I’m a woman, I am not oppressed. But I do think that the latest wave of feminism is misguided and narcissistic. It might even be becoming the thing it claims to be fighting against.
In the past, the feminist movement was useful to Western society. It had a tangible goal — to gain equal legal rights for women. Thankfully, this was achieved several decades ago in most of the Western world, at least. Women are now legally able to control their own lives. We have equal opportunities as men, and in theory, are free to reach our full potential.
This is cause for celebration in my book, and something to appreciate. Especially as there are still many countries where women are sadly, treated very poorly. Yet, rather than acknowledge any progress, the feminist movement in the West has adopted increasingly extreme stances.
It’s interesting to note that feminist activism is most visible today in Western countries, which are far less oppressive than other parts of the world. It could be argued that feminists in Western countries are using their relative freedom to also help raise awareness of these issues in the countries where women’s rights are still being denied. But I would disagree, as I haven’t seen much evidence of this. I think that today’s feminists appear to be unaware of real hardships or oppression, having never experienced them. Female genital mutilation is still common practice in countries throughout Africa, for example. I’m not sure the average American feminist can relate to that.
While feminism was originally based on noble goals and ideals, it has evolved and changed over time. The movement today is so intensely self-focused that it has gone into overdrive and appears to have forgotten its original aim. It has even become a little narcissistic and power-hungry, almost… chauvinistic? The current belief system is called fourth-wave feminism.
The problem with fourth-wave feminism
Wikipedia describes fourth-wave feminism as a phase of feminism that began around 2012. It “focuses on the empowerment of women, intersectionality, and the use of internet tools.” Fourth-wave feminism describes itself as queer, trans-inclusive, and sex-positive.
Now that women have equal legal rights, fourth-wave feminism has turned its attention to more subjective matters. It appears that the current mission is to correct any of the remaining ways that women are still being oppressed in society, no matter how minute, abstract or unverifiable. Any issue that could potentially undermine women now needs to be “corrected”.
The vagueness of this goal is a problem. Even feminist activists themselves cannot articulate or agree on what exactly their current goal is. As a result, we have a real technical problem — a movement with no definite aim. This means that there is no way to know when the goal has been achieved, or when the cause has outlived its usefulness.
Because of this lack of clarity, the mission just keeps on shifting. As far as I can tell, feminism is now intent on gaining total domination over men — and that’s not an exaggeration.
Zero-sum game: Sassy and we know it
Proponents of the current feminist movement want to be seen as a protected class, free to act with impunity. The underlying assumption is that there is a battle of the sexes taking place. Women deserve to win because it’s our turn, and this is a zero-sum game.
This has translated into a high level of “sassiness”. The tone of feminism today is often disrespectful and aggressive — what I’d describe as highly abrasive. The attitude is something like:
“Finally — it’s our time to shine! We’ve been oppressed for so long by the patriarchy that a li’l revenge on all men ain’t so bad. We’re just showing how badass and powerful we are! Everyone agrees that men deserve a little abuse, we are turning the tables!”
This is not a reasonable or admirable mindset to have, in my view. It’s immature, and reeks of double standards, a lack of integrity, and narcissism. Insisting that women are superior purely because of an immutable trait such as their sex is not helpful, and denigrates the original message of feminism. Taking cheap potshots at all men doesn’t seem like the right approach, yet this sassy tone is being used by almost all feminist groups today, and people are celebrating the attitude as brave and courageous. Anyone who questions it is shot down as a bigot: no criticism is accepted.
I would argue that equality between men and women is not a zero-sum game, and that today’s feminists are behaving quite similarly to stereo-typically chauvinistic men.
The fact that feminist rhetoric has become so openly aggressive also points to something deeper. Is the movement truly as well-intentioned as it pretends? Or are we witnessing the age-old story of an organised political group becoming corrupted over time, and tilting towards the love of power for its own sake?
Here’s a little sampler of the sassy-aggressive tone that has become common in feminist messages:
Psychology of a modern feminist
About ten years ago, I was in my early 20’s and lived in Paris. This was when I first started hearing about the ideas that are central to the current feminist movement.
