Feminists: Keep Your Eye on the Prize

, by Jenn Cummings, Opinion Editor

Over this past break, a few of my friends from home returned from their respective colleges, eager to share the things they’d learned in their “Intro to Feminism and Gender Studies” classes. The resulting debate was, and still is, fiery to say the least, rivaled in magnitude only by a large disagreement over the correct pronunciation of the word “mac-n-cheese” that threatened the very fabric of our relationships a few years ago.

As it turns out, whenever the word “feminist” is brought up in conversation, you’re guaranteed to receive an impassioned response from almost anyone in your general vicinity. And this is understandable; after all, there are few topics that carry so much emotional investment as the fight for equality. It’s also hard to find a topic that encompasses so many varying, and at times conflicting, viewpoints.

Feminism can be loosely defined as the collection of all philosophies and movements urging for equal rights for women. The complication lies in that almost every person carries his or her own beliefs of what a woman’s role should be. Just within my group of friends, there were some that stated that feminism was no longer a pertinent social issue and others that claimed that it was the largest concern facing our society. One friend described feminism as the sudden awareness that everything, and everyone, sucks a little bit. People use the word to tag anything that presents women in any certain way: “The Mindy Project” is a feminist show because the main character is a woman who is also a doctor, and Nicki Minaj is a feminist musician because she bluntly references female sex organs in her music.

While it’s great that the topic has gotten such widespread attention, I believe that there are times when the practice of labeling a person’s actions as feminist or otherwise can actually hinder progression toward a more equal society. I hate to bring this up again, but just recently, one of the largest debates arising from Miley Cyrus’ controversial VMA performance was over the feminist implications of the piece and the reactions that followed. Some people maintained that Miley was a hero for her open presentation of sexuality, while others berated her for exploiting herself, and consequently, the entire female gender. Of course, there were many other fairly offensive aspects of Miley’s performance, but it nevertheless brought up an important point: When we get caught up in this process of labeling women in terms of their actions, we essentially detract from the ultimate goal of allowing women the freedom to conduct their lives in whatever manner they choose.

We need to forget about the things that are up for interpretation. There are women earning less pay than their male counterparts in the workplace simply because they are women, and there is a severe underrepresentation of women in many math and science fields. There are women whose lives are influenced every day by the decisions of a predominantly male Congress. These are cold hard facts, and these are things that we all must join together to rectify. In many ways, feminism can mean something different to everyone. One woman may feel that a true feminist must reject all traditional female roles, while another woman might see feminism as an attempt to shed a more positive light on conventional femininity.

“I want to be a fucking feminist and wear a fucking Peter Pan collar,” Zooey Deschanel (my personal idol) said in an interview with Glamour magazine. “So fucking what?”

The job of any person who considers hirself a feminist is to strive toward achieving the same opportunities for both female- and male-identifying groups in whatever path of life ze chooses. All of the other things, the way a person chooses to dress or the manner in which a person conducts hirself, is really of no one else’s concern and doesn’t need to be discussed or labeled.

 

Cummings is a member of the Class of 2016.

  • Anonymous

    “Feminism can be loosely defined as the collection of all philosophies and movements urging for equal rights for women.” And what about men? “The job of any person who considers hirself a feminist is to strive
    toward achieving the same opportunities for both female- and
    male-identifying groups in whatever path of life ze chooses.” Ok, thats better, remember mens rights are of equal importance to womens, right?

    • Anonymous

      Actually, mainstream or gender feminism can be completely defined as a bigoted, reverse-sexist, female supremacist hate movement.

  • Anonymous

    “We need to forget about the things that are up for interpretation. There
    are women earning less pay than their male counterparts in the
    workplace simply because they are women,” This is a myth, women work less hours and physically easier jobs. Maybe we need a law that requires 50$ of roofers, miners, lumpers, garbage(wo)men, etc., etc., etc., until women begin to fathom just how difficult these jobs are. Answering the phone in a climate controlled office or doing housework does not even compare. Please stop promoting this “Wage Gap Myth”.

