In the recent post Feminism Over the Phone, fellow Feministing blogger Barley Jane describes her experience talking with a younger cousin who remains skeptical of feminism and the whole idea that women are oppressed at all, even though she's in a college course learning about these issues. I think many of us could relate to the experience. It is frustrating and borderline bizarre that many women just don't seem to understand why feminism is good and necessary, even when they are reading the works of our best and brightest. I am suggesting that this is not the fault of other women, but of us feminists. Thus, some questions:
Why have we failed to convince or motivate most women to become feminists?
What is fundamentally amiss with our feminist ideologies that they are so widely unappealing or unconvincing?
Of course we all immediately think that the problem is not with us, it is with them. They are misogynist, their belief system is based on patriarchy, they are dimwits and shortsighted. But why haven't we succeeded in converting the misogynist, in dismantling patriarchy, in demonstrating the truth? Is that not our task as feminists? It is clear that the barriers are complex, but are we not better than barriers? If our ideas do not ring true, can it be that our ideas are just not that powerful?
If a student dismisses the women's movement, is that their personal failure or ours?
A thoughtful blogger commented that exposure to women's ideas, literature, and academic work is limited. This is true, and surely more people would be engaged in the work of feminism if women were more visible or widely read. But why such a strong connection between feminism and academia? Does it seem to anyone else that "becoming a feminist" largely fits under the umbrella of the undergraduate educational experience? Why should feminism be mainly the domain of college-educated women? And if our movement is only accessible and convincing when encountered in literature and academic work, doesn't that mean we are failing?
I suggest that the term "feminism" only applies to women as understood academically.
Maybe that is another post.
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I think the reason feminism is tied in so closely with academics is that academia is one of the only places you get a full representation of the movement. Just recently I was in a class where we discussing Ibsen's "A Doll's House" and someone stated that it wasn't feminist. Then everyone started yelling at each other. What really upset me is that we hadn't read any feminist theory yet. People were just throwing the word around using their own personal meaning and not explaining it to the rest of the class.
The media tends to portray feminism as "the women's movement," a term that's inherently exclusionary. After that class when I explained to a conservative male friend that I was upset by the class, he replied "I'm a humanist, not a feminist." I then clarified to him that humanism is a Renaissance system of thought strongly tied into atheism, which is partly why feminists couldn't take on a more egalitarian label. Then I explained that I'm a feminist and I know that men and women are different and that we can celebrate those differences while still making sure we are equal in respect and status. I told him that feminism was about choice, about knowing that patriarchy hurts everyone, not just women, and that real feminists not only value motherhood, some of them are "housewives" themselves. His eyes went big and he replied, "Well if that's what it is, maybe I'm a feminist too."
So many people don't even know they're feminists, and most of them find out in college when they're in a new, different place with a lot of intellectual diversity. I think the main failure of feminism is that we let ourselves be characterized as focusing solely on the issues of the disadvantaged groups, when we all know that the current system hurts everyone.
Attempting to objectively critique or examine a complex social system from a supposedly neutral perspective when one is totally ingrained in the system already is a daunting task for a highly intelligent and educated individual. It's difficult to even know what to begin thinking about when so much of life is taken for granted on a daily basis. Getting people who are less intelligent, or less educated, or both to see contradictions in the way that thy have always thought about things is much more difficult, and it was already difficult to begin with.
Not to mention the fact that people are faced with an anti-feminist backlash in virtually all aspects of life.
"Why have we failed to convince or motivate most women to become feminists? "
I think one reason some people don't want to call themselves feminist is becuase the scope of ideas and branches of feminism that exist.
There is of course the mainstream feminism strives to make men and women equal socially, economically and politically...
but their are other branches that are not so egalitarian.
Lets take political affiliation as a metaphor. Lets say Steven is a fiscal conservative. He has a strong background in economics, political science, and philosophies of justice and equality and from synthesizing all that he moderately fiscally conservative.
Is Steven a Republican? Hell no, he does not want to associate himself with not only the religious right but the extreme fiscal conservatives.
So maybe they are branches of feminism that people don't want to associate themselves with, so they decline to say they are feminist.
In regards to feminist in academia, I think that academia is a natural place for feminism to exist. Any movement needs philosophical underpinnings. Where do those philosophical underpinnings get created/refines/transformed/ and then transmitted? Academia.
Also, the study of any social field probably includes some mention of the feminist perspective into that field. Right now I am working on an MPA and I have had to read several feminist perspective, on the PA field as a whole, on organizational and behavioral theory, et cetera.
Very natural to find feminism in academia, very natural.
I definitely see your point. Is it important for us who call ourselves feminists that others call themselves feminists? If it's not important, then we're free to assume that even those who reject the label may be somehow working for sexual equality. If it is important, then we have to wonder why people are so turned off by it and what we could do to make feminism understood on a wider scale. And when I use the term feminism, I am trying to invest it with all the feminisms out there that one would associate with the umbrella term.
I believe, personally, that women "don't get" feminism until they are sexually assaulted, and/or treated differently for being women. Then they "get it" in spades. More than they would have wanted to. Another possible explanation is they may not connect the dots - i.e., see the causal linkages between women being women and the things they go through. This is usually the case when it's another woman instead of them. Many women may make all kinds of excuses - oh, it's her attitude, or it's just that particular guy, it's just that one instance. I can't count the number of times I've heard women say "I would never let something like that happen to me." It protects them from realizing how awful and depressing the patriarchy really is (speaking of which: self-awareness is highly positively correlated with suicide. So people may protect themselves from depression by avoiding reality).
I believe, personally, that women "don't get" feminism until they are sexually assaulted, and/or treated differently for being women.
Under that formulation no man who has not been sexually assaulted can be a feminist. Also, no white person can truly be passionate about 'minority' right and no straight person can be care about LGBT concerns.
Am I interpreting and expanding your premise properly?
Just conjecture, but I took the meaning to be "many" women. People do forget that, of course, they're not talking about everyone and don't quantify. Same thing when people talk about "men," generally based on a majority of opinion voiced by men in their own communities, and are promptly accused of misandry.
Many women can clearly see the issues without personally experiencing gender based trauma, as can many men. However anyone who has experienced trauma has most likely met many women, as well as men, who dismiss their experiences as one-offs, probably brought upon themselves by carelessness or bad behavior, and as no reflection on the state of women in society.
I don't think she was saying anything about any group other than women. One could just as easily say that, for instance, white people don't believe racism exists/matters until they actually see a racist injustice against a person of color with their own eyes, and it could stand next to the sentence she wrote with no contradiction.
Unitl its clarified I will read it as writen.
Time and time again on Feministing people write "words are important/have meaning" and launce a salvo against someone for using loaded or gendered terms.
Considering the attention to language that most feminist use, I read comments here as they are written.