One of my roommates, Jessica, was from California, and had recently graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies. She saw life through a distinctly postmodern lens, and wasn’t afraid to tell you about her opinions. Jessica explained to me that women had been oppressed by men all throughout history, up to and including the present day. She also schooled me on the importance of using the correct terms and words to express certain ideas.
Jessica saw words as weapons, and wanted to carefully disarm people of these weapons by controlling their speech. By controlling the words and phrases that could be used to discuss topics, certain subjects could only be expressed in very specific ways. Ways that Jessica happened to agree with.
At the time, I found this perspective confusing, but assumed that I was missing something. Maybe I just wasn’t intellectual enough to understand the ideas properly? Jessica was clearly more intelligent than me; she was smart enough to attend Harvard after all, and she seemed convinced of her moral superiority.
I remember being at several parties with Jessica where she seemed to spend the entire evening milling around between different groups of people, policing their conversations. Jessica would often interrupt to tell people off for making unfiltered comments, or expressing their opinions in an ‘offensive’ manner — especially if it related to women (or race or sexuality). She didn’t like most jokes. I sure know how to pick my party buddies!
The reactions from the people she was “correcting” was usually one of polite confusion. Jessica would remind her accosted listener that she had studied these subjects, and therefore had a deeper understanding of them. She was simply more informed and aware than the rest of us. No-one really questioned her, mainly because it didn’t seem worthwhile to start an argument at a party. So Jessica enjoyed total freedom to pontificate to her (overly?) civil audience.
This is a small scale example of how these ideas play out in society too. People like Jessica are now driving the feminist rhetoric.
Overtaken by an ideology
I always liked Jessica as a person, but I could sense that she was utterly possessed by a set of ideas that she had never really questioned or tested.
She had not arrived at these conclusions on her own, but appeared happy to parrot off exactly what she had been taught at university, about how men have oppressed women systematically, throughout history. Jessica clung to these ideas she had been served up as if they were deeply linked to her core identity. Her extreme feminist views were not just a set of opinions, they were more like an overarching belief system that trumped all others. A religion, but without any of the benefits.
Because Jessica was forcing me to focus on these issues, I remember quite innocently thinking back over my life. I tried to think of a single situation where I felt I had been discriminated against for being female, but I couldn’t come up with anything. Nothing.
I explained this to Jessica one day, and she calmly corrected me. I may not have been aware of how oppressed I was, but had I been more well-read on these issues, I would see things more clearly and agree with her. It struck me that Jessica seemed more in love with these theories and ideas, than with understanding if they were actually reflected in reality.
If I had been oppressed without noticing it as Jessica claimed, does that still qualify as oppression?
The Female Advantage
Growing up in Ireland, it had always seemed to me that the girls in my classes at school excelled more than the boys. Girls always seemed to get higher scores in exams too, overall.
Looking at the data, this seems to be the case in most Western countries recently. I think it’s also fair to say that we’re living in a rather feminine society today in the West, where many female qualities are now highly valued. Kindness and inclusivity are talked about on a daily basis. Yes, I know the Orange Man is in office and he’s not kind, but culturally, society is favouring female values overall. This has arguably led to the feminisation of some workplaces and many different areas of life, making it preferable to be a woman, in a lot of fields.
In a clever sleight of hand, today’s feminist activists never acknowledge any progress. They refuse to update their views. Even though society is now biased towards women in quite a lot of areas, these gung-ho activists conveniently ignore this fact, while continuing to claim oppression and victim-hood. They continue to protest as though we’re still back in 1913.
But what about the pay gap?
Surprise! It doesn’t exist. This claim needs to be put to bed. This persistent “fact” has been debunked scientifically many times over (see the Harvard study here), yet it is continuously cited as proof of the existence of women’s oppression. This pay gap conclusion was reached by comparing the average earnings of ALL women to ALL men — that’s it. This statistic doesn’t take any other factor into consideration, such as the possibility that women may have chosen to work in different types of jobs, or chosen to work shorter hours for various reasons, such as prioritising family commitments.
There is no conclusive data to support the claim that women are paid less for doing the exact same job as a man. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this myself a few years ago. I assumed the pay gap must have been true because it was stated as fact so often. My reaction upon learning this was that it was very good news — I didn’t need to worry about being systematically paid less than a man for the same work. Yet this fact isn’t being celebrated, it doesn’t fit the oppression narrative.
