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bisforbella4 · 10 years ago

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It's not necessary nor is it accurate to say that feminism is about empowering men and women equally.

feminism is specifically about empowering women in a culture that systematically disempowers femininity, with gender equality as a goal.

It is about adjusting the way our culture values masculine and feminine traits that can be expressed by people of all genders, keeping in mind that our heteronormative society associates femininity with women, and by extension, women with frailty or weakness.

The recent ‘adjustment’ to the definition that aggressively advocates for “empowering men and women equally because equality!!!1” comes from trying to appease men who think that feminism is inherently sexist and aims to take opportunities away from them. (and also serves to perpetuate the idea that gender is a binary)

Watching girls proudly claim that feminism means women and men should be empowered equally and actively challenge ideas that feminism is specifically about empowering women is disheartening, and largely inaccurate.

I can’t say this enough:

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SAY THAT FEMINISM IS ABOUT EMPOWERING MEN TOO IN ORDER FOR FEMINISM TO BE CONSIDERED VALID.

Because in reality, it isn’t about that. Masculinity is valued and celebrated in our culture as something that is linked to strength, independence, power and success. Femininity is not. But these traits are not arbitrarily attached to men and women, and assuming they are is a shortcoming of understanding in the feminist movement.

A recurring example of masculinity being linked to strength is in the media trope of women who embrace ‘masculinity.’ Strong female characters in movies are often what we call ‘tomboys’ and we think of them as strong, successful, independent, and there’s usually that one scene where they have to get dressed up for a dance or a date and it’s an awkward, out of character moment for these ‘strong women’ to be displaying traditional 'femininity.’ And the female characters in the same movies who comfortably and purposefully embrace feminine traits are not considered strong characters, in fact they are often nemeses to the tomboy protagonist. Again in the same movies there are boys who embrace traditionally feminine traits and they are represented as weak or undesirable to women or prepubescent, and often later discover how to be 'masculine’ and are then seen as heroic or desirable.

This of course isn’t a perfect or unrivalled example but it does exemplify an important footnote when we’re talking about masculinity and femininity, which is that we are not inherently talking about 'men’ and 'women,’ so yes, feminism benefits men too in the sense that it aims to adjust the way our culture values masculine and feminine traits regardless of the gender of the person who is displaying those traits.

But beyond the fact that our culture has decided that some situations require certain gender expressions, men hold a lot of privilege in our culture. Saying that 'men and women should be empowered equally!’ denies the existence of male privilege. And if at this point you’re still adverse to accepting the privileged position of men in our culture, then you’ve truly misunderstood the purpose of the feminist movement.

You can regurgitate the definition all you want. 'Feminism is the belief in the politic, social and economic equality of the sexes.’ That’s true, but the webster’s definition fails to add 'with the understanding that our culture currently reserves the majority of political, social and economic power for men.’ This is undeniable. If you’re having trouble getting on board at this point, jump ship, because I’m moving on assuming you’ve accepted male privilege as a fact. (I know this is gonna get reblogged with some ~great~ sources like 'a voice for men dot com slash female privilege’ and 'the meninist bunker archives dot net slash debunking male privilege’ but there are too many way better written posts about why this is bullshit for me to bother explaining it here. It’s 2015 so if you’re still denying systematic male privilege, the rest of this post isn’t for you.)

Ok so moving on with the idea that men are privileged in our culture and while men can definitely experience routine disadvantages, it is not the result of a society that systematically disempowers their entire gender.

Many aspects of equality, especially 'social’ elements, are abstract concepts. For example, sexual double standards are an example of abstract gendered inequality in our culture. The idea that women who have a lot of sex are sluts and men who have a lot of sex are just men is a rampant and active double standard in our culture. Equality as far as this double standard is concerned would mean that gender does not affect how we perceive someone’s sexual history. Technically, it would be “equal” if people of all genders were shamed as dirty and undesirable for having a lot of sexual partners. It would also be “equal” if people of all genders were celebrated as sexual royalty for having a lot of sexual partners. Heck it would even be “equal” if everyone was considered desirable until they had 10 partners and then they were considered used up mouldy potatoes.

