Wednesday 7 February 2018
Feminism Today: 100 Years Later
I'm back! And yes, I will be quoting Beyoncé.
Yesterday marked 100 years since the passing of the Representation of the People Act which allowed (some) women to vote. And of course, I celebrated. It's momentous; a huge historical moment. It was a step in the right direction.
What it doesn't call for, though, is what I like to call "Aww" Effect. I mean, I'm all for nostalgia but I'm certainly not for people treating it as some wistfully endearing anniversary. Rather, I feel as though the occasion highlights the work that still needs to be done. There should be no sense of distancing such monumental political history from the struggles we still face today.
It's not so much a "look how far we've come" but more of a "look how far we've yet to go."
Not to undermine the achievements of our previous successors; I mean, the passing of this law was revolutionary. The Suffragist/Suffragette movement was an undoubtedly necessary milestone and the trigger of the many waves of feminism we've had since. But it's hardly a day to treasure the plain, flat-out equality we still don't have.
So I'm suggesting we wipe the rosy tint off our lenses and reflect on the disenfranchisement that still exists today.
When I ask myself what feminism really means to me, I immediately think of that particular word: 'equality'...you know - equality for women, equality for all humans, equality in the workplace .e.t.c. But then when I probe the definition of 'equality', and ask myself what it truly looks like, I don't really know where to go.
To me, the word has become an empty signifier, underlying a larger definitional problem in regards to the women's movement. At its core, feminism and the fight for gender equality remains an unwon cause. Whilst celebrating the barriers we have broken so far, we also need to remember that we still aren't there yet.
We're a stalled movement, in my opinion, because whilst we all may want equality, we all have different ideas of how to get there.
In order to succeed, feminism has to fundamentally work within the very systems we want to change; this includes our relation to power and power structures. Whilst it's easy to completely reject and abandon our white, male, snotty leadership (I feel like I always call out Trump *soz not soz*) , then we've already lost the battle. You need to be in it to win it, for want of a better phrase. Feminism's relation to power is tricky in the sense that I always find myself questioning whether power is inherently patriarchal? I constantly need to remind myself that I need to stop thinking of 'power' as inherently sexist. As a force, it is that: simply a force. It's been manipulated to perpetuate women's oppression, for sure, but power knows no gender. Therefore, we need to remind ourselves that women can be powerful, thereby inversing the traditional narratives of "Women as Weak."
In short, we need to rethink what power means.
And with 'rethinking' comes the idea of freedom of thought, which to me is the most important factor of all. It's freedom of thought which is the ultimate form of liberation, and arguably this is underpinned in our voting rights. The movement demands freedom in every sense - intellectually, physically .e.t.c. And having the right to democratically choose (even if you had to be aged 30) critically encompasses such freedom. With freedom there is always hope, and with thought comes change.
So we need to reimagine definitions of power and freely think. Ok. That's crossed off the list. So what's the missing piece of the feminism puzzle? What is stopping us from achieving full equality (whatever it may look like)?
Like I said: we all have different ways of getting there. Our activism is divided. Our movement is not completely allied. Any activism pitting women against each other is not successful activism; it's not feminism. Sisterhood is our strongest tool. The problem is that the men in the charge know this too, and keeping us divided is their means of keeping us oppressed (you want proof? Theresa May and Brexit - 'nuf said.) As long as women are fighting each other, they are not fighting the larger power structures that enforce our oppression.
We also need to embrace feminism as both a political and social movement: activism within and without institution, both open resistance and working within the system. Marches are a great tactic of resisting oppression; policy changes addressing unconscious bias is another. My point is that we need both. Neither one is better than the other. Resistance and operational tactics in unity will create change.
And, perhaps most importantly of all, feminism must be considered as an ethical vision. The formation of an independent free-thinking mind and a fully individualized, actualized body underpins female freedom. We need to be educated to be liberated; we need to understand that the history of oppression is localised within our very bodies and awaken ourselves from this oblivion. The process of learning begins here. Our intellectual inferiority prescribed by 'the powers at be' as a means of oppression has taught us to just assume our social conditioning..."we teach girls to shrink themselves...otherwise you might threaten the man" (YES, THAT'S RIGHT, I QUOTED A BEYONCE SONG, @ me!!!!!!!!!!!!) Through the oppression of the mind and intellect, gender seems to prescribe how we should be, not actualizing how we are.
How we are, both as a group, and as a self. I think the self is so key here. Social conditioning and intellectual inferiority are not associated with independence and free-thinking. It just takes one individual to realise that they are not to be grouped or subjected to mass oppression. Feminism must begin as a movement within the self; we need to ask ourselves what it means to us centrally.
To conclude, then, I guess what I'm trying to say is that whilst I'm all for praising a century's worth of democratic equality, we can't celebrate and not interrogate. Instead of taking feminism and definitions of equality as simple truths, we need to question and corrode them. We need to build new ideas and conventions in this century because, whilst there's no denying we have progressed, we're also facing some serious cultural decline and narcissistic leadership. We need to reimagine what feminism looks like, acts like, sounds like in this age because, until we do, we'll remain a stalled movement.
Wow...this post turned into a full-on essay! I'm not really sorry though!