A former student, now in college, posted on FaceBook that she believes women who claim they are not feminists don’t love themselves. My immediate reaction was, “Wait! We have to talk about this!” I read through the flurry of responses provoked by the comment, but had to give it some serious thought before weighing in.
Feminism is an inherently complicated topic, simply because the word is likely to evoke different responses from anyone you ask. It’s a fluid term that’s tricky to pin down as times change and priorities shift. I consulted Merriam-Webster to have a baseline, but it merely said, “feminism: the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities: organized activity in support of women’s rights and interests.” Wow, that’s it?
When I taught the aforementioned student and her peers in high school, I remembered reserving the feminist poets on our Advanced Placement Spanish Literature reading list for the end of the course. I wanted my class of young women to emerge full of confidence, to go boldly into the world and do the great things they were destined to do. I wanted them not to doubt their capabilities. I wanted others to see them transparent of gender and color so they wouldn’t dare doubt them, either.
I knew these young women would deliver. Their fierce debates in class assured me they were steeling themselves for a future in which their identities would suffer no breach that could undermine who they are and what they stand for. I am proud of them for their determination and commitment to fulfill their goals and dreams unhampered by constraints.
But not every woman is as privileged in terms of the support they receive at home and in the classroom. Often, young women are beaten down by their circumstances, by unrelenting forces in their lives that undermine their potential to gather up the strength and energy it takes to stand up and fight for oneself. I don’t think these women don’t love themselves; I think they just keep getting pushed down by economic, patriarchal, and social circumstances. Most insidious of all is the self-doubt that moves in and takes up residence in the psyche, undermining a woman’s resolve to change their destinies at every pass. These women need help.
Inadvertently, and by that I mean without a feminist “agenda”, I wrote an example of such a case in “House Key” in which Kelly decides to change her circumstances. Hers is an example of self-determination, of a down-trodden young woman forging her own identity after reading one of the stories on the AP reading list in which a young woman fights patriarchal suppression. Without nurturing, help and encouragement, Kelly may have been tempted to relinquish her potential for freedom and success.
A different type of help arrived for many women in 1977 with the release of “The Women’s Room” by Marilyn French. Still a top-seller years later, I read it in college because I wanted to understand what the fuss was about. I loaned my copy to a male friend who was subsequently outraged by it. He stopped talking to me, so I’ll never know if he was angry for women or against them. Though the book impacted my views regarding the proscribed roles of women in American society, the message I had already internalized was quite different.
Former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop gave the commencement address at my high school graduation. His message was beautiful, kind, and full of wisdom. My take-away was that women could have it all: we could have careers and raise families, too, though urging us not to forego family for the sake of career. I was so relieved. I felt like I had been given permission to follow my heart. Educated in preparation for a big career, what I wanted most was a big family. I heard I could still have both.
Sorry, not so easy. Yes, legions of women manage having both, successfully; however, there is a hefty price. Many days I felt like juggling career and family was like running through La Guardia to catch a departing plane with one high heel snapped off. There were two outcomes for my efforts: hurt myself and still miss the plane, or; still hurt myself but make the plane and suffer through the day. It was a no-win. Herein lies the feminist backlash.
The bottom line is that many women work more to earn less than male counterparts, and work harder to prove they can do just as well as men in the workforce. The likelihood is these women perform better all along because they are trying so much harder. Even so, women generally don’t get rewarded with perks that matter, like free quality daycare or ample maternity leave. That said, the recent announcement by Netflix to give parents up to a year maternity leave is a step in the right direction. Finally. The reviews are mixed, but we still had to wait until the twenty-first century!
Despite trends to make the workplace more family-friendly for the new generation of young families, there is a more sinister aspect to the feminist backlash worth considering. It is that in the process, feminism has served to emasculate men by neutralizing gender roles. Some of the arguments I’ve read online could easily have been uttered by Archie Bunker on “All in the Family” but others make valid points. Still, I cringe when men call their spouse “the wife” as if she requires no name, or when they invariably say they are “babysitting” if said “wife” is unavailable — as if they are doing the world a big favor by minding their own children.
Feminism has not only emasculated men but, paradoxically, has served to de-feminize women. I’ve worked for women I very much admired. They were good at business, tough on everyone in the conference room, men and women alike. Their confident hand-slapping on the table got results and we were all successful. I learned a lot from them, most notably what I didn’t want to become: a woman in a man’s suit. A friend pointed out that acting like a man devalues the woman, defining her as less than a man for having to behave like one. Women can be powerful and successful by embodying everything they represent, without being diminished by emulating men.
Perhaps that is why feminism, however you define it, is not a choice all women embrace. The women who deny it may not wish to have their roles defined in relationship to men in the first place. They stand tall by virtue of their independence, strength, and fortitude. They can accomplish whatever they set out to do with or without men. These women value the inherent power of their femininity. My friend said it most succinctly, that in pursuing feminism we risk diminishing our value as givers of life. That’s a powerful distinction. Yet we risk squandering the sexual power that we have by allowing ourselves to be objectified as the result of our sexual freedom. A freedom that, hard-won in the 60s and 70s, still comes with a double-standard. Today, many women still relate feminism to the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 70’s.
Things are different now than they were over forty years ago, but some of the arguments for rejecting “feminism” still hold true. Son perdurables: They persist and they endure.The most compelling explanation I have found regarding women of color, in particular, is by Toni Morrison in an August 22, 1971article for The New York Times, “What the Black Woman Thinks About Women’s Lib; The black woman and Women’s Lib”. The article was reprinted in Morrison’s book, “What Moves at the Margin”, a solid read I strongly recommend. The gist is that the problems of white women are vastly different from the problems of women of color; that not only are they viewed differently, but that they view themselves differently. The sociological backlash is pretty harsh and still stings.
A more recent July 28, 2013 article by Anthea Butler in RH Reality Check, “Women of Color and Feminism: A History Lesson and Way Forward“, makes us painfully aware. Butler advances the argument that women of color may not be “comfortable” embracing feminism that is historically reserved for white women’s issues. Although women’s issues, such reproductive rights, in particular, are the concern of all women, Butler contends that feminism has yet to cross “ethnic lines” to form true solidarity among women of all classes and races. In response, many Latina and African American women embraced the values of the Womanist or Mujerista movement that arose in the 80’s in response to white feminism.
I suppose coming of age in the seventies helped define my views of feminism, a term that probably evolves with each decade. I am interested to learn what feminism means to women now. I hope others will weigh in, but for the moment, I want to believe that in their heart of hearts, all women truly love themselves.
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