femme
Wait, What’s a Feminist Again? An Addendum
Image via Dissent Magazine
The author was just listening to White Ferrari by Frank Ocean, if you wanted to know
Allow me to clarify: At its core, this is an issue of revival and extinction. As we are acclimating to third-wave feminism, we are watching young women lose sight of the importance of maintaining and driving forward the progress that our predecessors fought for. We are watching radical activists no longer align themselves with feminism because they see no point in supporting a movement so toothless and so mainstream that it has circled back into supporting the patriarchy. Writer and activist Jessa Crispin posits “Feminism…has become a self-serving brand popularized by C.E.O.s and beauty companies, [a] fight to allow women to participate equally in the oppression of the powerless and the poor. [A] narcissistic reflexive thought process: I define myself as feminist and so everything I do is a feminist act.”
Because of this, the most powerless women in our society, who should be able to rely on feminism for support, are suffering. Women of color and poor women die in droves from sex trafficking and medical discrimination, all while makeup companies like CoverGirl use the guise of feminism to sell their products, further cementing the idea of feminism as a consumable, mainstream label, rather than an actual political movement.
The writing that exists to challenge modern feminism is making strides to slowly introduce more radical aspects of feminism to young women that identify with the movement. However, progress is still slow, probably because so many people are leery of associating themselves with feminism, despite its wildly milquetoast current nature. In a recent survey of women aged 18-50+, 50% of respondents felt that feminism has not helped them personally. Women were also highly reluctant to say that the label of feminist “describes them very well.” However, another survey found that while about 80% of European adults surveyed believe men and women should be equal in every way, only about 30% of respondents considered themselves feminist, implying a strong objection to the label but not the principle it represents. So why is this? Well, the researcher found that respondents associated the label of feminist with man-hating and lesbianism*, as well as hatred of femininity (an interesting association, considering that feminism’s greatest contribution this decade has been selling women makeup).
With regards to that, who calls themselves feminists? About 20% of women. Feminism in the US is most common among millennial white women, with 26% of them identifying as a feminist, compared to 23% of Asian women, 21% of African American women, and 12% of Hispanic women. A majority of women surveyed said that feminism has improved the lives of white women, while only 46% of African American women felt that feminism has improved the lives of women of color. Among, socioeconomic divisions, it was found that the label of feminist appealed less to working-class women and women who were not college educated.
One has to wonder why modern feminism seems to only be serving the interests of those who occupy uniquely privileged positions in society. We can see the direct results of this manifest in our current era of feminism, with the label of feminist becoming blending in seamlessly with mainstream consumerism. In order to keep the culture of feminist revolutionary action alive, we need to reclaim the term “feminist” in order to assert that it is a movement meant to uplift women, specifically those that are the most marginalized.
*The author is aware that in her previous entry she associated her lesbianism and apathy for men with her feminist beliefs. Don’t worry, she is drafting a Twitter apology as we speak.
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