration, outrage, etc…) to “sell” articles
Now, for writers like Valenti, it’s clear that she’s chosen the second option. In one of her earlier articles, Valenti herself acknowledges that, in comparison to her husband, she is “more emotional and jaded.” So evidently, route 2 was her destined path.
Now, let me be clear — I don’t have a problem with the fact that Valenti has this personality. It’s more so that her feminist articles embody these emotions.
As Valenti herself points out, feminism needs the support of men. How then, Valenti, can you plan to gain support from men by criticizing them in literally every single one of your articles?
You won’t.
Your articles are divisive — most of the top replies on each are negative. Maybe that’s how you want it. There’s a lot of publicity in controversy after all. But, do these hostile articles actually do anything to further your cause? Do you actually think that constantly berating “most men” will actually encourage them to join the feminist movement?
Additionally, you rarely reply to these negative comments. You’re so entrenched in your own worldview you’re doing nothing to see someone else’s perspective. And sure, maybe “the world was crashing in around women 24 hours a day.” But, is the solution really in ostracizing those who disagree with you?
Can you not see that your writing only contributes to your frustrations?
All these articles do is cause ideological separation and create an echo chamber of like-minded “angry feminists.” Sure, feminism may be your source of income, but you’re not doing anything beneficial for it.
Framing of Issues
Another characteristic of tribalism that, again, aligns perfectly with Valenti’s writing, is the ingroup’s tendency to feel superior towards and more important than the outgroup.
The ingroup’s issues are the only ones that matter since the outgroup is evil and wrong. They’ve done nothing but bad things, and we should ignore their opinions and problems. The outgroup is irrelevant.
This is pretty similar to the rhetoric that Valenti spews. If you only read Valenti’s work, you would know a lot about the problems that women face in modern society, but almost nothing of the challenges that males face.
Women are being killed by males just because they said no. Women’s careers are being destroyed by the problems created by fathers. Women are being gaslighted by men. Valenti has tons of articles about the struggles and problems that women face, and yet, she has never mentioned a single issue that males struggle with.
Feminism advocates for gender equality. Sure, women more problems than males, but that does not mean that males don’t have any struggles in our society.
“Feminism Isn’t Humanism”
There’s a pretty popular rebuttal to the argument I’ve just laid out. It goes something along the lines of:
Feminism isn’t humanism, so solving the problems of both genders isn’t really the primary goal of feminism.
Humanism and equalism advocate for earning equal rights for both genders. Feminism is about evening this divide by bringing attention to the issues women face since, broadly, they are the more disadvantaged population.
Now, this is a pretty fair argument. Generally, women do face more problems than men, and women’s rights should be prioritized over males. But, see, Valenti completely ignores the struggles that men deal with. Reading her work, the idea that’s conveyed is pretty clear: only women face problems in our society.
There’s a difference between prioritizing larger problems and just flat out ignoring the smaller ones.
So, if male problems are neglected while feminist issues are solved, as Valenti aims to do, there will be a point in society where men face more social obstacles than women. And, what is the end result? An inherently unequal society.
You can’t have true equality unless the indifferences for both sides are evened.
See, fourth-wave feminism is inherently different from other social revolutions and even its own previous incarnations. It aims to achieve social equality, by evening the unequal burdens of things like emotional labor, housework, and cultural expectations on women. Now, all these things are very hard to accurately measure and, primarily, solve.
Almost all other previous rights movements sought to create political or legal equality. That aim is much more tangible and measurable. Take the gay rights movement. In the past couple of years, a major focus was on achieving equal marriage rights. It’s a focused movement — it’s not a confusing tangle of different issues that all need to be unraveled and solved individually like with feminism.
It’s easy to make the law completely fair for something specific like marriage. Social equality is far more complex — it involves infinitely more issues. You just can’t compare fourth-wave feminism to the message of other social movements, because its goals are far broader and less defined.
So, what does this mean for the “feminism isn’t humanism” argument?
Well, it means that feminism should be more like humanism. It’s not like other social movements, and we shouldn’t treat it like that. It’s like trying to use a hammer to tape a piece of paper to the wall — it just won’t work.
Humanism is a broad solution to a broad problem that feminism can’t fix. Inequality exists on both sides of this coin, and only evening out one will still leave you with rough edges.
How Can We Bridge the Gap?
Well, first of all, we need to compromise. Actually try to understand the viewpoint of the other side. We won’t get anywhere by attacking each other. Of course, I realize all of this is cliche, but it’s true.
Maybe tribalism is natural. Maybe it’s the destined path for humanity. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to fight it. If we allow emotions to base our “rational” thinking, our thoughts are inherently no longer rational.
The hallmark of a successful social revolution is the way in which it’s accomplished. Take the civil right’s movement or the Indian independence movement. Heck, even the Glorious Revolution is a great example. Revolutions are glorious, not because of the eventual goal, but because of how that goal is achieved.
According to Jessica Valenti, the definition of feminism is “a movement for gender justice — for social, political and economic equality of all women.”
If that’s really the message of feminism, Jessica, let’s actually try to value everybody’s opinion equally, regardless of gender.
