Feminism

Every other day, on my way to class, I walk by a graduate student's office. This particular graduate student is a grumpy one, judging by the many grumpy clippings on the door; among these is one written by a political columnist about Ann Coulter. The journalist in question is not a right-wing nut job, so she has a headline that (perhaps a bit redundantly) refers to Ann Coulter as shrill. The article is lazy, I'll admit. Ann Coulter columns practically write themselves anymore; she is so widely acknowledged as Batshit Crazy that to comment on it is almost blasé. (That's not to say that much of that commentary isn't entertaining. It is. Especially Al Franken's.)

However, that's not what I set out to discuss. I started this post to discuss two of the comments the graduate student (female) has written in the margins of the clipping. One is "Expose the haters!!!" and the other is "Tell me one positive thing feminists have to say about men" (Underlines hers).

I've already addressed the first comment, in that I have stated that everyone except Sean Hannity and most other Fox News peions (and, to my enduring sorrow, Bill Maher) agrees that Ann is about as disgusting on both physical and intellectual levels as the rotting corpse of Josef Goebbels. At the very least, they agree that she's a loose cannon of vitriol and hate without a bit of intellectual honesty or integrity, or basic research skills, or fundamental acknowledgement of reality. In that respect, everyone sane is a hater, so I don't think I really need to address that crap.

I assume that the article is about Coulter being an anti-feminist; I haven't actually read it, firstly because I don't have time and secondly because I read liberal news blogs and and am thus completely familiar with all the arguments against Ann Coulter. But the graduate student is clearly in sympathy with Ann Coulter, and has the same misconceptions about feminists. This is inherently sad, because as a woman, she of all people should be aware of what feminists really are and believe.

Sure, there are man-hating feminists. I'd be lying if I said they didn't exist. But they are usually what they are because they have been fucked over even more than most women by a society that values men's labor over women's, men's words over women's, and constantly belittles women in public forums. We are reduced to sexual objects for men's entertainment; we're expected to be able to do more for less pay. How many working mothers do you know? How many earn less than their male counterparts at work, but are expected to perform at the same levels despite societal expectations that they raise children and manage a home as well? (I'll give you a hint: the average salary of women is 76.9 percent of the average men's salary. This could in part be due to the fact that more women work minimum wage jobs, but female executives have more trouble advancing in the workplace and are routinely paid less than their male counterparts. The numbers I have seen, in fact, mostly range from 60 to 80 percent.)

But because we're allowed to vote now and hold jobs that were traditionally considered 'male,' we're expected to suck it up. Those of us that don't are called "feminists." We simply hold the belief that women and men are equal. We have some anatomical differences, but we're just as human and just as capable. For the most part, feminists aren't interested in insulting men or 'trampling them down,' despite the dearly held beliefs of groups like the Men's Rights Movement. We just want society to stop winking and nudging whenever women are belittled or treated as less than equals, which happens all too often. We want the respect that we've fucking well earned by fighting society's blatant bullshit for the last two hundred years in this country.

Some of the most vocal feminists are men. And we don't have negative things to say about men. Or positive things. That's the point. We don't treat "Men" as one giant amalgous group with the same thoughts and feelings about everything. We want the same treatment from society in general, from sexist men and sexist women like Ann Coulter (who thinks that women shouldn't be allowed to vote). So yeah, I acknowledge that feminists don't feel the need to praise men nonstop. But that's because we don't need to. Society give tacit approval to anything they do. Whenever it doesn't, some asshole starts bitching and moaning and giving the reasonable ones a bad name. And yet when we point out that we're paid less or face workplace sexism or are encouraged to have unhealthy body types or are expected to work as baby making machines, as if we have no autonomy whatsoever and a fetus -- something without the ability to exist independently, without free will, without a brain or a heart or compassion or creativity or any of the many things that make us human -- has equal legal standing, we get a bad name and are treated like shrill, hysterical crazy people. I mean, that's pretty fucking insulting, don't you think?

So, in answer to the graduate student's question: I have plenty of positive things to say about men, particularly those I know personally. I respect a great many of them. My problem isn't with men as a group; it's with members of society -- again, male AND female -- that feel entitled to treat me as less than human, somehow less than them. They have a massive superiority complex which righteously pisses me off.

And yeah, most of them are men. But feminists aren't anti-men. If we were, our Latin name would be "Antimasculinism." It isn't. We're pro-women, pro-women's-rights, and pro-equality for men and women. We aren't asking for more pay; we're asking for equal pay for equal work. We're asking to not be treated as objects of sexual entertainment everywhere we go. We're asking to be considered capable of making decisions for ourselves.

That's all.