For many, the feminist movement has struggled to shake off the perception that its relevance in the 21st century is limited. Photo: Indymedia
Rachael Roden | Contributing Writer
International’s Women’s Week took place at the beginning of this month in Trinity to coincide with International Women’s Day on 8th March. Its pull was marginal to say the least, odd when roughly half of the population is female. I don’t think I even heard it mentioned in conversation and when I did the context was ‘it’s so silly to have a women’s week when there’s no men’s week’. A few lone rangers put badges on their Facebook profile saying ‘This is what a Feminist looks like’. What they look like to me in 2013 is a rare specimen. If you asked me whether my female friends are feminists – not to mention males, my initial reaction would be no. Bizzare when Feminism in its simplest form is equality between the genders, politically, socially economically. Why is it that our generation just doesn’t have any inclination or desire to proclaim themselves as feminists when there is still so much to be done?
Lena Dunham of the hit HBO series, Girls, addressed what feminism is in an interview recently. ‘Do you believe that women should be paid the same for doing the same jobs? Do you believe that women should be allowed to leave the house? Do you think that women and men both deserve equal rights? Great, then you’re a feminist.’ This is it – what feminism means, pure and simple. Women should be equal to men – although while I struggle to think of many of my contemporaries who I could label as being feminists I struggle to think of many who don’t believe this. Why is it such a dirty word? Why is there the perception that feminism is somehow unattractive? Why do we feel that to say we are feminists requires us to believe in some sort man hating political doctrine? Are our lives so gender balanced that we see no point in tying ourselves to an ideology we perceive to be outdated?
Why are we all so afraid to call ourselves feminists? In the 21st century the majority of university students haven’t come into contact with the sort of inequality, which propelled individuals of previous generations into action. Whether educated in a single sex or co-educational environment the education we receive is generally on par with males, increasingly we can play the same sports as them, take the same subjects as them and socialise with them. In Ireland the CAO system judges us on the points we receive meaning there is no gender bias when it comes to entrance to third level. Education wise our time has been relatively void of discrimination on a gender basis so although if asked whether or not we believe in equal rights for men and women we will of course say yes there appears to be little need to go around proclaiming ourselves feminists. Its redundant right? The glass ceiling has been broken. Why would we label ourselves something used to refer to hairy legged, man-hating, underwear burning females who advocated tasting your own menstrual blood.
But here’s the thing, you may kill yourself all the way through college, land that dream job and believe you’re on your way to way to that corner office. Who needs feminism? It’s the 21st century; you can have it all and wear LA Perla while you’re at it, right? Sadly the statistics aren’t in our favor. Although females currently outnumber males in business administration and law courses in Irish universities, the proportion of women in top quoted companies across the EU is 3% and only one in ten company board members is a woman. Planning on conquering the finance world? Well there isn’t a single female governor of any national central bank in the EU. Although at graduate level the gender balance is often equal, the equilibrium begins to tip the higher up you get – making feminism pretty relevant I’d say.
These are circumstances however that as university students we haven’t yet come into contact with, so on these terms the lack of a push towards feminism is arguably justifiable. Yet we all encounter sexism on a daily basis so why is it that we are happy to take it lying down. The Everyday Sexism Project launched by Laura Bates in April of last year provides a platform for women worldwide to submit their experiences of minor sexist jibes to cases of major sexual harassment. The project currently has over 33,000 followers on twitter with over 20,000 entries chronicling stories of what some may deem inoffensive banter to serious violations of human rights and in most countries the law. A number of the entries would resonate with most girls, casual groping in nightclubs catcalls and whistles on the street, lewd propositions on the train. For most of us this sort of misogyny is perhaps so inherent in our society it is almost a norm and maybe we don’t recognise that in the 21st century, this is where feminism is still so relevant – socially and culturally. Because although legislatively we have come a long way, culturally we have a lot further to go.
This is perhaps another factor in the lack of pull towards feminism, a misinterpretation of what it stands for today. We don’t associate feminism as being a movement to combat the sexism we experience on a daily basis. There is recognition that certain professional spheres such as finance and law are male dominated. However this doesn’t provoke much reaction perhaps because not everyone wishes to enter those fields and there is also plenty of examples of women succeeding in what can be perceived as a ‘mans world’. So what’s the problem if it’s possible to get a top job in a bank and be a woman? Why should we all be feminists if many of us don’t want to succeed in a realm perceived as masculine? Betty Friedan’s ‘The Feminine Mystique’ doesn’t overly resonate with our generation because we can’t necessarily identify with her anger at being pent up in the home. We live in a generation where we have the freedom to choose our career and although undesirable, the sexism we encounter on a daily basis is probably something we can laugh off. But is this really how it should be? Should we have to work doubly hard to get our dream jobs because of our gender? Should we not have the freedom to walk down the street without being propositioned or cross the dance floor in a nightclub without being groped?
Over the past two months two successful women declared themselves not to be feminists. Carla Bruni, former supermodel and wife of Nicholas Sarkozy said she wasn’t a feminist because ‘I love family life, I love doing the same thing everyday’. Then Mary Berry of ‘The Great British Bake-Off’ declared that I love it when men say ‘I’ll get your coat’ or ‘I’ll look after you’ or offer you a seat on the bus. I’m thrilled to bits. I’m not a feminist.” In fact, “feminism is a dirty word”. Both comments lead you very much to believe that Feminism is not only the preserve of the workingwoman but exclusively of the workingwoman in male dominated environments. Both Bruni and Berry have done just fine without feminism so why would Bruni tarnish that sexy Gallic insouciant cool reputation of hers with such a dirty word? As for Berry, she’s declared she likes men and as we know she enjoys being in kitchen making cakes, completely incompatible with Feminism, right? So too do many of our generation fail to associate with feminism because they get on fine without it.
Some may argue that the sexism we experience in the Western world is completely manageable and that women should just suck it up, work harder and take those catcalls as compliments. But what about other cultures, what about India a society where such little value is given to women to women that intances of rape take place every 20 minutes? Sure we many may consider we’ve come far enough and that feminism is no longer necessary but even we if we are happy to accept the status quo in our own society at the very least as a show of solidarity to those societies which are legislatively far behind our own we should call ourselves feminists.
The dangerous legacy of the militant feminists is often perceived as revolting among our generation. The continuing perpetuation of the myth that being a feminist means behaving like a man. Unless you want to work in a male environment then what relevance does it really have? If you want family life rather than a high-powered career, it doesn’t apply surely. This lack of unity and failure to apply the basic feminist ideology of equality not only politically and economically but socially also is surely the greatest threat to feminism in the 21st century. We need to appreciate what feminism really means and stop disassociating ourselves from it because we like men, or we like baking cakes or we like wearing make up. Surely we all want equality between the sexes. The feminist pioneers fought for the legislative rights we have today as women and although yes, many did view the home as a prison and thought freedom was to be found in the mans world of work, that is no longer the case we have much more freedom to choose our own path (though there is still some way to go) of individual fulfillment and if like Bruni we chose family life we must recognize that that to have the option was granted to us by those women who had the courage to fight. The very least we can do in return is have the courage to call ourselves feminists.
