Written by Vanshika Todi
“Is this really the cause of your generation? Safe spaces and trigger warnings and microaggressions? That’s the trench you’re willing to die in?”
— Sam Harris, author, neuroscientist, philosopher
When asked why his readership was predominantly male, Sam Harris commented that criticism of religion tends to be angry and that men generally identify more with the angry rhetoric than women do. What ensued was a wave of criticism, to the point where women came up to him at events to let him know how sexist he was. Caught in the cross-hairs of the feminist radar, he responded with the above quote, something that stuck in the minds of many.
In short, Sam says, this is what our generation has come to — we’re willing to take things out of context, willing to risk lives of entire factions of people, without getting our facts straight. We make a mountain out of the molehill of domestic casual sexism and call that ‘feminism’ on the streets.
According to the media, my grandparents, and a civics textbook in grade 10, feminism laid out a specific set of beliefs —
- Everywhere you look there is constant oppression due to the patriarchy,
- Masculinity is always considered to be superior, and
- The only differences between men and women are figments of our cultural imagination, not based on biology or science.
It is true that throughout most of modern history, women have been confined to the domestic sphere, and public life was reserved for men. As such, the above beliefs probably seem true at first glance. But what we fail to consider is that this convention itself became a form of oppression, handed down from generations to generations. In the wrong hands of misandrists and misogynists, it is these popular beliefs that enabled them to create a pseudo-bubble of suppression around them and their community, to lead the fight only for personal gain. And with that, a set of beliefs surrounding feminists came up as well; feminists are a bunch of strong angry women, who want to control the world by putting men down.
But according to Britannica, feminism is the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes.
It’s here we must take a trip down history lane, and revisit some unsung heroes.
There have been multiple ‘waves’ of feminism in human history. But even before we consider the first wave of feminism, there are numerous examples in history of how the movement laid its roots slowly and steadily. Recent findings in history, for example, show Cleopatra to have been a kind of a badass in Ancient Egypt. While several parts of Egypt and Greece saw women equal to men, there was still some backlash to be met with. Roman consul Cato is remembered to have said, “If they (women) are victorious now, what will they not attempt? As soon as they begin to be your equals, they will have become your superiors.”
Going forward a few centuries, during the Renaissance, French author Olympe de Gouges wrote the Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (“Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the [Female] Citizen”) in 1791. This was in response to Swiss-born French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had portrayed women as silly and frivolous creatures, born to be subordinate to men in his Declaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen (“Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”). Plenty of people thought the same as him, regardless of their gender.
As such, when the first wave of feminism began in the Western world, it was centered around the legal rights for women, particularly their right to vote.
Fast forward to the second wave: The notion of women rights movement took root as a civil rights movement. Women of all ages and circumstances were swept up in debates about gender, discrimination, and the nature of equality.
This was bound to happen sooner or later. In the US, women’s concerns were on Pres. John F. Kennedy’s agenda even before this public discussion began, that’s how inevitable it was. But the discussion also documented a national pattern of employment discrimination, unequal pay, legal inequality, and meager support services for working mothers that needed correction through legislative guarantees. And soon, the same would apply to the rest of the world.
In India, around the same time, a conference of the Women’s Liberation Movement was organized in Pune. This had a socio-political and cultural base that was larger than ever before, and included young educated women, professionals, writers, teachers, industrial working class women, women workers from the unorganized sector, temple prostitutes and tribal women. All of them participated in the deliberations and highlighted their demands. The commonplace atrocities struck a chord in most women’s own experience, be it with family, on the streets, in the workplace or in political groups. Stree Mukti Sangathana in Bombay and Progressive Organization of Women in Hyderabad were formed in 1975. Young people of that period had not participated in the nationalist movement. Yet, faced with multiple crises — economic, social and political, along with corruption, drought, inflation, and unemployment– the disenchanted youth responded with the only tool they had — protest.
They believed that like casteism and communalism, sexism is also one of the most effective weapons utilized by the ruling class to divide the masses. Hence, citizens have to fight against caste systems, religious chauvinism and sexism simultaneously. It was a basic belief that economic independence of women was the minimum necessary condition for women’s liberation but it was not nearly enough. One has to fight for women’s rights in socio-cultural, educational and political fields to achieve total liberation. Many of those members of women’s rights groups started to call themselves feminists. They did not like the term ‘social worker’ for themselves. This itself led to much debate and segregation of the masses that still wanted a unified goal.
