The Pen and the Sword

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! I am here tonight to talk about an issue that is important to me, one that is very dear to my heart, and that is feminism. Don’t run away! For those of you who are still convinced that a feminist is a hairy unattractive violently man-hating vicious bitchy evil dyke, let me enlighten you. A feminist is a person, of any possible gender descriptor, who supports the equality of women. That’s it, plain and simple. To quote an artist I’m fond of, “Feminism is looking back at the history of how women have been treated and saying, ‘That shit is BANANAS AND I WANT NONE OF IT.’” Do you think that women are just as human as men, and should be treated as such? Do you think equal rights for the sexes is a good idea? Congratulations, you’re a feminist! Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

However, not everyone who could be considered feminist by this definition chooses to identify themselves as such–more on that later–so, specifically, the people who call themselves feminists are generally people who believe in equality for women, and are actively working towards this goal. By “actively” I mean they can be doing just about anything. They can be protesting. They can be members of women’s rights organizations. They can be internet activists. They can write blogs, like the lovely Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown, who is one of my favourite bloggers and if you like feminism you should go read her because she’s great. They can be ordinary people, just trying to get on with their lives, who correct their friends when they make sexist remarks. They can sign petitions. They can write editorials. They can do just about anything to try to make the world a better place for the ladies who live in it. They don’t have to loudly declare themselves to be feminist, or not shave their armpits, or aggressively campaign on issues and get up in everyone’s faces in undesirable ways, or hate men. Lots of them are men! In fact, feminists come from every race, every walk of life, every sex or gender, every sexual orientation. They are a group of people united by a single common goal: the equality of women.

Now, the reason I have decided to talk about feminism tonight, ladies and gents, is because of a comment made to me by one singular person, one spectacularly unthinking individual who had the utter gall and sheer, horrifying idiocy to tell me that, and I quote, “feminism is the reason women still aren’t treated equally.” Think about what you have just learned, and then think about this quote. Think about it really hard. Digest it some. Does that make any sense to you? Or is that more like saying “people thinking women should have equal rights is the reason women don’t have equal rights?” Because, let me tell you, that is a lot like what it sounds like to me.

Reading this, I can assume that what she (oh yes, it was a woman who said this thing to me!) meant is that angry, man-hating women who think women should be treated not just as equals, but as superiors to men, are the reason women don’t have equal rights. At least, I hope that is what she is trying to say, because the alternative is too terrifyingly imbecilic to even consider. And, if that was in fact what she meant, then she probably has a point, because sexism against men, while sometimes an understandable reaction to very bad experiences with oppression, does absolutely nothing to further the cause for equality. But even if that’s what she meant, that is not what she said. What she said was that feminism, the support of equality itself, is why equality is not yet a reality.

And that, I think, brings me right to the crux of the issue. Words like “feminist” and “feminism” have become dirty words, associated primarily with terrifying butch lesbians who want to destroy everything that vaguely resembles a penis. I could say that this is because the people in power, the men with sex privilege who don’t want to give it up, have demonized the support of feminism so that they will be faced with less threat. This is probably true. It is also probably true that people pay the most attention to the members of any group whose views are most controversial, most offensive, and that these people are often the loudest and most visible in any case. This is why gay men are obnoxious, flamboyant drag queens who think straight people are worthless; this is why Christians are Bible-pushing, homophobic fundamentalists; this is why environmental supporters are dirty hippies who don’t wash and abhor all technological progress. This phenomenon has not skipped over feminism, and that is why so many people, even if they support equality for women, are hesitant to identify themselves as feminists. I am not ashamed to admit that I was once one of them. Well, to that I say, no more.

The cause of feminism is not going to advance by sitting down and shutting up. It never has. The early women’s rights activists are famous, and that is because they were never subtle. Getting what we want by marrying young and batting our eyelashes at our husbands does not work, because what we want is the power to make and to realize our own decisions. We’ve come a long way since feminism began, but we still have a very long way to go. And if we are going to get there, we cannot afford to keep quiet about it.

So I am here, proudly proclaiming to the world that I am a feminist. Being a feminist has nothing to do with my appearance, my sexuality, my gender, my gender presentation, my hygiene habits, my preferred lifestyle, my income, my race, or any single aspect of my personality. Being a feminist has everything to do with my firm belief that we are all humans, and we all deserve equality. It has everything to do with knowing that if we do not move forward, we are moving back; knowing that there is no middle ground in this fight, because if you do not support change, you are supporting no change. And if we are to achieve equality, no change is not acceptable. You could say that my views are radical, but the mere fact that we describe the idea that women should be treated as equal citizens as being “radical” is a sign of how fucked up our society still is.

I am a feminist, and if you are as well, I encourage you to say so. If enough people do, we can remove the stigma, and then we can finally get down to the business of fixing our screwed up world.