Why I've decided to stop calling myself a feminist.

It’s no secret: I am very much in favour of female empowerment and the equality of the sexes. However in spite of this I decided a few months back to no longer go by the name of ‘feminist’ when pressing for these goals.

Strange really, because the definition of “feminism” is: the advocacy of women’s social, political and economic rights, with the aim of bringing about equality of the sexes. And I’m all for that.

I used to be one of the people that just couldn’t get their heads around why some women or young ladies would say they were in favour of equality for the sexes but that they weren’t feminists.

I thought of it as being like me, a Christian, deciding that because there have been Christians who have behaved in anything BUT a Christ-like manner yet still go by the name of Christian, that I would no longer call myself Christian. It seemed ridiculous. Because there have been evil people who used the Bible to justify 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade, decades of colonisation, the Crusaders, homophobic yells calling for all homosexuals to be killed – all inhumane behaviours  – in the name of being Christ-followers I should claim that I was not a Christian? Just because people have messed with the real and original meaning and turned it into a warped version that suits their own ends, I should separate myself from the pure meaning of what it really means to be a Christian? No! The fake Christians should move along and stop giving the rest of us a bad name.

That’s how I felt about calling myself a ‘feminist’. Yes, there have been EXTREME feminists out there that have said a whole lot of out-of-this-world things. (Literally.) I studied Sociology at A-Level and we learnt about some very interesting theories from what are called (for very good reason), radical feminists – including that we should rid the world of men and send them to Mars, and that all women should set up lesbian relationships and use

place which makes creating babies possible? What were they gonna do, call Mars and get them to post what was needed to make a baby? And did they not consider that with these pregnancies, just as well as girls boys could be created?  What were they going to do with the boys born then?

So I think it’s fair to say that we would all consider that a load of rubbish. I dare say there are very few feminists that would align themselves with this kind of thinking. So we would tend to push such radical thinkers to the side and get on with the real job in hand: advocating women’s social, political and economic rights, with the end goal of bringing about the equality of the sexes.

That’s what I used to say until a few months ago. I agreed wholeheartedly with a meme I saw somewhere that compared using the term ‘feminist’ to the appellation of the doctoral profession, with someone called Aziz Ansari saying:

“If you believe that men and women have equal rights, and then someone asks you if you’re a feminist, you have to say yes. Because that’s how words work. You can’t be like, “Yeah, I’m a doctor who primarily does diseases of the skin.” “Oh, so you’re a dermatologist?”  “Oh that’s way too aggressive of a word, not at all, not at all.”

You might be reading this and thinking, Yeah, this all makes total sense. So why did she change her mind then? Well, I’ll tell you. And the reason is, ‘feminist’ is no longer synonymous with “person pushing for equality between the sexes”. It’s become more than that. Much more. In many cases it’s become about making women superior to men “because women are historically the oppressed sex”. So what, because men have historically oppressed us we should start doing the same to them? Don’t think so. I’m not the only one who doesn’t agree. Many of my friends and I refer to this party as ‘feminazis”; women who are always shouting men down and preventing the discussions that need to take place from being had because they think it’s time to do away with (they say it in much stronger terms) “the patriarchy”.

History of Feminism

When feminism started in the 19^th century it was because the female sex really barely had any rights at all. In the UK, we didn’t have the right to property, to divorce in cases of abuse or adultery (only the man was able to do this), even to have access to our children should a divorce ensue. Women were prevented from going to university and they were heavily discriminated against in the workplace. Women over the age of 21 did not get the vote until 1928.

Now, in most countries at least, we have these opportunities. So feminism is becoming a much more comprehensive issue. However, it is now dealing with some things that I don’t feel have anything to do with feminism (see definition used above). 

What is Feminism really about?

Now, if you know me, you’ll know that one of the things that I talk most about when talking about the treatment of women is how we are continually reduced to little more than sex objects. We live in a constant eddy of images selling our bodies for cold, hard cash. From the advert of the woman who is depicted as the victim of a gang rape to get people to buy a Gucci perfume to the topless woman in The Sun whose intimates stare you right in the face, to the singer who poses provocatively on the latest magazine cover to promote her new album… Our bodies are commercialised cheaply as though they mean nothing; as though we – our intellect, our character, who we each are as people  – don’t matter.

Of course these media images don’t end there. They trickle down into the society in which we live: meaning thousands of women grow up with a negative body image and with a constant need to be validated for their looks, to assure that they are good enough. 