In abstract examples of inequality like this one, there isn’t a predetermined amount of respect that can be allotted to people for their sexual choices and once you’ve given all your respect away you have no choice but to slut shame. Which is why men who want to continue to enjoy as much sex as they want without being slut shamed don’t have to think something is being taken away when we empower women who are making the same sexual decisions to demand respect. Men don’t have to lose respect just because women are asking for it.

But I think we’ve worked a little too hard to aggressively tout the slogan that 'feminism isn’t trying to take anything away from men it’s just about empowering us all equally!’ because when inequality is quantifiable, as opposed to abstract, these 'opportunities for women’ have to come from somewhere. It’s inaccurate, irresponsible and naive to pretend otherwise.

If men represent 85 of the CEOs of 100 companies (hypothetical and very generous proportionate to actual figures), you can’t just *create* 70 more companies for women to run so that empowering women doesn’t come at a cost to men. I’m not saying equality means women run 50% of all businesses. But equality means that women and men are both able to access the privileges and opportunities that result in competing for CEO positions without gender hindering their success, and yes, that means men abandoning certain privileges that have previously been reserved for them in the business world, and that the diversity of CEOs in business will proportionally represent the diversity of our business schools or the number of children who believe that they may some day want to run a company.

Same goes for representation in movies. Only 15 of the 100 top grossing 2013 box offices films had a female protagonist. Should we have made an extra 70 top grossing films with female leads in order to achieve equality while empowering men and women equally and not taking away any roles from men? No, obviously not. At a certain point, yes, proportional representation in the media means job opportunities that would normally be reserved for men will have to be shared with women. (ps if you are actually thinking of arguing that men are more often protagonists because that’s what makes more money in movies, consider how that translates to our culture’s value of women vs men)

(pps this is me avoiding adding a remark about how equal pay for women has to come from somewhere because companies simply don’t have the financial resources to give women a higher salary to equal their male counterparts— although this is an accurate and valid point, addressing the wage gap is a sure fire conversation derailer and so if you feel tempted to post some mens rights matter dot com slash wage gap myth busted, just know that you are a derailer and great job avoiding the point)

We have to stop thinking that equality means men will retain access to the privileges and opportunities they have always had, and now women will have them too. It’s not realistic. Here’s a great metaphor for understanding if an inequality is abstract (like respect for people who have a lot of sex) or quantifiable (like job opportunities). (aka for understanding if 'equality’ means men’s opportunities will be shared with women and therefore 'taken away’)

Let’s talk about privileges and opportunities like cookies.

A girl has 3 cookies and a boy has 7. Equality happens 2 ways:

1. The boy gives the girl 2 cookies and they both have five. 2. Someone bakes 4 more cookies, gives them to the girl, and now they both have 7.

(footnote: suggesting that feminism is about empowering men and women equally means that someone bakes 4 cookies and gives them both 2 because equality but then the girl has 5 cookies and the boy has 9)

So, if the privilege or opportunity is something we as individuals or as a culture can 'bake’ more of (like respect, kindness, empathy, or tolerance) then it is an abstract privilege and affording these privileges and opportunities to women will come at no cost to men (and vice versa in situations where women are advantaged, like general acceptance/sexist skepticism of men who are child care workers).

If the privilege or opportunity is something we as individuals or as a culture cannot 'bake’ more of (like job opportunities, representation, or money) then it is a quantifiable privilege and affording these opportunities to women will result in men sharing opportunities that were previously reserved for them. So yes, sharing these privileges with women will come at a cost to men (and vice versa in situations where women are advantaged, like parental custody battles).

And this shouldn’t be threatening if you believe in equality. And this definitely shouldn’t be threatening if you deny the existence of male privilege. (I mean, really, you can’t argue that you don’t have privilege but feel threatened that it might be taken away). If you truly believe in equality you have to accept that certain equalities will inevitably have a price, and that’s ok.

Anyways, very, very, very long story short, please stop perpetuating the misinformed notion that feminism means men and women should be empowered equally. Feminism means that women and men should be empowered in ways that encourage equality, and that’s very different than 'empowered equally.’

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