I’ve been wanting to blog about this for a little while now because it is something that I keep seeing and thinking about. I don’t know whether this is because I read something that highlighted it for me and then I kept seeing it (like when you get a new car and then notice the same one all the time) or whether it is something that is topical in the news at the moment. My guess is that it is both, especially due to the recent campaigns ‘I need Feminism because..’ Anyway…
I have a confession….I am a Feminist!
How many people reading this have a negative reaction to that? Think that Feminism is about women with radical views wishing to eradicate men? Or have an image of feminists as hairy, bra-burning, man-hating lesbians? Or at the very least, realise that there is a certain image of Feminism that is not entirely positive?
It is certainly something that I was subconsciously aware of. A connection with Feminism that I never really wanted to think about or concern myself with. I always thought that perhaps, people would view me through the negative stereotype of a feminist and therefore I never really let myself entertain ideas about Feminism because for me, it meant a political and academic train of thought that I did not necessarily want to be a part of. Or that there was a history and a lot of theoretical research written about Feminism and through feminist eyes that I find hard to read and difficult to digest. Post-structuralist feminist, post-modernist feminist…all the long words and the theory make my head hurt…give me something practical and easy to understand any day!
I think part of the reason is because coming from a psychological standpoint, through doing my undergraduate psychology degree and then doing a masters in research methods in psychology, my understandings of Feminism are framed in language of qualitative analysis where it is part of your researcher identity. I associate this kind of theorising with being constrained by holding a particular view and way of doing something. As someone who is very pragmatic, I like being able to accept that there might be other, more appropriate ways of looking at things. So for me, if I was to say I’m a feminist, then I automatically think that I should do things from a certain viewpoint or in a certain way which is associated with research. My epistemology if you will (i.e. feminist social constructionist…etc etc).
But it doesn’t need to be like that. That is something I have realised after reading the recent campaigns in the news, a few articles, blogs and websites and actually looking at Feminism for what it is rather than for what me (and a lot people) perceived it to be. I read this really interesting article today from Everyday Feminism which basically reiterates how I feel about Feminism. It is something I was scared of, to label myself as, because of its negative connotations. However, so much of what I believe and what I feel about society aligns itself with feminist thinking. It is NOT about usurping and dominating men.
Its about desiring equality for individuals, not just women but everyone. And despite what most people think, men can be feminists too, sexism can be directed at men as well as women. But the reality is that women are viewed as the weaker sex, they are subjected to violence, to sexism, to abuse and feel a pressure from society and from patriarchy to act, look and live in a certain way. Look at the picture below…what does that tell you?
It is clear there is a divide, it is clear that there are social norms surrounding gender roles that are dominant in society. Some people might even say that there isn’t a need for feminism any more. But I whole-heartedly disagree. And that is just coming from a Westernised viewpoint. What about the 14 year old girl who got attacked (and nearly died) because she spoke out about women’s education rights in Pakistan? I am lucky to be able to express my own view without fear of violence. The picture above and the fate of the young girl shows that it is a worldwide problem, that in other countries the state of affairs for women are so much worse than in the UK.
There is such a long way to go with gender. And honestly, there is an even longer way to go when you bring in issues of gender fluidity. Transgender people are abused, victimised and berated for being who they are. And the very thought that someone might be biologically female but mentally/psychologically male is so hard for some people to even understand let alone accept. As one of my participants told me in a focus group I ran ‘Gender is the last bastion’. So in terms of acceptance, it may be a long way off.
But in terms of Feminism and what has highlighted its importance for me has been the recent campaign ‘I need Feminism because…’ This was a project started by Cambridge University SU Women’s Campaign and Altrincham Girls School Feminist Society and became viral with people all over the world submitting their own pictures. What they basically did was go out into the town and campuses to get people to write down a reply to ‘I need Feminism because…’ Here are some of the ones that stood out for me (for lots more pictures follow the links above and go on the CUSU Facebook page)
These pictures and the campaign made me realise that there are so many issues and areas that Feminism can cover. However, it hasn’t all been positive and a couple of things I have read recently have really riled me. There was a recent article in the Guardian about what happened when a 17 year old girl set up the feminist society in her school. The behaviour of some of the boys in her school was infuriating. In response to their picture campaign, the girls in the society received lots of abuse and ridicule, details of their sex lives were posted online and they were sent threatening messages. And the school did not back them at all, instead they advised them to take down the pictures! I believe that to be worse as it perpetuates the behaviour of the young boys in reinforcing that it is okay to do what they did.
Likewise, Facebook have clearly shown why feminism is needed. They took down one of the photos of the boards because it said ‘I need feminism because…girls rule and boys suck!’ Facebook said that the picture violated the community standards. HOWEVER, this Women Action and the Media Organisation link shows what type of pictures Facebook allows. These are all pictures of horrific violence against women that have been reported to Facebook but have not been removed because it does not violate these community standards. RIDICULOUS.
For me, feminism isn’t about my research identity, its about the everyday. I have also realised that I represent feminism in my choices of TV and film. For example, after a conversation with my house-mate, I realised that in A LOT of the TV shows that I love, there is at least one strong central female character – Buffy, Alias, Nikita, Charmed, The Mentalist, Castle, Greys Anatomy, Dollhouse, the L word. A few of my favourite films do have strong female characters such as Girl Interrupted, Miss Congeniality (not the best message about image there though?), and Kill Bill. But this was a lot harder to think about off the top of my head, which is something that I have realised about the film industry. I read a really interesting interview with Ellen Page today in the Guardian where she said that only 23% of speaking roles in films today are women (she also calls herself a feminist btw). I also came across something called the Bechdel Test which is a test devised by Alison Bechdel in 1985 to see if there was gender bias in fiction. The test has three rules and a film (or fictional material) must pass all three rules to pass the test. The rules are:
1. It has to have at least two [named] women in it
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something besides a man
Surprisingly, a lot of big films fail the test including Casablanca, The Lion King, American Pie, Avatar, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, all the Lord of the Rings films, the Shawshank Redemption, the Social Network, The Shining…the list goes on. Ellen Page was talking about how hard it is to market a film for strong female characters especially in Hollywood. What is even more interesting is that quite often, a lot of the female characters are always talking about a man or a love interest of some sort. The test has made me about books and fiction and my own writing. I have a dream to get my book published but what will the success of it be (if it does get published) because the protagonist is female and a lesbian. Yes, it has the potential to be popular but more than likely in the genre of Lesbian Fiction rather than in general. It will more than likely not be in the mainstream. But then again, I am someone who is okay with not being mainstream. I feel that there needs to be more LGBT characters in fiction and more strong female characters so I will continue to write them, regardless of whether they are popular. Feminism needs to start somewhere for me, even if it is through my writing.
What thinking and writing about feminism has highlighted for me is the need to be aware. It would be easy to go into a rant about what is wrong with the world and what needs changing. But it is harder to actually do something about it. I think the first step for me now is being aware of it. Of being more aware of my own identity, which is ever-changing and developing through my experiences. I am not using this blog to tell everyone to become a feminist, but I want to at least make people think about what Feminism really is, what the state of play really looks like and to become more aware of the world around us. I am not necessarily going to be writing about feminism from a research standpoint because I am more concerned about the everyday feminism. I think that campaigns like the ones ran by Cambridge and Altrincham, interviews like Ellen Page one and raising the awareness in popular culture will have a much larger impact than writing in academia about Feminism. Purely because that is where it needs to be.
Feminism seems like a dirty word, but it isn’t. It is a word that means equality for everyone, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, age or ethnicity. It gives voices to the people that are often silenced and allows the usually noisy, ignorant people to be quiet, even for just a second.