I watched this video and it inspired me to
write about the ol’ ‘F’ word again. If you haven’t seen it yet lacigreen lists some
beautiful and poignant reasons why she is a Feminist – both personally and more globally.
I’ve already touched on this, but the vid inspired me to would explore some of my more
personal reasons and somewhat similar reasons for being a Feminist. If
anything, talking about this is therapeutic for me, but, if anyone out there
can relate, then that’s a plus. So, considering I generally have a phobia of
cameras – here we go.
My female
friends warn me against telling people that I’m a Feminist.
I was recently at a pub having a few quiet
drinks with some friends and a guy came up and started hitting on us. We got
onto the topic of Feminism and one of my friends made a move to hush me (as
though to say ‘don’t scare him off with the scary ‘F’ word!). Don’t get me
wrong, I love my friend’s to bits, but I think this is an ideology that has
been drummed into them whether through the media or family upbringings.
Although, if I quizzed them, they would essentially agree with equality of the
sexes in all aspects of society, some of them are still terrified of telling a
guy that. Being a Feminist isn’t something that any woman should be afraid of
expressing to anyone and the fact that a lot of women still feel this way just
shows that, as a society, we aren’t done yet.
The sad part is that they aren’t wrong in
the sense that telling a man that you’re a Feminist in a dating or romantic
situation often does scare them off. The instant assumption seems to be that
I’m going to follow the phrase ‘I’m a Feminist’ by ripping off their head for
having the audacity to have a penis. Not the case.
I don’t
hate men. I’m sick of people assuming that I do.
When rape cases are brought to court, I’m genuinely offended on behalf of men
when it is assumed that the rapist couldn’t control himself because the woman
was wearing a short skirt or because she was branded as a “slut” in some way.
The very fact that I sincerely love the men
that I choose to keep in my life is one of the reasons that I AM a Feminist because
it’s patriarchy that states men are animalistic creatures unable to be held
accountable for their actions.
Feminism holds that men are better than
that and that is the exact reason why they SHOULD be held accountable for their
actions.
I know this point has already been made a
lot in the Feminist-based media circles, but I think it needs to be continually
made until I stop encountering people who think otherwise.
I
respect decent men just as much as I respect decent women and the fact that I
have to point that out on a regular basis pisses me off.
My
male friends are victims of patriarchy just as much as my female friends
Have you ever been out clubbing and
accidentally come across those guys?
By those
guys, I mean the guys that go out looking for a fight…
They don’t care who they hurt or even what
will provoke them, they just want to beat something up.
I went clubbing a lot in Townsville, and it
was almost impossible not to encounter those
guys at least once a night. One night, I was standing on a corner with a male
friend who was going to give me and another female friend a lift home. We were
waiting for one of his other friends to bring the car around when those guys came out of nowhere. WE WERE
SO CLOSE TO AVOIDING THEM. DAMN!
They walked straight up to my male friend
and insinuated that he was gay. They then proceeded to hit on us.
I know right…
I think the assumption was supposed to be
that because he wasn’t hyper masculine and he was hanging out with chicks, he
was of the homosexual persuasion.
He politely responded that he wasn’t gay
but it wouldn’t matter if he was.
They seemed to think that, that was a gay
enough answer and proceeded to lay into him. There’s nothing worse than the
feeling of helplessness you have, as a woman, when you see a male friend in a
fight and you know you don’t have the physical capacity to weigh in on it. So,
me and my female friend went into overdrive and tried to talk them out of it with
a combination of faux-hitting on them and confusing them with hard questions
(what’s 2+2?).
You’ll be pleased to learn that, that
worked pretty quickly and they went on to bug someone else.
The point I’m trying to make though is that
men are shamed on a regular basis for not conforming to patriarchal ideologies because
patriarchy holds that there’s something wrong with having ‘female-like’
attributes.
I don’t know any guy who hasn’t been a
victim of homophobia and thus inherently a victim of patriarchy at some point
in his life. Whether, they actually are straight or gay is a complete irrelevancy.
If
you think that your male friends or you, as a male, have never been a victim of
patriarchy, you’re kidding yourself.
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