5 steps to misunderstand feminism and succeed
The second week of February I woke up to the news: “Hundreds of women with bare chest gathered on Tuesday February 7 in different Argentine cities to reject the exaggerated police operation that occurred a few days ago by three women who were sunbathing in Topless on a public beach in Necochea “. Without being uncomfortable to say it, I declare myself feminist and inevitably read on what happened, I immediately understood and sympathized with the purpose of the march.
One or two days later I saw a video of the protest held in Buenos Aires and concentrated on the obelisk in which a group of women were observed physically and verbally assaulting some men who were participating in the “Tetazo”, which sadly made me question why the word feminism, from my perspective, has lost strength and credibility in the last decade and why some people would mistakenly define it as “hatred of men.” Consequently, I made a list of infallible premises in which one can deform feminism and misrepresent its purpose. I will clarify before, the intention is not to generalize, but to show that attitudes that to me seem to get us far from feminism.
1). To be a feminist is to act like a man
I say this from personal experience, many women come to believe that feminism leads us to be the new “male” of society and to reject femininity to be taken seriously. Long after taking a critical stance against feminism and defending women’s rights, I finally realized that something was not consistent, on the one hand was defending the woman and on the other only rejected it. It was obvious at the time that she could not defend something she did not know and did not want. If she wished to fight, she must accept and conceive of women as such, their physiology, their history and their current situation. This premise only leaves us thinking that masculinity is above femininity.
2). Being a feminist gives me the right to judge other women for their choices of life.
A couple of years ago the self-proclaimed feminist, Australian writer and architect Elizabeth Farrelly took offense at being called misogynist by some of her readers. Indisputably it sounds incoherent, however, on multiple occasions his publications demonized that a woman were female, in addition to indiscriminately cataloging books written by women as boring and more alarming still consider it stupid for a woman to do domestic work.
Farrelly is just an excuse to mention here all those occasions in which we have acted against the phrase of the policy and activist Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega Sanz “Every time a woman takes a step we all move forward.” Which is not true, the struggle between women seems to be more arduous. Being a feminist does not condition us to have children, not to wear heels and makeup or not to make the decision to be housewives if we want. And that is the point, the choices of life of each woman are his and do not exclude it from the struggle for equality.
3). I’m a feminist when it suits me
Being a feminist means seeking equal rights and opportunities. Now, rights imply a duty and this is the part that is often forgotten. To exemplify this premise I will mention the countless occasions when women traveling on public transport in my city wait for a man to give up his chair when someone else needs it. In other words, do we want equality at times? Or all the time?
4). Man is the enemy
5). Violence is not so serious if I am the aggressor
These last two premises are directly related to the origin of this article and to the painful video of the “tetazo” that I mentioned previously. Someone told me at the time that moving from victim to victimizer was an almost certain pattern in human relations, and that is why I know that equality will never come if we continue to separate and reject, equality is a teamwork. Let us not allow feminism to become a form of inequality against other groups and against ourselves.
