The “F” Word
I have never thought that feminism is something I would have to justify myself. The facts that I am a white woman, who comes from a part of the world where there is no war, where religion is a matter of choice, that I grew up in a middle-class family, that I have an access to healthcare, education and travel abroad, make me a woman with privileges. Those privileges give me freedom to choose my partners and friends by myself. At the age of 24, I have already created a circle of friends who I share the same perception of values and moral with, so I was really struck when a very good friend of mine texted me that on Milunka[1]’s Instagram it was written that she “helped girls and young women to fight against gender-based prejudice while achieving their dreams”, whereas in the description of the blog it said “Women’s rights and feminism”. Thus, he carefully drew attention that he believed “feminism” was a mistake, and if not so, why it was there.
I replied to the friend that feminism meant exactly what he opposed to, so I concluded that issue was not for an Instagram chat and that we would discuss it face to face. The awareness that he himself was a women’s rights activist upset me. As an athlete, he opposes to the imposed female beauty ideal, and encourages me in all my fights and efforts. All his attitudes and acts make him a feminist, but the knowledge that he would never call himself a feminist made me sad, if not annoyed. At that moment, I could not even guess that his comment, as a comment of a person who I found a friend and whose opinion I cared about, would cause me to remember all the complaints, disapprovals and nasty comments I received when declaring myself a feminist. Nor that it would open Pandora’s box of searching for an answer to the question why some people label feminism as something negative.
Despite being afraid of the results, I made a small Instagram questionnaire during the following days, having in mind that my Instagram consisted mostly of people who shared the core values with me. Yet, I had reasons to be afraid: even three of the people I liked said they did not regard themselves as feminists. All of them who had answered in a negative way were asked for explanations.
It was explained that: feminists were aggressive, that they wanted to be equal, but not on equal terms, that feminism had been invented by fat women and lesbians, that women already constituted the majority at the most important positions in the world (Ms Merkel, Ms Clinton), that feminism meant being on guard and aggressive, that feminism was an ideology, and that all ideologies were dangerous. One libertarian told me that he was not a feminist because feminism implied the equality of outcomes rather than chances. This only shows sectarianism in his ideological position and a huge ignorance about feminism. Certainly, it is not important for “an ordinary person”. The most frequent answer why one did not declare himself or herself as a feminist was that women and men would never be equal, since men were stronger.
Accordingly, feminists are lesbians and ugly, fat, short haired women who do not put on make-up and do not remove their armpit hair. Feminists do not have sexual intercourse, they are frustrated, dissatisfied with their own, and they hate the whole world, men in particular. Feminism is something that strives to make men and women equal, even though they could not be the same physically, otherwise why do you not split wood, open doors and carry your luggage up the stairs on your own?
What is feminism actually?
Although my understanding of feminism has been mainly influenced by my direct experience, when speaking about feminism, I always rely on what I learned during the formal education. A unique definition of feminism does not exist. It is defined differently by different people based on ideological standpoints, beliefs and attitudes. Generally speaking, we can say that, during the history, feminism was regarded as a social movement, a theory, an ideology and a personal view. What links these four perspectives is an insight and attitude that women have been subordinate and discriminated against in all places and historical periods, having in mind that degrees and manners of discrimination, as well as the understanding of oppression over women, are interpreted in different ways. The other pole of this joint insight and attitude is that subordination and discrimination are not “naturally” defined, so the subordinate role of women can be changed.
Simone de Beauvoir, one of the most significant 20th century philosophers, drew three conclusions:
- There is a distinction between men and women that cannot be overcome. That is the biological or sex distinction. Due to that, I did not split wood for the winter. That distinction is the basis of every comparison, evaluation and analysis of the power ratio hierarchy.
- Sex characteristic – the female has been given some characteristics by history, tradition and civilisation, which we call “the gender frame”. The woman wears skirts, has long hair, wears pink, washes the dishes and vacuums… and there we reach some more serious attitudes and conclusions about what the “female” is able and allowed to do. Remember that before the mid-20th century, and based on sex characteristics (because she was not as clever as the man), people had believed that the woman could not vote, get an education, have her own property, make decisions about her body, decide if she would have sexual intercourse or not…
- The system of values, which ascribes different characteristics to differences between the sexes, so that male and female beings (sex) become men and women (gender), is called patriarchy. That is the world, which have been created according to the male model, where everything “female” is less strong. That inequality of physical strength has been a good reason to declare the woman and everything related to her as less worth than the stronger man.
