Words by: Ruh Taylor
Graphic by: Zoe Papps
This article is for that 20% - so if you’re one of the many, many boys (or a girly) on the right side of history, scroll on, click back, or feel free to read too. But those of you yelling men’s rights slogans - buckle up, Chad, have we got the primer for you! We’ve gathered some of the most common complaints about Feminism and we’re gonna debunk them one by one.
Because of Feminism I’m being hunted down and treated like a criminal when I’ve done nothing wrong!
Hey, it’s ok. No one is out to get you. Those school assemblies about ‘toxic masculinity’ were not aimed specifically at you.
It’s possible to display positive masculinity and toxic femininity too. It’s more about looking within and seeing which parts of your gender - the ones you don’t think about - are actually harming others.
Say, you see a woman at a baseball match. You’re instantly bored. Not because she’s done something boring, but because everyone knows that women’s baseball is boring - that’s what you’ve been raised to believe.
But what you’re really doing is closing yourself off from having fun. If you watched with an open mind, you might actually find that baseball player to be talented and competitive. You might enjoy yourself.
Don’t close yourself off to that - challenge the unspoken assumptions you have.
Or maybe you’re talking about girls not giving you the time of day or calling you a creep when you’re trying to hit on them...
Well, you know that tweet about guys being worried in gay clubs and that that’s how women feel all the time?
And then all these guys were like, ‘noooooo, cos one time a guy groped me and made me feel unsafe’?
Well, women - even teenage girls around you - have had that experience due to a system that you currently endorse. Seriously - I was first catcalled (and made to feel that I was reduced to some part of myself which I couldn’t control) when I was 12. That’s why our guard is up, and the more you defend the society where that happens to us, the less girls will want to talk to you. Because you’ve taken yourself from somebody who has the potential to be toxic, to somebody actively coding themselves as toxic.
Feminism was OK when women were fighting for equal rights, but now they just want to be better than men.
Soooo… you know Feminism isn’t purely about boosting the status of women in society, right?
Then why is it called ‘FEMinism’?
I’m so glad you asked!
In case you haven’t noticed, the only people calling any woman ‘females’ are vets, some scientists, and guys giving off a slight ick. The ‘fem’ in ‘feminism’ doesn’t come from ‘female’, it comes from ‘feminine’. And it might surprise you to know that it was coined by a guy (Charles Fourier) way back in 1837.
Fourier observed that certain traits assigned to women were demeaned. Such soft things as feeling your feelings, caring for children, and housework were looked down upon for being womanly; whilst good, manly traits such as stoicism and competitiveness were praised. And this was the case in any gender - think of ‘soyboys’ being demeaned for crying or taking an active role in parenting.
Their poor children.
In short, he believed that anything to do with traditional women’s roles - feminine things - were persecuted, and that they should be treated as equal in value to masculine traits. So Feminism doesn’t argue that men should know their place and be held below women, but that women are equal to men, and everybody’s qualities should be respected regardless of whether they’re ‘girly’ or not. You should be able to be yourself and not be punished for it.
Feminism goes beyond gender - it dissects the idea of gender, which can control people who are just trying to live their lives.
But I also need to address something else here - Feminism WAS ok when women WERE fighting for equal rights-
Um -
In this, the age of Roe v Wade being overturned, you think women have equal rights to men???
When the most successful gymnast PERIOD (who I don’t need to name because you know who she is) is looked down upon by her very mid husband (whose name I do not recall) because as a guy he must be faster and stronger, you think women have equal rights to men?
When women are expected to be a mother, and to take unpaid time off work or even be fired for it, stunting their career growth until a white woman makes 78c to a white man’s dollar, you think women have equal rights to men?
You must be confused, boy.
We’ve got so much more to fight for. Including, in that last example, your right to equal, paid paternity leave too.
Women are MEANT to be at home. It’s natural.
Oh. Hon. Babe. No.
Even if we don’t account for the explosive rates of depression amongst 1950s housewives who weren’t given a choice about their position in life, there’s plenty of evidence in the Earth to suggest that feminine gender roles are not natural.
A crop of recent studies have found that cavewomen, rather than staying close to the cave all day with their babies, were intentional hunters of game big and small. From Peru, to China, to mezo-America, exhumed bones very likely to have belonged to women have been found with diverse hunting regalia, regardless even of maternity. So, women’s womanly motherly instincts weren’t stopping them from being an active part of cave-people society in the way that men were.
Even a viking corpse supposedly belonging to a great man, buried with gold and swords and other viking warrior things, has been tested lately and found to probably be female. Whether that tells us something about the existence of Trans folks or the non-existence of ‘natural’ gender roles, we’re gonna take that one as a win.
Turns out, ideas of early humans (and therefore the rest of us) as having natural gender roles weren’t science-based, but based on the pre-existing biases of earlier archeologists.
And we can look even further back, to our nearest animal relatives: bonobos. Being apes very similar to us, you’d think that masculine ideals such as competitiveness, strength, and violence would be inherent in their society.
So why do male bonobo leaders tend to be the ones who aren’t very strong, but are best at socialising with the group? I mean, resolving arguments with our words instead of our fists... isn’t that a... female trait?
Or maybe ideas about femininity and masculinity are made up and only serve a few people in power.
But, how can the patriarchy be working if my life sucks?
I know, and it’s ok.
No one can afford to live, let alone thrive.
We don’t know what we’re doing with our lives and how our future’s gonna pan out - if we even make it there.
Maybe you feel like women are somehow having their cake and eating it too because of Feminism, or that things would be solved if women weren’t competing with you for jobs and housing?
But, that’s not true.
Everything that makes your life worse affects women too. We don’t have it better than you.
(If anything, guys coming along and annoying us makes shit harder)
Our economy is actually making way more money than when women were locked at home, but it’s being dispersed to the bottom feeders (us) less and less.
Between paying to stay alive, having panic attacks about the future, and struggling to connect to other people.
You're not alone!
Why listen to depressing mouthpieces about how worthless you are for not being a stereotypical man when you can help fix a system that broke you? Feminism isn’t going to solve everything, but it confronts some issues you might have. Addressing the problem is more likely to fix it than leaning in.