Do you think this doesn’t affect how men see us?

Rape, sexual assault, harassment… They don’t seem to be going down.

We are shouted at in the streets, hollered at by passing drivers, stared at lewdly in public places, propositioned at bus stops, at work, walking home… We are almost daily reminded that the society that we live in values us for our anatomies primarily. I don’t like that. And I would think that most ‘feminists’ wouldn’t like it either.

1. Female Sexuality

But now I see more and more feminists saying that women should “embrace their sexuality” and become the leader in their relationships, because then they can assert their power and have it the way they want. Beyoncé, they say, is not reducing herself to a body as she twerks and writhes around as a sexual being on the stage, she is controlling how she wants herself to be presented. OK then. (I’m not part of the Beyhive, if you hadn’t noticed.)

I don’t believe that a woman can use the very puppet strings that men have used for decades to push us into a corner to “empower ourselves”. I’ll give you a surprising example to illustrate my point. I recently came across some research on that two-piece outfit so ubiquitous on our beaches and in our swimming pools in the summer: the bikini.

This research was carried out by professors at Princeton University in the States (don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about Donald Trump… -_-), with the participants being male students at said university. The objective of the research was to reveal the varied manners in which the brain reacts to seeing people in various amounts of clothing.

The bikini was an obvious choice, being the “outfit” which covers the least of the female body (often less than underwear). Some interesting bikini facts for ya: No. 1: it was named after the atomic bomb testing that year (1946), “Bikini Atoll” – because the public’s reaction of the day was expected to be like the explosion of an atomic bomb. No. 2: The creator claimed that his invention “wasn’t a true bikini unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring”. No. 3: It was so scandalous at the time that only a stripper would model it.

How times have changed. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, women’s bodies were prized to the point that ladies would use “bathing machines” on their outings to the beach. They would wear long dresses over their swimming costumes and ride in carriages measuring 36 square feet right up to the shoreline, before removing their dresses and climbing directly into the water so that they would maintain their discretion. They were in charge.

Are women really in charge of their own bodies now? Is there really “power” in wearing the bikini? Is the woman really “in charge of her sexuality”, as some feminists would have us believe?

That’s what this research set out to discover.

Brain scans showed that when men were shown pictures of scantily-clad women, the region of the brain associated with tools, like screwdrivers and hammers – lit up.

When they saw women wearing bikinis, some men showed absolutely ZERO brain activity in the medial pre-frontal cortex – the region of the brain which lights up when one ponders another’s thoughts, feelings and intentions.  Researchers found this shocking, because they almost never see this region of the brain shut down in this way.

One of the professors put it like this: “It’s as if they reacting to these women as if they are not fully human. It’s consistent with the idea that they’re responding to these photographs as if they were responding to objects, not people.”

In a separate Princeton study, researchers found that when men were shown pictures like these they tended to associate them with 1^st person action verbs, like I push, I grab, I handle. That is scary to me. All the evidence would point to the fact that when women are presented in such a way that their bodies become the primary focus of attention, men are inherently likely to forget that they are people and start to think of and treat them like objects. On the other hand, when women were more fully clothed, men associate images of them with third-person verbs, like she pushes, she grabs, etc.

At one time women were kicked off the beach for wearing bikinis. Now they are kicked off the beach for wearing burkinis. (I’m looking at you, France, and I’m very ashamed.) That’s not the kind of “female empowerment” I’m in favour of.

Apparently, the annual spending on the bikini in the United States totalled 8bn dollars in US in 2012.

So that to me would show me that women cannot in fact be in charge of their sexuality and the way they would like to be treated by peeling off more layers of clothes and saying that they’re in charge because they’re the ones that chose to take them off. We live in a society which tells us to take off more layers of clothing to get where we want – how is listening to that making your own decision? It’s just following what you’re being told but telling yourself that you’re doing it on your own.

If women want to do that, that’s their prerogative. But please, don’t call it feminism.

The real feminists spent years working for women to be more than mannequins. Please don’t undo their work.

This idea has descended even further in recent times – to a feeling of nonchalance or even support, of prostitution, or what some now term “sex work”. Now this I don’t get. Some people say that some people have to prostitute themselves because they have no other options. I don’t agree with this.

Aside from the fact that I believe as a Christian that sex should be between a man and woman in the context of marriage, I can’t imagine how it can in any way be healthy or satisfying for men and women  to be treating an act so intimate and personal with any triviality.

