You May Say I’m A Dreamer
July 28, 2014 Leave a comment
(trigger warning: suicide discussed within a joke)
Let me tell you about a dream I had:
I found myself in a world very much like this world, with all of the same social ills that exist in this world. The same systems of oppression exist as they do here, the same cultural narratives that uplifts certain classes and castes at the raw expense of others, and the same movements to oppose those systems and uplift those that such narratives had harmed. A world with the same feminism as it exists in this world.
Only, in the world I had found myself in, some women had begun to feel disillusioned with the directions that certain prominent figures, under the banner of feminism, had taken. These women were seeking to establish a platform for their voices to be heard, and found one in “Women Against Feminism”. This movement sought to illuminate some of the issues that they saw through various social media platforms, satirizing the “I need feminism because…” campaign with their variant “I don’t need feminism because…”
Looking into these Women Against Feminism, I saw many reflections of the issues that had taken form in this world. I saw women of color holding signs that read “I don’t need feminism because the only wage gap feminists are concerned with is between white men and white women, and not the one between white women and women of color”. I saw queer women declaring “I don’t need feminism because it uses people like me as a scapegoat for the negative stereotypes about itself and its proponents”. I saw non-stealth trans women who wrote “I don’t need feminism because I don’t need another organization keeping me out because of the way I look”, and stealth trans women that wrote “I don’t need feminism because I shouldn’t have to hide my past out of fear of being banished from women’s spaces”. At one point, I also came across an impoverished woman with a sign reading “I don’t need feminism because it isn’t interested in the voices of women who lack the technological means to express themselves. They don’t need me, so I don’t need them”.
The movement prompted a large amount of discussion of what it means to be a feminist and how society as a whole can look to embracing intersectionality to ensure that when we discuss equality, we are talking about equality for ALL women, not just straight, white, middle-class women. The changes were gradual, subtle at first, but ultimately it made sure that ALL voices were heard, not just the privileged ones.
And then I awoke.
Going through my usual routine of checking the news and the lives of the people closest to me, I noted that many of the *ahem* “news” sites had started paying attention to an emergent social movement: “Women Against Feminism”.
Could it be? Had women in positions of further minority taken to speaking out to the dominant caste of straight, white, middle-class feminists to ensure that they, too, would have a voice equally strong and equally prevalent? Was my dream becoming a reality?
Running to the window, I opened it, and put out my head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, Golden sun-light; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!
“What’s to-day?” cried I, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about me.
“To-day!” replied the boy. “Why, the twenty-eighth of July!”
“What of this Women Against Feminism? What manner of movement is it?” I asked of him.
“Well, I’m no expert,” said the boy. “But as far as I can gather, it’s a bunch of pretty white women saying they don’t need feminism because they love their boyfriends”.
…
“But surely, some of the women must be addressing ongoing systemic inequalities of race, and how some prominent feminists have contributed to those systems?”
“No, nothing like that, really”.
“Discussion about the roles of queer women in the larger feminist narratives?”
“Nope”.
“Transgender-exclusionary radical feminism?”
“Uh-uh”.
“The scarcity of platforms for impoverished and unemployed women?”
“Not as such, but some of them do say stuff like certain jobs really are better suited to men”.
“Really? No discussion like this at all?”
“Well like I said, ma’am,” he began. “I’m no expert. It’s possible that some of them are talking about the stuff you mentioned, but if they are, they’re being drowned out by all the white women who think feminism is about putting men down first and foremost, and if you ask me, the fact that they’re being shunned in favor of such messages is evident that they’re largely unconcerned with those issues”.
“An intelligent boy…” said I, weakly. “A remarkable…boy…”. I took a deep breath, and continued “Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize noose that was hanging up there? Not the little noose, the big noose. Go and buy it. Tell them to bring it here. Come back with the noose, and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back within five minutes, and I’ll give half-a-crown”.
“Shilling? Half-a-crown? You’re weird. Weirdo”.
The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.
Joe Miller never made such a joke as me hanging myself would be.
Not that I know who that is.
~Joselyn