"Something is wrong, and It's Not Feminism"

memymineown · 2012-11-02T23:05:36+00:00

The article:

Let me start off by saying that I am right. I am so right that I feel no need for political correctness, no need for intellectual discourse for the sake of intellectual discourse. Have you ever had one of those deep, painful pimples, the kind that reject even the most skin-tone-compatible of concealers and linger as light purple splotches for months after you've popped them?

Your wrongness is like that - hard to get rid of, ugly. It's the kind of wrong your kids, embarrassed of your simplemindedness and inability to get with the times, will attribute to being "from another generation." Like math or foreign languages, it's the kind of thing that's very hard to understand without natural ability, or a very patient tutor. Unfortunately, I am not that patient tutor. I am just very angry.

In "It's a Man's World," Lucy Sherriff argues that "annoying, in-your-face" feminists--and in her eyes, that's every feminist - should "ditch" the feminist label.

Over the course of the piece, Sherriff throws out, seemingly at random, many arguments we've heard before: she calls feminism a joke; she cites one feminist blog's lack of male readership as evidence of the entire movement's failure; she attributes the scarcity of women in government not to the problem of deeply ingrained ideas about women and our place in society, but to good old-fashioned democracy at work. She says sexual harassment should be chalked up to "immature males who don't know how to behave around women," yet insists it's the "in-your-face feminist[s]" who alienate the opposite sex. She mentions the suffragette movement and bra burning. She says the fact that, as a woman, she can publish misguided articles on The Huffington Post UK proves the women's movement has arrived - not that equal, but hey, close enough!

In response, I must first echo Inigo Montoya in his take down of the hapless Vizzini in Rob Reiner's 1987 film adaptation of The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

To be a "feminist" today is to understand that the kind of complacency Sherriff demonstrates is not OK, that eighty cents does not equal one dollar. It is not enough to simply acknowledge the gender disparity in government, business, science. It is not enough to assign a hyperbolically vague negative adjective to the way "women are treated." Women are not carpets; we do not need to be "treated" for fleas or embarrassing stains.

This kind of can't-we-all-just-get-along op-ed threatens to halt the progress that, yes, the suffragettes and the "bra burners" fought for. (1. You know it's unclear whether any bras were literally burned, right?) Sherriff offers plenty of evidence that the outrage "bra burning" represents is still very much necessary: she's both felt the need to create an entire mental category called "Unpleasant Experiences with Men" and asserted, both in her piece's title and in its first line ("interesting" rhetorical choice), that it's a man's world. Nevertheless, she doesn't think feminism is the answer to these very real problems, and she doesn't offer any alternatives, either.

I understand why Sherriff wants to believe the fight is over; the misogyny and sexism women encounter today seem ludicrous in the context of the twenty-first century. However, that Sherriff believes "politics won't, and can't, change" things is as much a problem as misogyny and sexism are.

When I half-jokingly declare on a date that I think I am both a "very good writer" and "pretty hot" and hear in response, "Girls can't say that! You need to be more modest!"; when a very successful male classmate tells me, matter-of-factly, that "women aren't as good of writers"; when, in high school, my boyfriend uses the phrase, "Other guys would have cheated on you by now" to persuade me to sleep with him; when I hear the news that members of a fraternity at my university have chanted, "No means yes, yes means anal," on central campus and do not get seriously, seriously punished, I do not think, "Oh, dear, what an unpleasant experience!" as Sherriff suggests I should. I think, "Something is really, really wrong."

Something is wrong not only because these things have happened and continue to happen, but also because people like Lucy Sherriff think it is an unavoidable fact of life that they do.

Something is wrong because people like Lucy are too afraid to attach their names to a cause that, though unequivocally right, makes people in power a little uncomfortable. Something is wrong when women like Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer - women we celebrate for finally achieving a modicum of the success men have been kicking back and grabbing a beer with for centuries -cannot or will not admit that it is not just the supposed bra burners at the Miss America pageant, that they too are feminists.

Sherriff is so, so wrong throughout her article, but when she cites the lack of admitted feminists in a 200-person English literature lecture to imply her viewpoint is that of the majority, I am terrified to admit that there, she could be right. If all women acted as selfishly and cowardly as Sherriff, Mayer, and many otherwise smart, ambitious, and talented women who refuse to call themselves feminists do, it might really end up a man's world after all.

OuiCrudites · 2012-11-03T00:29:16+00:00

This kind of article used to bother me, now I say we should just let her cry until she gets tired and falls asleep.

megatuxracer · 2012-11-03T01:00:30+00:00

That was probably the worst opinion piece I have ever read.