When our society gets to the point that it says that people without THE MEANS (without much money) must resort to selling their bodies for sex, rather than creating DIGNITY-ENCOURAGING opportunities for women that find themselves in dire straits to me is a troubling thing.  Some people say that women should be able to do whatever they like and shouldn’t be judged for it. They say that some women find pleasure in opening their legs several times a day for strangers rather than treating this phenomenon as worrisome. I think if we’ve gotten to the point where women feel like there is no other job that they can do to provide for themselves and their families then there is something seriously wrong with the societies that they live in. When a woman can’t use her intellect, her character and her humanity to earn a living but can only use her body and her ability to satisfy a man’s sexual desires, then I think we went wrong somewhere – don’t you? Shouldn’t we be investing in public schemes that help women get out of this trap and provide them with a meaningful life, instead of shrugging our shoulders and saying this is the way that it has to be?

Are the women that claim to be feminists whilst advocating this popular opinion really putting the interests of their fellow women at heart or are they simply trying to find a reason to continue the repeated exploitation of women by means of their sexuality?

I don’t call that feminism. Or at least, if that’s what people nowadays want to call feminism, I’d rather stay out of it. 

2. Feminism and Abortion

Here’s another reason why I’m shying away from the term “feminism” nowadays: I don’t agree with abortion. Don’t ask me any more questions about why, just go to my post I’m Pro-Life, and I don’t see why that’s a problem. You’ll find all my opinions and responses to comments there.

Now, abortion is just seen as a given and compulsory part of the feminism code now and I’m out. I wholeheartedly disagree with the taking of another human being’s life and I don’t see how by doing so I am in any way at conflict with the advocation of equality and respect for women. In fact, femicide is a form of abortion that is frighteningly on the rise these days (the termination of embryos simply because they are female). So how can the feminists hold their fists up in support of a practice that is killing more and more of us X chromosomes by the day?

Now women everywhere – and particularly in the West – are going about calling abortion “reproductive rights” and saying that they have a choice to do what they want with their own bodies. Yes, you do. Usually the choice that you have is not having sex if you don’t want to get pregnant, but somehow we’re supposed to ignore that, or it’s supposed to be unfair. (Of course I realise that the woman does not always have a choice and that the horrific act of rape does sadly happen to some women, and this cannot be taken lightly, but you can read my thoughts on that on the post I linked above.) We talk about choice for what we want to eat or how a mother wants to deliver. These encompass your “right to choose”; yes absolutely. But in the context of deciding whether or not you’re going to let a child live or take their life in the womb, is that really a “choice”? Is it really a “right”? Even though the child a woman carries is a product of her, he or she is also another human being and has the same-sized DNA of another person flowing through their blood. So how it becomes simply the woman’s “choice” is beyond me.

Again, on this some of us may have a difference of opinion, and I accept that. But if the “right to abort” is now becoming a fundamental precedent of feminism, then I’m out.

3. Shaving

Now I’ve talked already in some detail about being a woman means that you are subjected to sometimes a horrific amount of sexual objectification (don’t get me started on what it was like in Italy, for example). But I haven’t gone into detail about the double standards that so often result from that.

Sure, our culture nowadays pushes both men and women to take good care of their appearance. But it can’t be denied that the standard women are held to is on a completely different scale to that which women are measured up against.

For example, I’ve written in a previous post about why I don’t wear make-up (here). That’s most definitely counter-culture. I was even interviewed by the BBC on this point some time after I published it. Such a decision is so out-of-sync with what most people are doing that it was considered newsworthy.

There are a lot of things that women are expected to do to maintain their appearance that I don’t do. I don’t wax my eyebrows or draw them on for that matter, and ooh – wait for it… I don’t shave my legs. Or my arms.

Yes, I am still a woman.

Yes, I am feminine.

No, I don’t believe that the God-given hair that grows from my limbs is disgusting or unhygienic. When was the last time you told a man to wax his legs? …

Exactly.

In fact, body hair is a very helpful biological asset to have. I don’t get why we should be forced to put ourselves through pain to remove it when it actually does it quite a lot of good.

The hair on our arms and legs actually work to regulate our body temperature. I, for one, am very sensitive to temperature changes so when I get cold, I get really cold. I shiver and chatter. And that’s with my hairs still intact – can you imagine what I would be like without those trusty, thin little lines? They even have muscles of their own, which is what makes our hairs able to stand up on end when we get cold or scared. Body hair also helps us cool down in hot weather: as we sweat, it can work to wick moisture away from the skin. That’s not what you thought about armpit hair, is it? Hehe.