    • ekofisk24j

      The problem is that any woman wanting to work as a roofer, miner, etc (not that there are many I guess) is usually treated to howls of derision and abuse by the men who feel threatened at this encroachment on ‘their’ territory; with endless reasons as to why they are not suited to the occupation. I doubt many women are actually suited to some of the jobs you mention (for various reasons), but I wouldn’t mind betting that some are, but don’t want the inevitable hassle that would go with it. As a very young woman I had an interest in working in an environment totally dominated by men (well apart from those that ran the admin side) – I would really have liked to have been able to develop my skills in that area simply because it was a job that I would have loved to do; but was assured by (mostly) kindly-intentioned men that my life would not be worth living if I tried to enter this particular field. An area that was in fact later to allow female apprenticeships.
      It’s easy to be glib about women not having to work as hard as men, in ‘men’s’ jobs, but the other side of the coin is that an awful lot of men simply don’t want women doing these jobs – be honest here, eh?

      • Anonymous

        In demanding work that men do, that I have done men are unforgiving to anyone who cannot hold up there end of the weight, other men included. Men now avoid jobs like teaching because we are all considered potential pedophiles or some other sort of potential sexual predator,. Try to imagine living and working under that sort of scrutiny. Some women I have worked with have impressed me greatly with their work ethic and skill. They were very rare but proved to me that women could actually do difficult and physically demanding work. Many I’ve worked with were too glad to be given the easier job while I normally would be given the most difficult work. When I hear this so called harrassment of women in a traditionaly mens field of work I see it as a convienent excuse to not do the hard work. Men in a difficult field are not receptive to any individual looking for an excuse. No one doing such demanding work wants to hear someone next to them complain, thats why we keep telling jokes, to make the mule work somehow easier to bear. If we say un pc things about women its because its usually the only place we can because almost no women want to do the hard work.

      • ekofisk24j

        BigDum, I think you misunderstood the point I was making. The kind of harrassment I’m talking about is where the women are discouraged (as I was)from even ATTEMPTING to join a particular industry, or do a specific job, in advance of them being able to prove that they could or couldn’t actually do it. One man laughingly told me I was unsuitable for a job because “my t*ts would get in the way”… which in fact was not true, but there you go.
        A person can either do a job or they can’t – and if they, male or female, can’t do the work (for whatever reason) and expect others to carry them, then that’s not on – and I agree that no woman should expect to be carried by her male counterparts if she can’t hack it. As for “un pc” language… having worked in a mostly male environment for the last 12 years (offshore industry) I’ve found that most men swear amongst themselves when faced with problems and difficulties – it’s never bothered me; I can also swear (as do most women) when things get difficult. The only offence is when the swearing or ‘sexist’ comments are intended to wound and inflame – which I’ve frankly hardly ever found to be the case.
        In the UK there was recently a horrific case where a squaddie was almost beheaded by two crazed religious nutcases who were threatening anyone who tried to help the poor guy… it was all captured on mobile ‘phones and was horrendous. But two people DID approach the murderers – both of them were women. One cradled the dying man in her arms because she “didn’t want him to die alone” whilst being circled by the attackers, and the other woman went up to one of them and told him to hand over his knife because he’d just “make matters worse” if he didn’t. There ARE capable and efficient and brave women around, and they shouldn’t be sneered at or put down simply because they’re women. If they’re not up to the job, then that’s different – but that applies to other men too.

      • Anonymous

        You may get steered out of the mines by sexism, yet others are still steered into them by the same force. The latter is of most concern.
        That story from the UK made the news here. Insane. While London is 70% non-native and filled with cameras and the pc. Thank non-god for getting my ancestors off that god forsaken island. Good luck to you all.

      • ekofisk24j

        … there was a time when both women and children worked down mines, and it wasn’t through career choice. Can’t believe anyone wants to do that unless out of sheer necessity.
        I’m not in favour of ‘quotas’ either – nor women attemtping to ‘prove’ they can do men’s jobs. I’m solely motivated (selfishly) by being allowed to do what I want to do, and what I’m capable of doing.
        Yes, that “story” is insane – unbelievable that it could happen in London. The cameras don’t appear to be much use in such situations – but they are handy for spying on the public and probably bagging the odd happless motorist for a minor infringement.
        As for the “pc” culture – what can one say? I mean, literally, WHAT can one say! I’ve been victimised (verbally) for being a tad ‘incorrect’ on more than one occasion. Ho hum.
        Thanks for the discussion.

  • Anonymous

    “The job of any person who considers hirself a feminist is to strive toward achieving the same opportunities for both female- and male-identifying groups in whatever path of life ze chooses.”

    What hooey! Male Studies Professor Miles Groth is to speak at the University of Toronto for the Canadian Association for Equality BUT the feminist bigots who administrate the U of T, are forcing CAFE to pay a huge fee thanks to the risks to the event that come from criminal feminist hooligans…who have tried to silence related events in the past. Feminism is obviously a fascist hate movement in both ideology and application.

