Things Women Do (or Don’t Do) that Spit in the Face of Feminism
How the actions/inactions of some women are jeopardizing the feminist movement.
Women have spent hundreds of years tied up in metaphorical chains. Yet, when (finally) it appears the shackles are coming off, there are women who want to drag us back to the cell.
Enough, women. Enough. I’m calling out your behavior and begging you to stop undoing the decades of progress made by our predecessors.
However, this article is less about shouting down women and more a rallying cry to action.
If you’re a woman (or identify as a woman), you’re a feminist by default and need to understand how your choices can negatively impact the rest of us.* You have a responsibility.
EVERYONE should be a feminist for real change to happen, but women must lead the way. This, of course, also includes me.
Here are some things women are doing that hurt our cause.
1. You don’t vote (Like, what the actual f*ck?)
I’m not talking about women who might miss a poll here and there because it was either inaccessible to them at the time or more pressing issues prevented them.
This I understand and have been ‘guilty’ of myself once or twice. That’s life, baby.
No, what I’m referring to here are the women who continually and deliberately don’t claim their vote, year after year. This I can’t stand.
Our feminist predecessors sacrificed their lives (literally, in some cases) to secure your vote. Many never got to see the day women could vote because they cared more that we, their daughters, could.
I’m proud to be a woman. I’m even prouder that I grew up near where the UK suffragette movement began - in Manchester, England.
As you’ll see from the video above, Emily Wilding Davison famously lost her life while trying to attach a protest banner to the king’s horse during the Epsom Derby in 1913.
You can read more about this trailblazing woman here:
It’s sacrifices like this which should be the fuel women need to step up and speak out in elections. We owe it to them, we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our daughters.
If you don’t know who to vote for, educate yourself. If it’s difficult for you to get to a polling station, request a postal vote or appoint a proxy. But if you simply don’t care, I have no words.
2. You alter your image to cater to the male gaze (and you’re not in the sex industry)
Women who choose* to work within the sex industry will clearly want to cater their business** image to the male gaze. However, these women aren’t who I’m taking about.
*Choice is key here. Any woman forced into the sex industry needs support, not judgement.
**Women in the sex industry by choice are running a business. Their image, in this sense, is like a uniform and doesn’t necessarily represent their personal image outside of work.
The women I’m referring to in this section are those who make conscious decisions about how they physically present themselves, based on how men have made them think or feel.
Sisters aren’t doing it for themselves if they’re removing body hair, cutting/coloring their tresses, or altering the way they dress all because their partner states he prefers them to look a certain way. We should make our own choices.
Guess what, a lot of this male expectation comes from the sex industry, specifically porn.
Women are being held to a standard that can be exhausting, expensive and degrading if we’re not careful, so we need to push back.
It’s all about choice.
For example, I let my armpit hair grow recently because I felt like it. My husband didn’t care and it felt empowering, but I chose to ultimately shave it because I found it itchy. My choice.
The point is, women need to really think about if they’re creating an image that caters to their own personal preferences or if it’s influenced (directly or indirectly) by the male gaze.
If you want to get a pixie cut but your partner hates the idea, ditch him not the haircut. If you like wearing baggy clothes but you think men prefer tighter fits, they’re not the men you want anyway. Stay true to you.
Or, even better:
Focus on your career, education, friends/family, health, hobbies, and all the other things you love doing. These are also part of shaping who you are as an individual, beyond your physical image.
3. Your ambition is to be a ‘stay-at-home girlfriend’ (AKA a rehashed 1950s housewife)
This new trend is incredibly misleading and scarily toxic, particularly for young girls.
It promotes the concept of being a ‘kept’ women and doesn’t take into account the risks involved for women and young girls long term.
Before I launch in here, I want to make clear that I’m not bashing all housewives, nor am I diminishing the importance of stay at home caregivers. Adopting these roles doesn’t make a woman a ‘bad feminist’ by default.
What concerns me is the number of women and young girls who seemingly aspire to have a passive existence, where they willfully throw away their autonomy in favor of luxury or false security. This truly scares me.
Such lifestyles are unhealthy and do the rest of us women a disservice. Here’s why:
According to how this trend is presented online, being a stay-at-home girlfriend (or wife) means looking immaculate, keeping a spotless home and dedicating all waking hours to maintaining a facade of perfection.
All this is done while hubby goes to work to earn the big bucks, keeping you in nice clothes and shoes, but also in invisible chains.
Here’s a newspaper article which discusses this seemingly anti-feminist trend in more depth:
In a healthy relationship, the job of housewife or stay-at-home caregiver (yes, it’s a job) is just as vital as her partner’s and the woman’s identity doesn’t solely revolve around her stay-at-home role.
I was a housewife a couple of years ago when my husband was working full time while I stayed at home doing the bulk of the chores. I was also completing my PhD, but the flexibility of my study meant I had time to juggle both roles.
One reason the current trend of women promoting passive partnership is so toxic is that it glorifies an unhealthy power imbalance, as well as undermining the true worth of women.
These women dedicate so much time to discussing and documenting their ‘perfect’ lifestyles that they forget to protect themselves for the future. Where is their Plan B?
If a relationship is balanced on such superficial foundations, it’s destined to fall down. Then what happens to these women who have put their own needs aside for their partner?
Stay-at-home girlfriends are promoting a false reality in which perfection is privileged over potential, aesthetics annihilate achievements, and task completion trumps true talent.
So, come on women (or should I say current and future feminists), let’s stop short-changing ourselves and stand in solidarity.
What would you add to this list?
Rachel Palmąka Mace is a literary fiction and creative non-fiction writer, singer, artist, spoken word performer, lapsed academic, and feminist. She is the editor of the feminist-led magazine Subtle Sledgehammer and her new project ‘Around the World with 80 Women’ (AW80W) – which shares the narratives of women from Somalia to Scotland – will be published in the autumn of 2023.
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