“When I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything.” Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter, writer
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| Not about women on top, but women & men side by side |
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT loves women.
The actor proclaimed himself a feminist. His definition, and my interpretation, of feminist both boil down to: someone who loves women and men, and thinks that they should all enjoy the same inalienable rights.
Which is not to say they all have to do the same things. Just, if a person really wants to try to achieve something, they should not be barred on the grounds of sex, any more than on the basis of race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation.
Liberal feminists are about equality of rights and opportunities for women. What is it about wanting that for women that provokes such venom in people, including other women themselves?
Writing my unprecedented feminist column about 20 years ago, the names I got called! “Man-basher.” “Man-hater.” “Balls-buster.” “Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.” Some things are enduring, it seems.
Gordon-Levitt’s statements came on the heels of anti-feminist comments from teenaged celebrities. I am always intrigued by women who bash feminism, especially publicly. It’s ironic. According to sexist, chauvinist doctrine, ladies should – like children – be seen, not heard. Women daring to express public opinion are bucking that tradition, thus, pushing a feminist head.
Who won the rights?
Many western women of today are so accepting of the rights they enjoy, they’ve forgotten these rights were bought with the trials, tears and toil of feminists before them. So comfortable in this place other women earned for them, some modern gals see no reason to understand what past freedom-fighters really stood for, truly did and actually wanted for women and men. They wanted more respectful interaction; more practical and productive working relationships; more sensible, stronger support systems for societies, in which all people would be given equal opportunity to craft industrious, fulfilled lives that answered to their talents and training.
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| Having broken free, can we stay the same? |
Witch hunts: a contrivance to kill off mostly female herbal lore healers – homeopathic doctors, effectively.
Too far back for you? The Rape of Nanking during the Second Sino-Japanese war in the 1930’s. Under the Japanese invasion, an estimated 20,000 women were raped in six weeks, be it elder or infant (the very young purportedly cut open to allow rape). Women were often killed afterward, via “explicit mutilation”: bayonets, bamboo poles or sharp sticks shoved into the vagina.
Rape as genocide
Still too far? Consider the Bosnian war’s rape camps, where warfare took “gender specific form.” The Army of Republika Srpska systematically raped Bosnian Muslim females; maybe as many as 50,000. This “genocidal rape” is deemed by the UN as a crime against humanity second only to the war crime of flat-out genocide.
But nearer, even: Boko Haram’s recent abduction of over 200 girls from a secondary school in Borno. The heavily armed guards also killed and damaged villagers for trying to protect their daughters, burning 100 homes as punishment. Boko Haram thinks girls should not be educated.
That’s sexist. All these acts were terrorist. And this is the kind of gender-specific, evil-toned sh*t that is resisted by women who are feminist.
I think people see feminist as a “mere female.” As often happens, a female can easily be misunderstood, misrepresented, harangued, attacked, put in her place by any yahoo with an inclination. However, if people today would become educated about feminism as a movement, feminism as a philosophy, perhaps then they would understand why any decent, considerate human being should support it.
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| Nothing wrong with wanting joy |
Wanting to be a partner with your husband in making decisions about the home you are creating together is practicing feminist philosophy. Wanting equal pay for equal work; wanting to be promoted because you deserve it; wanting to vote is practicing feminist philosophy.
Simply wanting to be treated with the same quality of respect and regard as a man is practicing feminist philosophy.
If you didn’t comprehend before, hope you do now. Take a moment and ask yourself what you’re for, then think “THANK YOU” towards all those bygone feminists who made it possible for us to be the freer, more empowered women – and men – we can be today.
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