Revolution from within

Feminism needs a new public enemy: You.

I had one of these discussions lately.
Someone had made a remark about my career choices: “Now you’re finally a woman getting a degree in something reasonable (engineering) and then she chooses to do something shallow on the very edge of her profession (journalism).”
I fretted and fumed. The distinction reasonable/shallow maddened me. And even more so the fact that a man wouldn’t have had to deal with that remark. And if I’m really honest, it also maddened me a tiny little bit that I even cared about that stupid remark.

This was exactly what I discussed with a friend later, still full of anger. Why do I have to deal with suchlike assessments of my choices: Womens’ professions = women = shallow, mens’ professions = men = reasonable?
My friend gazed at me uncomprehendingly. Honestly, he said, that’s a daring interpretation. All I can tell is that guy wanted to know why you’re studying to become an engineer if you want to become something completely different.
Maybe, I said. But shallow, reasonable — those are assessments of my choice!
But how’s that connected to men and women?, he inquired.
See, I responded, this kind of sexism is buried so deeply in our subconsciousnesses, it’s become so subtle that you can’t even sense it. You can’t, because you’re not constantly confronted with it! You perceive that remark as harmless because you don’t always have to deal with suchlike remarks!
Well than please explain it to me, he demanded. Make that subtle sexism obvious to me, so I’m able to see it too.

Too subtle to explain

This was where I stumbled. And that wasn’t the first time. There was a time when I failed to explain the difference between men and women being judged by their appearances. In the end, the only remaining valid difference was: It’s been happening to women for a way longer time than to men.
Nobody would even care about the shape of Michelle Obama’s biceps if she was male!, I had claimed.
Really, my dialog partner replied, and what about Donald Trump’s haircut?
That’s an exception, I said.
And that’s a truly weak argument, a voice in my head whispered maliciously. Oh shut up, I thougt.

Feminism has had some huge breakthroughs within the last decades. While there are still some issues left, we achieved the majority of basic conditions for gender equality. Women are allowed to vote, to attend high schools and colleges, they are allowed to become pregnant when they wish to, they are allowed to work full-time. Then what still holds us back sometimes?
At the risk of making myself unpopular: More often than we think, it’s us. We ourselves hold us back. Because we’ve made ourselves comfy in our favorite stereotype:

The puppet

Everybody loves the puppet — it looks nice and never utters anything uncomfortable. Puppets cannot influence the consequences of their decisions, so they abandon decisionmaking altogehter until something bothers them. If something bothers them, they complain and hope for someone with more influence ist going to change things soon.

What a cliché!, you sigh. Nobody’s like that in reality.
I agree, but why do we sometimes think as if we were?

The problem is in our heads

The truth is: Nobody forces me to care about assessments that I do not agree with. Nobody can. This holds even more to when it comes to accepting other people’s assessments as my own.
If I cannot explain what I perceive as subtle sexism, no matter how hard I try; if “but it bothers me more than you” is all I have to offer, then maybe that’s already the problem: It bothers me. The problem is inside my head. By this, I don’t mean to say: It’s not there. All I want to say is: It has to be treated differently.

In this case, we don’t need a feminist revolution of social perspection in order to make “shallow” careers more male and women “reasonable”, no matter what decisions they make. It always feels like a strong political message if you demand social perception to change. But all it’s boiling down to is us accepting our fluffy, comfy stereotype of a puppet: We first accept other’s assessments (my career choice is in a shallow, female area) and then complain about them (public perception is sexist!). And then we wait until somebody changes something.

The problem with puppets is this: as long as they exist, caring about other’s assessments and accepting them as their own, these assessments become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Women will end up in womens’ professions, and they will judge their own professions as shallow and somehow worse.
And why should any male judge my own decision as reasonable if I don’t even do it myself? Why should I depend on him liking my assessments better in order to like them myself?

And what about men?

As always in feminism, this is not an isolated womens’ problem. Men are sometimes accomodated in their own stereotype. Meet

The puppeteer

The puppeteer needs to take initiative. Always. Otherwise, nobody acts. But he does, and he is measured by his actions. Nobody pays attention to the puppeteer’s feelings — otherwise, he delivered a bad puppet show. Also, it’s not important to him how his puppets feel. What people see is what the puppets do, and that he has under control.

Sounds platitudinous? It is, to the same extent as the puppet is. But how is this supposed to be comfortable to accept?
Let’s take the debate about saying no: If a woman says she doesn’t want to be hit on, or she doesn’t want sex, men have to act accordingly. Always.
But, the puppeteer likes to argue, how’s that supposed to work? There is a huge gray area in between: See, I need to take initiative. Even if she plays hard-to-get — in the end, she wants it as much as I do. Puppets want to be conquered, right?

I don’t want to dive into that debate, but I think you got the point: Men have the same responsibilities when it comes to reflecting their own thought patterns.
Puppets can’t exist without puppeteers: Because then, they’re suddenly forced to take responsibility for their own decisions.
Puppeteers can’t exist without puppets: Because then, they have to arrange with others who act as they please.

Feminist revolution from within

Social perception is a mash of individuals’ perceptions. As long as puppets only recite perceptions of others, that mash is going to have a pretty stale flavor. The key to changing social perception (which the puppet hopes for) is already in its hand: It needs to recognize its own thoughts as stereotyped, laugh at itself and take responsibilty for its own decisions. It needs to talk about its decisions and the underlying assessments. If all those puppets begin to stir their own thoughts instead of their puppeteers’ thoughts into society’s thought-mash, it would take on an entirely new flavor.

Feminism needs new public enemies: Ourselves.

As soon as we come across some kind of gender inequality that feels like gender injustice, we could start with investigating if maybe the roots are within our heads. Let’s stop seeing puppeteers everywhere which allegedly force us to act like puppets. Let’s first stop acting like puppets.
Nobody is going to change social perception in our favor if we don’t even do it ourselves.
Let’s also expose puppet- or puppeteer-like thinking in others, and sharply criticize it. It’s no peccadillo to act like a puppet or puppeteer.

Problems outside of our heads

Of course there is gender injustice that cannot be tackled efficiently with the aforementioned methods. This holds true for men and women, but possibly a little more often for women — for simple historical reasons.
For instance, it’s no coincidence that high positions are mostly held by men. Historically, women weren’t able to work at all, so naturally, there were only men in all positions. Now, a phenomen called homosocial co-optation (homogenous groups like to replace free positions with candidates which are “socially similar” to the group; also see this text by Laura Roeder) makes it harder for women to get in, rendering the male dominance in leading positions a self-sustaining system. 
This is nobody’s fault (at least not of the poeple who are still alive), but it’s still unfair and won’t change without intervention from the outside, such as political incentives for gender balance.

Fight the puppets!

Even in 2016, there is gender injustice. Sometimes it’s so subtle that it’s hard too explain to the opposite sex. In these cases let’s stop wasting our energy by trying.

Puppets and puppeteers are not victims of social perception and common thought patterns. They are the cause. They deserve to be feminism’s new public enemies.

It is important for us to recognize puppets’ and puppeteers’ thought patterns.

And that we sharply criticize them.

Most sharply in ourselves.