Those who believe that legal reforms can change women’s position were to be known as liberal feminists. Those who consider men as responsible for the plight of women became radical feminists. The newest class as of today, are those who situate women’s oppression in the overall socio-economic and cultural reality are known as socialist feminists. Socialist feminism believes in establishing linkages between women’s movement and broader socio-political movement by working in collaboration with various types of mass organizations.
These powerful movements around the world became the second base for a new kind of feminism— Intersectional Feminism, the term first coined by American professor Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989. It is the study of intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. It concludes that people of any sex experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. Intersectionality challenges the dominant idea of feminism which is overtly white/upper-class/ableist/cis/heterosexual and which fails to take into account the marginalized standpoints. An important aspect that one needs to remember while talking of intersectionality is also ‘privilege’. Patterns of oppression are not just interrelated but are influenced by these interrelations. For example, race, class, and gender, influence and intersect with each other.
And this distinction is important, for it was this indication that transformed the face of the ideas of feminism we see today. Bringing about the iconoclasm the movement needed, establishing a story of inclusion and diversity on the foundation of equality for the sexes.
Mona Charen, author of Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch With Science, Love and Common Sense said in an interview;
“So I join others in calling myself, I suppose, an equity feminist, believing in full equality between the sexes, but I don’t necessarily agree that we are the same. We’re not. We have important differences. And many of the choices that women freely make tend to get attributed to lingering prejudice — glass ceilings, leaky pipelines and that sort of thing — whereas I think women make choices about prioritizing their families that ought to be upheld and honored and not denigrated. And we shouldn’t see it as a problem that those are the choices women in wealthy countries freely make.”
Modern feminism could not have been defined better. We can talk history, about the globalization of the movement, the myths and the facts, but even after all these teasers the show must go on. We have only scratched the surface, maybe put a noticeable dent; but have not yet pierced into the core of society and pulled out its guts to say — Eureka! Now women win! That, as well, is an erroneous exclamation, it’s everything this movement should not stand for. Modern feminism doesn’t want to hold one sex above another, it doesn’t want any gender to live above men or vice versa, and it definitely should not tolerate exclusion.
As the ideas of the movement are evolving, so are those who resonate with the cause. That what we should be fighting against is a system, an age old superstition and misogynistic villains. Sure, I’d like to be uplifted too, but what pray, be the cost?
While all these movements have come with their own causes, it is very easy to use them out of context. As was with the case with Sam Harris, taken out of context and laden with microaggressions, the movement soon turns toxic in nature.
Toxic feminism should not become a tool for some f̶e̶m̶i̶n̶i̶s̶t̶s people to use as a way to beat down others because of what they are wearing, saying, doing, or sometimes even innocently portraying, as being offensive to them and women at large.
Toxicity is a handicap to the feminist movement, ending discussions that revolve around the topic of gender equality. It is road block that prevents individuals from wanting to identify as whoever they please.
The matter at hand, however, is quite separate from this. It is a political, social, and economic equality we seek, not an opportunistic one, or something to hold others back.
Looking upon the situation on a large scale, it seems insurmountable — an overwhelming epidemic in our society. And I am fully convinced that, on some level, resistance will always exist. We will never entirely purge it from our world, as much as that saddens or awakens some of us.
However, there are things we can do — things that begin at the very birth of our daughters and our sons, our nieces and our nephews. The mind of a child is malleable, capable of receiving so much information — and we must not forget that misogyny/misandry is a learned behavior. The same also applies to the indifference towards it, as well as the willingness to accept it as the status quo. We must thwart it by teaching empowering things; teach unlimited possibilities instead of gender roles. Tell our daughters and our nieces and all the young girls we know that they are smart and strong and fierce as they are beautiful and caring and sensitive. Let’s show our sons and our nephews and our friends’ sons, that everyone deserves respect, kindness and opportunity, regardless of gender.
Because I truly believe that we can do so much better, and we owe it not just to ourselves, but also the future generations that deserve to live in a world in which the playing field is level for everyone.
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