femme
The author was just listening to Love Me More by Mitski, if you wanted to know
A common theme in all that I have discussed so far is that feminism has had an image problem for the last couple of decades. To make it more palatable, modern feminists have watered it down to the point of complete inefficiency and twisted it to be as non-threatening and mainstream as possible, which only serves to serve the patriarchy. Excuse my crudeness, but the fact that so many women have convinced themselves that feminism can simply be choosing to uphold patriarchal norms, is a patriarchal wet dream. None of us win just because a select few are happy with delusion.
In a previous blog post, I discussed Jessa Crispin’s 2017 book1 Why I Am Not A Feminist and how closely it matches my own viewpoints regarding modern feminism. Crispin is full of critiques for today’s feminists, but her central philosophy is that modern feminism has so heavily marketed itself to be harmless and universal that it’s become the shadow of a political movement, lacking any real power or grit, and instead serving to make individual women feel better when they can slap on a “#feminist” label to any of their actions. Crispin wants to make it clear that she does not align herself with such a pathetic, toothless movement, and points out how this “rebranding” supports the patriarchy rather than works against it.
One would wonder why “third-wave” feminists would take this approach. How did we get to this point, you might ask? The answer isn’t complex, it’s just regular old misogyny. There is no greater indication that we live under patriarchy than the sheer hatred and ridicule reserved for feminists and the feminist movement, stemming all the way back to the Suffragette era. It has always been a threat to the unequal status quo, even in its current form.
The word “feminist” is so threatening that by default it has become laden with negative connotations. A survey2 conducted in 2008 showed that college students were likely to support gender equality but did not identify as feminists. Furthermore, they were likely to define feminists as “one who supports female superiority, dislikes men, discriminates based on gender, has negative personal characteristics, and is lesbian or butch.” This is, by far, not a new phenomenon.
All images via Ken Florey Suffrage Collection / Getty Images
This type of thinking is what inspires 30% of men3 and 17% of women to believe women’s rights have come at the expense of men, even though there is unquestionably nothing in our society that promotes so-called “female superiority.” By painting feminism as extreme and ugly and undesirable, the status quo pushes young feminists who don’t want to be seen as ugly lesbian extremists to temper the movement, to make it as approachable and mainstream and marketable as possible, believing that this will ultimately help the movement. After all, no men want to support ugly lesbian extremists, even if they reluctantly believe in some form of gender equality. Thus, we get to today’s feminism which has been defanged and declawed even though the threat is alive and well, leading passionate, dedicated feminists like Jessa Crispin to denounce feminism, and write a whole book on its sins. This is, of course, a simplification of a several decades-long process of debilitation that includes complex discussions of race, class, capitalism, the sexual revolution, the latest pop stars, the 2012-2018 political climate, and so much more than I can name off the top of my head, but think of this as a well-meaning summary. And do your own research, too.
1. Crispin, J. (2017). Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto. Melville House Publishing.
2. Houvouras, S., & Scott Carter, J. (2008). The F word: College students’ definitions of a feminist. Sociological Forum, 23(2), 234–256. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2008.00072.x
3. Horowitz, J. M., & Igielnik, R. (2021, June 25). A century after women gained the right to vote, majority of Americans see work to do on gender equality. Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/07/07/a-century-after-women-gained-the-right-to-vote-majority-of-americans-see-work-to-do-on-gender-equality/
femme 