How far has feminism come, really?
I recently shared a post on my Instagram about the different language used in media stories about female and male celebrities. For example, ‘nip slip’ was trending about Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt whilst Robert Downing Jr got to speak about how ‘nuanced’ the Manhattan Project was in terms of the Oppenheimer movie.
I shared many other examples of how females were claimed to be ‘parading’ their bodies whilst men were praised for their performances and contributions. Seeing the comparisons side by side was extremely telling. One of the main takeaways from this was that the media perpetuates the long standing narrative that women are merely for aesthetic purposes and their bodies are more important than their contribution to society.
On social this week
Of course, from the outside it’s easy to say we have came on leaps and bounds from the culture of the fifties or in Ireland’s case the nineties. You may be wondering what I am referencing. If you haven’t seen it, there’s been an archival video doing the rounds on social media where Irish men in the nineties were asked if they were chauvinistic and what did they think about the changing roles of women. The responses are infuriating and rage inducing and if I had to watch it, so do you.
Conspiracy theories
The scary thing is the notion that some men (not all men) still hold these viewpoints. That women were born to (wo)man the kitchen and produce babies whilst men do the ‘real work’. My example isn’t even be as extreme as the incels and Andrew Tates of the world but regular, everyday men who don’t believe in the division of labour and don’t want women in the workplace. You know us women, we just want to gO oFF & hAvE bABies and the men will pay our maternity leave!
I tell you, it’s a conspiracy and we’re winning.
Feminism 101
Thankfully, someone much more intelligent than me put together this useful article on the history of feminism. I’d recommend giving it a read to verse yourself in the movement but I’ve highlighted some key aspects for you. I’m also not stating that I am a feminist scholar because I remember A Level sociology and the multiple different factions of feminism from the liberals to the radicals and how their point of view dictated each of these accomplishments.
Essentially, what it boils down to is that not enough has been done. As always, it’s middle class white women who have benefited from the movement and whilst there’s still so much to be done in this community, it’s the other groups like ethnic minorities, women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and people from the LGBTQ+ community that now need support.
There are 3 waves of feminism:
First wave feminism focuses on property rights and the right of vote (1840s)
Second wave feminism focuses on anti-discrimination and equality (1960s)
Third wave feminism is the backlash of the second waves perceived importance on white, middle class and educated women (1990s - Present)
The most recent wave of feminism has been catapulted in society due to the #MeToo movement, Women’s Marches and women’s only organisations that are designed to empower and support, you guessed it, women. Each wave has experienced obvious pushback because a lot of men still believe that’s if society is not broke, don’t fix it.
But society is in fact extremely broke. Again, I can only speak about western society and as a white (basically blue) Irish woman I fall into the category where everything should be going my way. But it’s clear that women as a whole experience blatant sexism, misogyny and discrimination. Admittedly, it lesser extremes. You only have to look to the media to realise this. And also the bane of society’s existence - the comments section of posts.
I know what I’d do with them
I’ve no idea why but a “Suggested for you” post appeared on my Facebook at the weekend. It was a rogue football page with a photo from the Women’s World Cup and a player’s shorts had rode up showing her underwear during a tackle. The comments on this post were absolutely vile. Leaches of men praising the photographer for zooming up and exposing this for their “pleasure” and people openly writing how they loved watching the football because of the tackles and women “rolling about” on top of each other. What in the Hugh Hefner fever dream is going on?
Don’t come for my soapbox
I’m also not going to stand on this soapbox and say that women are untouchable because that goes against the entire argument for equality. Some women have committed atrocities and to a lesser extreme they also partake in the takedown of women online through internalised patriarchal norms. It’s not their fault, it’s their socialisation.
I also want to state that sometimes the hyper-positivity of female empowerment ignores one simple fact. Sometimes you just don’t like someone. And if that’s a female it may look like you are a misogynist but that’s not the case. If you don’t vibe with someone, you don’t vibe with someone. That’s okay. I don’t believe we should take a blanket approach to this type of thing because thankfully we are all unique and personalities and individual interactions dictate our experiences with each other.
I understand that this too is part of a much larger discussion about gender and sexuality but I need to verse myself in this topic more to write about it because I don’t want to do a disservice to members of these communities. However, I believe that we should all do our part, whatever that looks like, to support the women in our lives. We don’t want the eradication of men - we want allies to see us as equals and treat us with the same respect as their peers.