Fashionable feminism and a fake class war

This comment article is written by Bristol24/7 music editor Laura Williams

Strip it back to its bare essentials and feminism is the belief that people should be equal, regardless of gender. In light of this belief, the action taken whether you are male, female or transgender should be in the interests of this belief. Simple. Or so you’d think.

But feminism is rarely straightforward.

I was first introduced to the concept as an early teen at an all-girls school. The sociology teacher whose hairy legs made us point and chuckle led a whole school assembly about feminism, during which the male tech teacher who many of us had a crush on stood up and proclaimed: “My name’s Mr Powell and I am a feminist.” Cue more laughter.

It’s almost 20 years since that introduction to feminism and it took me a further 10 to realise that hairy-legged crusader and the tech dude who really wasn’t that sexy had a very valid point. 

It’s fairly easy to brush oppression and gender discrimination under the mat when you’re surrounded by women and girls in the protective environment of an aspiring school. Not so easy when you enter the world of work; when your boss nudges your male peers snorting that he’d give the work experience girl one; when your boss gives the male staff members a £2,000 pay rise, yet gives the women a £200 pay rise; when brilliant, talented women come back off maternity leave to find their job has been downgraded; when your boss is always a man. And 10 years on from that, it seems as relevant as ever.

For women who openly identify themselves as a feminist and speak out against discrimination (Emma Watson being the most recent example), it’s almost a given that they’ll receive a torrent of abuse via social media – which may sadly include sexual threats. I still can’t get into the minds of the people behind this. 

For everyone speaking out in support, there will be someone criticising them. And it’s not just chauvanistic men who are guilty of this, but there’s a worrying trend of women turning on fellow women for speaking out against misogyny.

“What’s the problem, they’re only having a laugh – chill out,” a response to the above – something which may also be seen in the statements of Operation Yewtree suspects. 

The most frustrating trend perhaps is people turning on overt feminist commentators because they are “middle class and privileged and wouldn’t know what it really feels like to be discriminated against, not in the way working class women are”. 

But where does this end? Are white women not allowed to feel oppressed, because it pales in comparison to female black oppression? Are heterosexual women to keep quiet because gay women have it a lot worse? And so on and so forth?

The conversation then becomes blurred with meaningless pseudo class warfare, as the attention shifts away from the original feminist point.

Just because you only ‘discovered’ feminism in your thirties and it was because your favourite singer started piping up about it; or you got to university and wanted to join a society and the ‘fem soc’ was giving out free ‘Girl Power’ stickers; or you really like Emma Watson from the Harry Potter films and you listened with interest to her recent speech, it doesn’t mean you’re less entitled to that opinion. 

Whatever way you arrived at the realisation that women and men should be equal, the point is you got there and are acting upon it.

Of course, there’s different degrees of acting on it – but everything has its place. Every little helps. What doesn’t help, is berating people for pursuing equality.

Picture: cinemafestival / Shutterstock.com