Is equality of outcome a valid aim?
One of the underlying beliefs of the current feminist movement is that all workplaces should be made up of 50% men and 50% women. Otherwise, there must be some kind of discrimination at play — there can be no other explanation.
This is frankly, a bizarre expectation, and extremely authoritarian to boot. Who is going to force men and women to have the same amount of interest in each field? Why is it a good thing to make men and women exactly the same anyway? Don’t we want complete freedom of choice for everyone? And why don’t we hear about passionate calls to equalise the number of men and women working in less glamorous fields, such as waste disposal?
It almost seems like the current feminist movement is more focused on gaining power at any cost, than on reaching true equality between the sexes. There is a difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome — only the former is important. Luckily, women today have the same opportunities as men, or close to it.
However, the psychology literature shows that on average, men naturally prefer working with things and women prefer working with people. This is what accounts for gender differences in the STEM fields, for example, rather than the oppression of women. Different interests will always lead to different outcomes — it’s a result of giving people freedom.
Today’s feminists choose to ignore this information, and are likely to accuse anyone who refers to it as a bigot. The push for equality of outcome is not only illogical, it is now wielded as a weapon by the feminist movement. If you disagree with this goal, or believe that the issue is more complex than this, you can be instantly shut down and silenced by the claim that you’re “anti-women”.
If the shift in focus to gaining power over men isn’t a corruption of the originally-stated goal of feminism — true equality, I don’t know what is.
Sideline Issues, oversimplifications, and false victim-hood
Now that women have gained the same legal rights as men, feminism has turned its attention to other, more subjective, sideline issues, that may or may not be tied to the original, stated goal of this movement.
Some of these sideline topics are not related to women only, but have been commandeered by the feminist movement anyway. Abortion is a good example. The abortion debate has become central to the feminist rhetoric. If it is not available in any area, feminists claim this a violation of their human rights, and a good example of men trying to oppress and control women.
We often hear the phrase My Body, My Choice: abortion should be easily available to any woman who wants it, and men don’t get a say in whether it happens or not. Why? Because the pregnant body in question is female, so abortion only affects the woman.
Feminists today behave as though all women enthusiastically support abortion, but evil men are against it because they like to control women. Any woman who doesn’t support abortion is lumped into the same category as evil men. This viewpoint is remarkably superficial and biased. The topic is clearly far more nuanced, but that’s a subject for another day. It’s missing the true complexity of the issue, and smacks of false victim-hood.
So, what’s the answer for women?
I’d like to clarify that I agree that life is harder for women than men in a lot of ways. But life is pretty tough for men in some ways too. That’s… life. We could argue about who has it worse til the end of time. Men and women have different challenges in life, but viewing female empowerment as an us versus them problem just isn’t helpful. It doesn’t reflect reality.
Of course, life is sometimes made more difficult for women (or men) by the policies in place within a country. I just don’t believe this is currently a significant problem in the Western world.
The feminist movement has become unhelpful to women, as it promotes the narrative that we are powerless and oppressed, when it this is not actually the case. It’s important to remind ourselves that the pay gap doesn’t exist, and that we have full control over our own success.
Success is primarily tied to a person’s character, not their sex. This should be a very hopeful message. Rather than trying to change the world, let’s take a look at ourselves. The easiest way to give ourselves the best possible chance at success is to develop ourselves. Learning about our personalities, and natural strengths and weaknesses can help us make the right decisions.
The Big Five personality test is generally accepted as the most scientifically accurate. This test measures the OCEAN model: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. This can give good insight into our natural proclivities, and identify areas for improvement. Of course, this is just one way we can learn more about ourselves and give ourselves the highest chance of success.
The approach of improving yourself rather than trying to change the world does not include easy opportunities to pontificate on social media about all that is wrong and oppressive about the world today. It will not give you a free pass to call all non-allies “bigots”, or to promote yourself online as a hero, or proudly wear t-shirts with cliched phrases like The Future is Female.
However, it’s the one strategy that may actually work.
