Yet Another Feminist Rant

It’s a hard thing to admit that you’ve failed.    

I have always really considered myself a feminist. These feelings have become exacerbated the past four or five years as I began to read more literature about it, take classes that analyzed its prevalence in society, and experienced its repercussions in my own life. But I feel like I've barely even scratched the surface over what this movement is about. Every day I am learning something new about myself and what my actions, subconscious or conscious, are saying about my attitude towards gender equality and female empowerment. And sometimes I’m ashamed to say I don’t like it.

            I recently acquired a book from one of my best friend’s Ruby entitled “Female Chauvinist Pigs.” While it is only recently that I have begun to take a critical look at feminism’s failures and concessions, I feel that its only right to be honest where we have not lived up to our expectations. The world is too full of people feigning ignorance and belligerently defending their innocence instead of admitting we’re human and owning up to it so we can actually progress. Reading this book helps me to be self-reflective and critical.

            So as I was reading this book a particular chapter seemed to leap out to me, aptly entitled ‘Female Chauvinist Pigs.’ As with the theme of the entire book, this chapter focuses on the ways in which supposed feminists become “Uncle Toms” to the cause for gender equality, and as a consequence end up being some of the biggest explicit supporters of continued patriarchy and female submission. The quote that I felt applied to my own actions in the past the most read as follows:

“Even if you’re a woman who achieves the ultimate and becomes like a man, you will always be like a woman. And as long as womanhood is thought of as something to escape from, something less than manhood, you will be thought less of, too…It can be fun to feel exceptional—to be the loophole woman, to have a whole power thing, to be an honorary man. But if you are the exception that proves the rule, and the rule is that women are inferior, you haven’t made any progress.”

            In many ways I have been a Female Chauvinist Pig.  For example, just the other day I found myself watching one of my favorite sitcoms with a few dear male friends, and in trying to describe one of the characters, I described her as a “fat chav.” Almost immediately I was rebuked by one of my friends for discriminating on what is a perfectly normal body size as he called me out on my own “tomming” of femininity. I realized in that moment that what I had internalized as an honest depiction was in fact a very politically discriminatory one that went against everything I thought I stood for in exhibiting an honest female body image. And what’s worse is that it had come so naturally to me that I realized this double standard must be living deeper within my consciousness than I ever thought possible. I then realized that I too am a female chauvinist pig.

            It’s a competitive capitalistic world out there, and if you don’t find yourself actively participating in the rat race of male approval and ideology often you can become sidelined.  From what I've come to learn of the book thus far, females pit themselves against others to become the “liberated woman” who can now take the task of forgiving and playing a man’s game. They've internalized the “dog eats dog” mentality and accepted the sad reality that “if you can’t beat them, join them.” They simultaneously criticize the “girly girls” who are preoccupied with materialistic and physical impressions in order to enter the male sphere, only to realize that they must simultaneously own this hypersexualized objectified status in order to truly remain in the art of creating the male cultural gaze. All the while they are competing not for some asexual ultimate approval, but for the male stamp of worthiness. You must believe you can be one of the guys, but accept that you never fully can. But all of this is being fed to us on the platter that it is women’s empowerment, their liberation movement so as to remove blame from the existing patriarchal structure catered to male pleasure. If this isn't blatant symbolic violence I don’t know what is.

People say that art isn’t important, but when I see social issues like gender inequality I am reminded just how important the act of creation is. It can be used as an instrument of captivity or of freedom. Many people argue that the female body is beautiful and artistic and I totally agree. But I also feel the same about the male physique, and I know that there is more beyond the cheap aesthetic approval. We are not using artistic creation in the constructive way it was intended for in the feminist sexual revolution, and until we realize that we are not winning but merely perpetuating this objectified status as female chauvinist pigs. Let us use art as a tool, opening up our imaginations to new creative solutions. Here we can admit our shortcomings and reevaluate the true foundation for what it means to be an independent holistic woman who refuses to play in a male construct in order to get over this defeatist female chauvinistic attitude and enact a new state of elevated critical consciousness about the complex female sexuality.