“Women against feminism” has posted sentences and short paragraphs on tumblr that paint a particular picture of feminism. In enough words to fit on a standard sheet of paper (although some have certainly enlarged that paper to 11 x 17) a set of women have pieced together a mosaic of the modern feminist, from their point of view of course.
According to this anonymous group, the “modern feminist” is a hate-filled woman who detests all men as rapists while viewing all women as victims. The mythical feminist creature seeks to shame and vilify other women if they disagree with her. She ascribes no value to those who choose femininity or enjoy being a wife or mother.
Let’s just be clear. That mythical feminist creature has never existed.
The posts are reducing feminists to mere objects. They coalesce the worst of the bigoted misogynist claims about feminists generated by those most directly challenged and intimidated by the struggle for women’s equality. The group is not making an argument… but rather showcasing a set of partially formed thoughts that blatantly correlate to the patriarchal arguments of those who support the status quo.
The feminist caricature presented by this group is a gross misrepresentation of feminism in all its currents and varieties. At its most basic, feminism is the argument that women should have equal rights. It is the argument of a movement that has fought for equality—from the right to vote almost a hundred years ago to the right to control of our reproductive health today.
Feminism (the argument for equal rights for women) and feminists (the PEOPLE—of all genders—who make that argument a real, living movement for equality) describes a diverse set of ideas and people who have different ideas about how to achieve equality and what the standard for equality is.
Womenagainstfeminism does not accurately represent any single one of those diverse ideas. What is represented is a group of women’s hyper-individualistic desires—to be recognized as women, wives, mothers, sex workers, rape victims who are more than just rape victims and more—and their totally misplaced anger towards feminism.
Justifiably, the tumblr site has garnered a good amount of criticism and angry reaction. That tends to happen when you caricature an entire movement to justify your own individual desires.
Some have stepped up to “defend” the site. The articles and blog posts written in defense of the womenagainstfeminism mosaic have defined those who participate in womenagainstfeminism as egalitarians and anti-feminists who have merely reacted to a misaligned, misguided feminist movement. Even when they give the feminist movement some credence, they point out how the movement has alienated sections of women. They essentially blame the feminist movement itself for the growth of “anti-feminism” and the women against feminism. That’s ridiculous.
Womenagainstfeminism is not some female “answer” to the feminist movement. It is an outgrowth of the reactionary attacks on women’s rights that have been building in heightened intensity for the last five years. It was not a coincidence that the site gained notoriety just as the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case was the source of such controversy.
The women pictured on the site most likely feel and think exactly what they have written. They are given additional credence because of their gender—because they are women attacking the women’s rights movement. But they have openly displayed a complete lack of understanding of feminism. They have acted against their own interests and aligned themselves with the same forces that would be happy to fully deny any gains women have made for equality. We, women, have made great gains in society because we have struggled for them, not because society is organized in the interests of all people’s equality.
Today, feminism exists because women are unequal in society—a tumblr site will not undo that need as much as it may seek to vilify feminism. Feminism exists because women ARE paid less than men BECAUSE of their gender—and far less if they are women of color. Feminism exists because women experience poverty and violence at far higher rates than men. Feminism exists because women do not have full decision-making power over our bodies—we do not have full reproductive rights. As long as women are oppressed, feminism will continue to exist and to be necessary.