Well, for example, have you ever wondered in what way the society evaluates maternity? It is only this year that serious campaigns were launched to make breastfeeding legal in public places (bear in mind that legally accepted does not mean socially accepted). Do you think that the world which allows female breasts on billboards for underwear, but not as a maternity feature, has been made in such way that the woman feels as much worth as the man? Breasts in a sexy bra are a socially constructed image that shows what is aesthetically acceptable and sexually arousing, whereas breasts feeding a newborn is rude in public places.
These conclusions were revealed by Simone de Beauvoir in her famous book The Other Sex, where the most significant moment is her sentence that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”. In some way, it implies the previous conclusions and states that the society makes a female being become a woman, by giving her different roles which some play well. Whereas, some disappoint the expectations and then face condemnation by the public due to that they are about to get divorced or has no interest in getting married. That means women do not fight against men, but patriarchy. The world that often (but not always) forces them to be what they are not. Women are not lonely in that fight, since there are also men who do not find themselves in such a patriarchal world, which expects them to be heterosexual breadwinners and super strong fellows.
Feminism and I
As I have already mentioned that a unique definition of feminism does not exist, it is the half-done definition that leaves enough space for us to choose whichever position: liberal, radical, traditional… Unlike other identities, such as religious and national, feminism avoids the trap of limiting the scope of its own definition. Due to the feminism as such, I have become upset by the fact that people reject it and take it for granted. Imagine that I said I were not a human being, because I knew that some people were murders and rapists.
It is hard to explain to a contemporary person to what extent feminism has impacted the life of a contemporary woman. Five things are worth mentioning: the right to vote, labour, education, abortion and divorce.
In the 21st century, the western civilisation has been hard to convince and we have had to prove that we are as good as men. At the beginning of the 20th century Virginia Woolf was only allowed to enter the library if accompanied by a man, but Ms Woolf was a white Englishwoman from a wealthy family. A hundred years later, on 9th October 2012, one girl was shot in her head because she went to school. She is a brown Pakistani girl from a none-wealthy family. Nowadays, I can tell my boyfriend I am not in the mood for sex, but a female peer of mine in the United Arab Emirates must not and cannot do that. Nowadays, I can meet my father with one and each subsequent boyfriend, but a female peer of mine from the village I came from, must not do that, so she hides having a boyfriend. There are some women from my village who have visited a gynaecologist only once, and that was when they gave birth to their children.
Ideological conformism and privileges we are not aware of allow us to label people, ideas and phenomena around us easily. I am not saying that I have beaten the system, but rather that I might have had luck to grow up in a mixture of the rural and the urban. This due to that my parents offered me an opportunity to educate myself, while at the same time I continued being a peasant woman from a village in Macva and actively participating in the lives of my peasant men and women. In that way, I had a different approach towards the creation of my personality and its central part, and that has always been the fight for women’s rights – that has been feminism.
At first it was a feeling that something was wrong. I was the only girl in the village to accompany her father to the mill in order to deliver grain during the harvest. Then my feminism became an idea, which I decomposed through the theory and which now I spread further through activism. Nowadays, my feminism means directing attention to the issues, which particularly girls and women face. Feminism shows my efforts and the efforts of other individuals and groups to create and achieve better and more equal conditions for women and girls worldwide.
Writing about a girl who did sport appropriated by men, since the body of a female canoeist falls out of the social construct defining which female body is beautiful and desirable, for me, is feminism at its finest. It is also feminism when I put on a shirt, a skirt and a lipstick before going to a serious lesson or meeting.
That is the victory over my fear that I would be more seriously understood if I wore black trousers and a black jacket that is my small victory over patriarchy. Feminism is my grandmother Rosa and my great-grandmother Zagorka. Feminism is my mom who beat cancer. Feminism is my elder brother who always took me out with him and his friends.
Feminism and you
Feminism is not aggressive. What is aggressive is the frames, which shape the way people think, so they make conclusions on the basis of an individual experience or with a lack of information. What is aggressive is ignorance, which leaves no space for solidarity. Thus, whether I am a feminist or a great-great-great-granddaughter of a witch, whom they did not manage to burn, depends on the way of thinking, the wish to acquire new knowledge, to broaden the perspectives, to be empathic, supportive and wealthy of new experience. What is so wonderful about feminism is our choice to be what we really are and what we want to be.
And if I have to continue justifying myself, I will, not in order to prove that I am right, but to show you how wrong you are when, let me paraphrase J. B. Jovi, a philosopher from New Jersey, you give feminism “a bad name”.
[1] My blog