Oh here’s another random one, which provides more evidence that human nature is never far from considering the best way to find a suitable partner of the opposite sex to construct a life with: see my blog post on the differences between men and women here – apparently underarm hair and the hair down under act to catch and then dry hormones secreted by the body so that they can ride through the air and reach the olfactory senses of that special someone. I’m not kidding. I just thought it was a funny one to tell you. What can I say, God thinks of everything?!

Do you wanna hear some other pretty interesting things about body hair?

Apparently the more body hair you have, the more intelligent you are. Well, that’s what a study on men with varying amounts of body hair found; that there was a correlation between these two factors. So women, do we want men to have another reason to say they’re smarter than we are?

Our body hair also acts as a sense organ, and helps our body’s defences and the immune system. 

And it contains gold??! No joke, scientists have found that our hair contains nanoparticles of gold. Gold is my favourite colour; the more hairs the merrier!

Scientists also say that underarm hair reduces friction between the upper and lower arm during vigorous motion and covers exposed parts of the body with vital arteries. Dr. Mona Gohara, an associate clinical professor of dermatology at Yale University says: “When you shave, you can get irritation, folliculitis, rashes, inflammation, and even infections from dirty razors. We do it [women] because it’s a societal norm, but there really isn’t any biological reason to remove that hair. There’s this false association that hairlessness equals cleanliness, but that’s not actually true as long as you’re clean. Men wear deodorant, have underarm hair, and don’t smell – there’s no biological reason women can’t do the same.” (Check this out for more: http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/beauty/a32910/female-armpit-hair/)

In fact, once people start shaving their hair only grows back more quickly and thicker and pricklier than it used to (and even then it’s still thinner than male body hair)! Too many times I’ve been with friends who start to get freaked about because they’re wearing a skirt and they’ve just realised they forgot to shave that morning. They’re sitting there with their few prickly hairs that I didn’t even notice and I’m sitting there having never shaved my legs wondering what all the fuss is about.

Do you wanna know why women even started shaving in the first place? It all started around the 1920s, during the Flapper era, a time when women were gaining more and more independence and the sleeveless dress was emerging as a fashion.  In 1915, Harper’s Bazaar, a magazine aimed at the upper and upper middle classes (and still in existence today), published an advertisement featuring a woman dressed in a toga-style outfit raising one hand high above her head to reveal her hairless armpit. The advert read: ‘Summer dress and modern dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair’. And that was it. In order to be considered ‘women of refinement’, as the advert put it, women started to flock out to get the new Gilette razor and other products that would remove the hair that was suddenly objectionable on them but not on men.

It’s all a scam. Capitalist companies and people in power make money off making women feel uncomfortable and insecure in their own bodies and convincing that it’s only after hours of “maintaining themselves” that they will be fit to be seen in public. So-called feminists buy into these lies. 

A study in 2008 revealed that American women who shave (and supposedly even using the cheaper methods of hair removal) will spend, on average, more than 10,000 dollars and nearly two entire months of their lives on managing unwanted hair. As for the woman who waxes once or twice a month, she will spend more than 23 thousand dollars over the course of her lifetime. Click for more info: http://www.alternet.org/books/why-have-americans-gotten-so-extreme-their-obsession-hair-free-bodies 

Frankly I think I’m saving a lot of money by not listening to a culture that tells me I need to spend money on so many extra things to simply be. As well as saving myself a lot of time by not wearing makeup or shaving relentlessly, I reckon I’ll have a lot more money to give to charity and to spend on other good causes over the course of my life by not spending money on these.

I thought there was supposed to be a large element of sisterhood included in the idea of feminism. But women bash each other more than men bash us sometimes! I could talk about how people criticised superstar gymnast Gabby Douglas when at 16, she won an Olympic gold medal and black women kept going on about her curly baby hairs (I’mabsolutely a naturalista, if you didn’t know – take a look at this for more) as one example, but I’ll focus here on how worked up some women get when they see hair that grows on their own bodies on other women’s bodies.

I remember watching a talk show on which a woman that shaved religiously and one who didn’t were interviewed about the topic, and the woman who shaved was visibly repulsed by seeing the hair that she had never allowed to grow on her own body. I just don’t get it. Neither does this lady, who realised how strange it was that she was so bothered about seeing other women’s body hair and wrote this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexandra-allam/why-women-shave-their-legs_b_7575456.html

 I don’t get people that stare at hair on women’s legs either. It’s rude, just like it is to stare at a black person for ages because they’re different from you. You don’t like it? Look away and get on with your life. Don’t think that by staring at them you’re going to change them.

