The New F-Word

Her Bad Mother collected some of the discussions bloggers are having about feminism, both the concepts and the labels, raising daughters and sons in this scary world, and how to tackle the issues of sex and violence and our children. She pointed me to a post by Girl's Gone Child about how she would never call herself a feminist, and instead calls herself a masculist. GGC has also written some great posts on sex and violence and I thank her for finally separating them. I wholeheartedly agree with her that women are not victims and that individual men and women are not to blame for the work that remains for gender equality. I agree that generalizations of any kind suck and we must question them for the sake of our children. But the rest of her post about being a masculist troubles me.

This type of argument reminds me of things I heard in South Africa when we were there in 2005. First, a preface: This is likely a more inflammatory analogy than the thing itself but I think it will make my point better. Writing this makes me feel uncomfortable because in North America we generally try to avoid talking about race or acknowledging that it exists. Also because who am I to comment on these things as a tourist who was in SA for three weeks? But I think sometimes discomfort signals something worth doing. And sometimes an outsider's perspective can be worth considering. In South Africa there is strict affirmative action, called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). I believe there are quotas to fill at all levels of employment. BEE has resulted in people getting jobs who are not the most qualified for the job. After all, when a generation of Africans didn't have good access to education, how can they be qualified to edit a magazine or be CEO of a bank? The problem of healing the many wounds of apartheid is a big one, and the solutions are imperfect.

There is a 40% unemployment rate and not enough decent job opportunities for everyone. Many young people (the ones whose parents can afford it) are leaving the country to pursue careers in Europe and North America. Most of the white people we spoke to attribute this to BEE. They don't know that in here in Canada young people face the same challenges. Most of the people I went to university with are seriously underemployed. Maybe I just hung out with people who had no ambition but I think it's more about just how hard it is to get a job in your chosen field. I think this is a global trend that is compounded in South Africa by an obscenely high unemployment rate, BEE and by the privilege that white people have known for generations. Even though many of these people didn't ask for the privilege, didn't believe that it was just, and fought against it, they still got used to being privileged. In Canada you have to go back a generation to a time when a person could work in their chosen field just by having an education. In South Africa I think this is more recent.

So my point: When a previously privileged group of people loses that privilege, they may feel unfairly persecuted. Not because they are individually evil or feel entitled to that privilege but just because it requires huge adjustment. Some people could try to deny that men have been privileged. But you can't deny that white people were privileged under apartheid in South Africa. And I believe that the lost boys Girl's Gone Child talks about are the result of the pendulum of privilege swinging. Don't get me wrong. I have a son too and I certainly want him to feel confident and to feel that he can pursue any path of life he chooses, the same as I would a daughter. I don't blame individual men for for the changes that still need to be made to achieve gender equality. Men are subject to the same cultural messages we women are. To me, feminism is about equality for all and about challenges our beliefs about gender; not about disempowering men to empower women.

I've already made clear that if asked, I would call myself a feminist. But it is a title that does not sit comfortably on my shoulders. Primarily because I don't really do anything to earn that label outside of my thoughts; I'm too lazy to be an activist. But the fact that feminist is a dirty word really bothers me and I feel the need to reclaim the word, to show people that there are all kinds of feminists that range from hardcore militant, marching the streets carrying signs, to nearly complacent but occasional critical thinkers like me.

My Flashback Fridays: Feminist Edition is an effort to reclaim the word. When I mentioned to a friend Sugar Daddy's question of "if you're not a feminist, what are you?" she said, "yeah, it's better to give a name to those who don't want equality," and essentially let feminist die a natural death, left to the history books. But every time a person calls him or herself a feminist today, it evokes the important work of the last century or so and helps to mitigate our complacency. And I think it's essential to acknowledge that implied history today. To me, it's like poppies on Remembrance Day; it's important not to take our choices and opportunities for granted.