    • Anonymous

      I got the news from GWW and will be mailing my ckeck to CAFE on monday. After reading this bs article I’ll double down and send an equal amount to AVFM. Unfortunatly I cant make it to Toronto.

      • Anonymous

        Now we are talking. Wish we could all go to Toronto and legally barricade the administration building(s) to school those totalitarian tools on what democracy really looks like.

      • Anonymous

        Let’s see how this goes down, and this upcoming 20/20 interview with Paul Elam. If the MRM doesn’t move forward everybody is in trouble. More and more men will drop out. The family unit will perish further.You cant buy goods and services if men refuse to provide them. And why should they if they do not have a family to provide for?

      • Anonymous

        And you can’t have civil society without fathers to raise the sons and daughters. Let’s just hope that feminist bigots suffer first for the natural consequences of the catastrophic collapse. But one thing for sure, no man in his right mind should marry, father, or raise a family all but the most enlightened women in today’s C*nt Culture.

      • Anonymous

        “And you can’t have civil society without fathers to raise the sons and daughters.”
        There was a Docu about young male elephants running around killing endangered rhinos just for something to do. They finally figured out that it was a lack of adult male bulls to check their bad behavior that led to this. If we stop thinking that we too are animals it will come back to kicking us all.

      • Anonymous

        Same thing happens with the slutty daughters too…only thanks to feminism that are actually encouraged to go join a parade of SlutWalking bigots.

  • ekofisk24j

    I think it might be time to lose the much-derided terminology used to describe such a bunch of disparate women. ‘Feminist’ and ‘feminism’ are now used by quite a few people as pejoratives. I have a base in the early 70’s ‘type’ of feminism which, at that point, was much-needed and appropriate. But the swing of the pendulum unfortunately gathered many misandrists in its trajectory, and for me personally – although I believe misogyny is still alive and kicking to a large extent – I don’t want to be associated with the man-hating brigade of gender feminists. A lot has been achieved, and the misogyny I refer to is perhaps more culturally based. I’m also pretty annoyed by the casual sexism that seems to invade and infest the world of advertising, whereby men are portrayed as dimwits in any given domestic setting. All the men in my family are efficient and capable, they can cook and clean – and do so on a regular basis. Well, there is one who doesn’t, but that’s a work-in-progress… he’s not a misogynist – just a lazy git; a natural state it would seem for students of both genders.

    So I just wish there was another word to describe those of us who simply want to rub along side by side, male and female, without denigrating each other or labelling each other because of gender.

    • Michael Allen

      I’m using the humanist label now. I used to fall along the lines of gendered feminism when I was younger but now I feel that that label leaves too many other people behind, namely transgendered, lesbian and homosexual rights.

  • Anonymous

    I’m hopeful that Wesleyan students need only look at the comments on this thread to determine for themselves the importance of feminism…but anyway.

    I think it might be interesting to bring this op-ed into discussion with bell hooks’s advice that people adopt the phrase “I advocate feminism” over “I am a feminist”; there’s an interesting discussion of that here: http://community.feministing.com/2009/07/09/i_am_a_feminist_versus_i_advoc/. (My eternal gratitude to Elise Springer for this, who taught the class in which I first read bell hooks. Y’all should get on that.)

    Also, the author of the piece alludes to “many other fairly offensive aspects of Miley’s performance”, but if representations of women are something feminism’s concerned with, then Miley’s blatant and racist exploitation of black women deserves a little more attention than being lumped into the “other” category of issues with Miley’s performance. There’s an excellent discussion of this over at Tressie MC’s blog: http://tressiemc.com/2013/08/27/when-your-brown-body-is-a-white-wonderland/

  • Anonymous
  • Anonymous

    I stopped taking modern feminism seriously when the advocates tied themselves in knots defending Bill Clinton. Talk about slut shaming. American feminism, especially the elite campus brand, is mostly about super sensitivity over occasionally real but largely imaginary barriers for highly educated and predominantly affluent women. Monica Lewinsky was a bit too chubby, California and second tier college for this crowd.

    Most of the things Ms. Cummings complains about are either myths and gross exaggerations (the pay disparity) or self selection (the so called male dominated Congress.)

    Want more women in Congress? Move away from the computer, stop regurgitating tired old complaints and run for office. Women are a majority of voters. Their will is as free as men’s will. Just do it, ladies, and stop feeling sorry for yourselves.

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