If any woman wants to shave that’s her prerogative. But it’s not right to think that it’s in the handbook for “How to be a Woman”. It isn’t. Should people who consider themselves to be feminists be so hard on women that decide not to stick to the status quo?

4. Chivalry

OK, so now I’m going to go on to my fourth point, which demonstrates that feminism and I aren’t walking on the same path anymore.

Chivalry. What happened to the knight in shining armour?

What happened to men being allowed to be gentlemen to ladies?

What happened to guys opening the door for women being a good thing and not a sign of rude arrogance?

Some feminists hate it when a guy offers them a seat on public transport – even if they’re pregnant. Because, just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m weak and stand on my own two feet! Come on ladies, really??

When a guy wants to pay for the lady when they go out he’s being rude and presumptuous? What happened to the value of being kind and generous? Some guys are now scared to be chivalrous because they don’t want to get their heads bitten off. It’s such a shame, because chivalry is such a rarity these days as it is, and the few nice guys out there feel afraid to be gentlemen because of the angry “I can do it myself, and better than you!” rhetoric of feminism.

I for one, quite like it when I’m struggling with a massive suitcase in a bustling train station or at an airport and a guy offers to help me with it. (Of course I have to keep an eye on it to make sure they’re not going to make a run for it with all my stuff, but aside from that niggling caution, it’s all good!) I don’t want to be associated with a movement that has started to tread upon gallantry.

I actually think that the man should  be the one that takes the lead in relationships. A lot of women and girls these days feel they have to scramble for the attention of any male they’re interested in because otherwise someone else will get him or the guy will just not get the message. I think we should let guys do the wooing. Call me old-fashioned, but I think he should be the one to pursue in hopes of a long-lasting relationship. I don’t think the girl’s way of attracting a guy should be to scream, “Look at me! I’m over here!” I believe we can give men the benefit of the doubt; I reckon if they were just allowed to look out for themselves they would spot that girl across the crowded room that they wanted to be their wife.

True, there are a lot of spineless guys out there that won’t get up and move to pursue women and capture their hearts. But feminism has contributed to that, in my opinion, by emasculating men.

There are guys out there that can be knights in shining armour if allowed to be. But feminism isn’t doing a great job of celebrating them, so I’m getting off this ship now.

5. Motherhood

So yes, I want to get married and have kids. You got a problem with that, feminism?

Well, a lot of feminists clearly do. They think that a woman should spend all of her life getting ahead in the workplace and no time at home looking after or even having kids. (I mentioned that notion in this earlier blog post.)

Sorry, I don’t agree.

If a woman decides that she doesn’t want to get a job and wants to stay at home and look after her children, then that is her lifestyle choice. She isn’t weak and brainless because of it. (Do you know how much strength it takes to be a mum?) And if she chooses that she wants to be a working mum and amazingly manage two jobs at once then kudos to her! But please don’t act like making babies is something that women should run away from, feminism. I’m not about that life.

To finish off…

So, there you have it. I’m passionate about women having social, political and economic rights which allow us the dignity and opportunities we deserve and protects us from sexism. Things like, us not being treated like sexual objects and not continuing to disproportionately be targeted as victims of violent abuse at the hands of men. But feminism isn’t doing a lot of what it was made for any more.

As far as I'm concerned, if feminists are saying or doing the wrong thing, then men and any of us are justified in rejecting what they’re saying. Like for me, if feminism is becoming about a baby being considered simply a part of the woman’s uterus and something she can do whatever she likes with, then man, you disagree with her all you like! I also don’t want to be associated with a movement that is trying to strip away the differences between men and women, because I believe that we were created differently for a reason and that there is beauty and equality in those differences. Feminism has a part to play in emasculating men and I ain’t here for that.

So, in a nutshell, the people shouting the loudest in the feminist movement are shouting in favour of a lot of things I don’t stand for, and in fact, some of the people that consider themselves feminists are oppressing others – the oppressed are becoming the oppressors.

I’m a woman who cares a lot about seeing women treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve but not whilst treading on others. I guess that just makes me a caring human being. You can join and be one too with me if you want. (Clue: you don’t have to be a woman to care.)