I’m on the road at the moment so I figured I’d keep my blog alive by sharing an interesting article I read recently. The article is entitled, “A Response to ‘Women Against Feminism.’”, as seen on the “I Wanted Wings” blog.
What I liked about this post was that it asks readers to think deeper when it comes to their views on feminism, while keeping in mind how a position of privilege might taint their opinion. The article kind of harks back to two of my own previous posts, “Your Privilege is Nothing but Dumb Luck.” and “What Women Wish They Could Tell Other Women.”. I’ve included some quotes from the I Wanted Wings piece, but I do recommend you read the whole thing.
“The year is 2014. You are a white Western woman. You wake up in the morning in a comfortably sized house or flat. You have a full or part-time job that enables you to pay your rent or mortgage. You have been to school and maybe even college or university as well. You can read and write and count… Then you pick up a newspaper or go online. You read about angry women ranting about sexism and inequality. You see phrases like ‘rape-culture’ and ‘slut-shaming.’ You furrow your brow and think to yourself: ‘What are they so angry about? There is no such thing as sexism anymore.’
Now imagine this…
The year is 2014. You are a 13 year-old girl from Niger. Your stomach is swollen from the unwanted life growing inside of it. You had no choice. The father is a man in his 40s. He is a businessman. He has bought you as his wife. You were a penniless, uneducated girl when he came for you. You don’t know of any life you could have had. Neither did your family: just one less mouth for them to feed. You still have the body of a child, and it’s straining under the pressure from the one inside of you. You feel like you’re about to be split in two. You don’t wonder if you will survive the birth. A part of you doesn’t want to.”
AND:
“If you don’t think you need feminism, then that is a victory for the movement. You have fulfilled all those dreams that every suffragette being force-fed in prison and every ‘witch’ burnt at the stake dreamed you would one day.
But perhaps take a second to consider the life of the Pakistani woman who was beaten to death by her own family for marrying a man of her choosing. Or the life of the Indian woman who was raped, beaten, and murdered on a bus by a gang of men. Or the life of the little girl in Niger who was sold to a man more than twice her own age and forced to carry a baby that may kill her to deliver. Do they still need feminism?”
As mentioned, I’m traveling at the moment, but I’ll still be reading comments.
Hope you enjoyed today’s post. I love reading and responding to everyone’s comments, so feel free to leave a comment of your own.
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Image Credit: United Nation Photo
Tim Wat
August 8, 2014 - 7:21 pm ·The world is full of suffering, and pain, and injustice. Because these are difficult things to look at without blinking, my natural reaction is to spend more time focusing on the things that make me comfortable. But this is a quiet small defeat for my humanity. Living into my full humanity suggests drawing that lonely unpopular line in the sand, and trying to be the change I need to see in a sick, screwed up world. In my teaching and mentoring college students, in my music and composing, in my casual relationships, in every small space of my days.
Ian Ironwood
August 9, 2014 - 4:15 am ·I think it’s great that the problems with the ideology of feminism are finally being brought to light. Feminism hasn’t been about equality for two generations, it’s been about extending the female imperative at the expense of the male imperative. These women aren’t idiots – they know what feminism SAYS it’s about – but they’ve also observed the behavior of actual feminists, and seen what feminism as an ideology has done to our society, and they reject it. Calling them stupid, ignorant whores, as many feminists have essentially done in response, has validated every one of these women’s concerns.
It’s not equality they reject. It’s feminism. And feminists. Y’all should take note of that. We are.