TheTane · 2012-11-03T03:01:04+00:00

Unbefuckinglievable. I completely agree: the closed-mindedness of merely the opening is astounding. Essentially it's saying "yeah, I know you have your own logical thought processes, but ignore those because you should." I can't believe there wasn't SOMEONE along the line to publication that happened to acknowledge the absurdity and bullshittedness of this post.

herbandmargie · 2012-11-03T05:11:51+00:00

We live in a weird time. I hope future generations mock our political correctness. It is the shame of the century.

ibm2431 · 2012-11-03T18:25:14+00:00

And she makes this little comment reply later:

the world needs more unabashed feminists willing to tell you to shut the hell up, you're wrong. Again, I'm not going to explain the movement and why it's necessary to you; it's a complicated, nuanced thing, and there are better people who can do that, or you can visit one of the Internet's seemingly countless resources on the subject, though the poor reading comprehension skills you've demonstrated here suggest that perhaps there is no way you'll ever get it.

"I need more people to agree with me. Shut the hell up. You have no right to an opinion. I'm unable to explain mine. You're stupid."

elebrin · 2012-11-03T05:03:11+00:00

A small part of me wants to get a t-shirt with the words "no means yes, yes means anal" just to see how many people it would piss off.

Dark_Moose · 2012-11-02T23:23:04+00:00

Funny, I could write those first two paragraphs about this article.

Sebatron · 2012-11-03T03:02:43+00:00

That article is so bad I had to struggle through it. It is bad logic to presuppose the truthfulness of the position you're defending.

Gingor · 2012-11-03T10:50:41+00:00

Let me start off by saying that I am right. I am so right that I feel no need for political correctness, no need for intellectual discourse for the sake of intellectual discourse.

Thats where I stopped reading.

I just assume that anybody who thinks he is absolutely right and doesnt feel the need to argue about it is wrong. Usually, that is spot on.

WeaponsGradeHumanity · 2012-11-03T12:40:37+00:00

Wow. I assumed you were paraphrasing and then I saw the article and it's word for fucking word. And somehow, after a start that bad, somehow it gets even worse.

sibqm_lmvm · 2012-11-03T16:04:56+00:00

I thought you were being sarcastic with that summary o_o

I hate it when people try to shove the feminist label on me. Sure, I'm still interested in women's rights and equality for every man, woman, gay person, Asian, etc. I guess I meet the qualifications, but I refuse to associate with that movement.

ThePigman · 2012-11-03T02:04:50+00:00

If the first paragraph is anything to go by, the writer is a blithering lunatic and not worth bothering with. This is what happens when you shut down psychiatric hospitals and put the patients back into the community -- they become writers for the Huffington Post.

MRB2012 · 2012-11-03T05:19:56+00:00

Feminists scream "HERBODYHERCHOICE!" when women butcher their own children, but are silent when men are imprisoned for choosing to inject their own bodies with substances the state has banned. They write articles declaring themselves to be right without offering any evidence. Their idiocy speaks for itself.

rightsbot · 2012-11-02T22:58:19+00:00

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fiz64 · 2012-11-03T17:44:30+00:00

There's a thought I've been having that I'm trying really hard to word properly. I've come across this attitude of "How can you consider yourself a champion for social justice and civil rights when you refuse to call yourself a feminist". I don't like labels to begin with, but if I had to go with one I'd say I'm egalitarian. I refuse to call myself feminist because of the radical extremists and militants (case in point: name ONE radical or militant egalitarian. I'll wait...)

Here's the connection I'm trying to draw: I just don't believe there's a god and religion isn't for me. You could say I'm an atheist, although I'm somewhat uncomfortable because that implies that I'm against religion or other people's gods, which I'm really not. In fact, many of my close friends are Christian. I've had deep conversations with them where we found out that despite the differences in our beliefs on things like the "soul" or the nature of the universe (or evolution...sigh...), our fundamental beliefs about treating people equally tend to line up almost perfectly. Never once has one of my Christian friends said "You believe in helping those who are less fortunate, yet you refuse to call yourself a Christian".

Now, "Christian" is a very broad category and I chose it deliberately. There are many different subsects with huge disparities between them. So even if I believe in one of the fundamental tenets that most Christians agree on (helping the needy), it would be absurdly inaccurate to call myself Christian. Talk to any person who does call her or himself a feminist, particularly a third-wave feminist. They will freely tell you that there are huge debates within the feminist community. There are tons of issues that feminists cannot agree or see eye-to-eye on (http://gaildines.com/2009/09/pornography-feminist-debates-on/) Why, then, do women like Laren Oyler consider it "selfish and cowardly" when someone does not want to be labelled a feminist?

Title	"Something is wrong, and It's Not Feminism"
Author	ConfirmedCynic
Upvotes	43
Comments	32
Date	November 2, 2012 10:57 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/12jem4/something_is_wrong_and_its_not_feminism/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/something-is-wrong-and-its-not-feminism.1010002 https://theredarchive.com/post/1010002

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