International Women's Day
Before you ask, International Men's Day is 19th November ;)
Happy IWD lovers (and haters). As you may expect, I am curmudgeonly about IWD (I am always curmudgeonly about something, and live in the world like a wise but grumpy crone), but I’ve been a feminist since I was knee-high, so I thought I’d use this chance to share ten principles/thoughts about feminism, and provide some reflection points for us as we consider the role of women in this rapidly changing world, and our own relationship with feminism — whether we identify as a feminist or not.
I also hope you get to eat a cupcake today. Some excellent advice about how many cupcakes you need to eat today to make up for the gender pay gap.
There is no one single type of feminism.
Just an umbrella of intersecting identities and needs. Race, age, skin colour, class, parental status, weight, biological sex, gender identity, health status, SES, incarceration status, disability — all these factors intersect and give women different levels of power and control over their lives, and will mean that different groups of women have different needs. We can’t expect everyone to want what we want, or to inhabit the world as a feminist like we do. A Muslim hijab wearing grandmother may have a very different type of feminism to me, just as a 21-year-old non-binary AFAB person might. All these clusters of need fit under the umbrella of feminism. There is sometimes warring for resources between groups. This is because the pie needs to be bigger, not because women are fatally flawed. Stop pitting women against each other. It’s boring.
Feminism must be grounded in humanity.
There is no feminism unless it has a basis in our shared humanity. I will never celebrate examples of feminism which betray the tenets of humanism, such as women signing up to be on the front line of battles to kill civilians. A step forward for women, a step backward for humanity is not a good bargain in my book.
Human rights for all should sit at the core of feminism.
We often hold women to higher standards than men, and this is anti-feminist.
We often hold women to higher standards of behaviour than men. I try not to dislike a woman for her actions any more than I would a man who does the same thing (which means I can dislike some women very much indeed). I don’t expect women to always be compassionate, kind, empathetic. I try and cut women slack when they are acting in good faith but imperfectly. I try not to attack feminists simply for their identities (e.g., white feminism) because this smacks of latent misogyny, though sensible critique of actions and the actions of certain groups of people is valid. I try not fall into the trap of the glass cliff and expect miracles from female managers or leaders, though I always expect humanity from all people of all gender identities.
We need to hold women to the same moral standards as we do other people, and hold them accountable for their actions.
RARA girlBAWS feminism (A PORSCHE FOR YOU AND A PORSCHE FOR YOU AND ONE FOR YOU but no clean drinking water for the brown women in the back and god forbid we talk about the dying women in Gaza because that hurts our feelings and is not the empowerment we want at this morning tea) often suggests that we need to celebrate every action by every woman as a sign of empowerment. I disagree. I don’t cut women breaks and support them simply because they are women (sorry, Pauline Hanson, Gina Rinehart and Linda Reynolds). I don’t celebrate other female wins which come at a cost to other beings and species, like female jockeys winning horse-racing cups, or the appointment of very conservative female judges who want to remove abortion rights for women. I don’t have to celebrate or even like every woman to be a feminist.
Asking women to always be supportive of every other woman ever (about 4 billion?) is a ridiculous, misogynistic standard.
Feminism is about equity, not equality.
We all start from different places in life, and some people and women are miles ahead before they are born. I try and not feel shame about moving ahead myself, but instead remember to extend a hand to those behind, and remember that they are not behind because they are in any way lesser than me, but just because of the cards they were dealt. I try and fight for equity instead of equality, and recognise that feminism can’t leave certain people behind.
If I had my way, we’d pay women more than men. We need it to make up for the emotional labour, the superannuation gap, and the opportunity costs of the housework burden and parenting.
Feminism is about choices, but not all choices are made equal, or are available to all.
We need to think about which choices are being presented to us, and to consider whether our choices are truly choices we have made with a full recognition of the broad spectrum of choices we have, or if the choices we have made were the only acceptable ones presented to us at key developmental stages.
Do we really want to change our names upon marriage, or is this just expected? Do we really want to be up at 4 am running on the treadmill after a late night wrangling kids, or were we just taught that our value lies in being thin and taking up less space? If a middle-aged man can rock 2 extra kilos, why not us? Why are men’s shoes so comfortable, and high heels so…not comfortable? Why are women’s sports uniforms so short? Do we actually like wearing these? Do we truly believe that abortion is a sin and that no one should be allowed to get one, or is this just the unquestioned view of the male-led church we grew up in? Who benefits from women being forced to give birth and being tied to the home?
Deconstructing some of our assumptions will help us think critically about our choices.
Female work is devalued, and women suffer economically for it.
Much care work is lower paid, women carry the bulk of unpaid care work and house work and provide support for older and younger generations at disproportionate rates in comparison with men. Women often do more emotionally draining and exhausting paid work at lower pay (e.g., female GPs tend to bulk bill more, and will do more mental health work which takes longer and attracts lower Medicare payments). Women suffer economically in other ways too — such as doing work for free or for exposure, by not asking for or being offered pay rises, and not applying for higher-paid jobs because these roles don’t offer the flexibility often needed around child rearing.
Feminism requires economic equity and freedom, and for men and men’s employers to step up.
It’s also important to think critically before criticising women who want to be paid for their work. For example, why is so much anger often directed at high psychology fees (a female-led profession) but not at MUCH higher psychiatry fees (a male-dominated profession)?
When we start to think about the care work we implicitly expect from women, we may be surprised.
The emphasis on the body and how women look detracts from the feminist cause and from allowing women to build financial security.
Sorry, I said it.
I know this is an unpopular view because we believe that we may choose to emphasise the body and thus embrace feminism, but refer to my point above in relation to the choices we are presented with. If given only one option and model of womanhood (being thin and pretty), this is what we will ‘choose’.
The emphasis on maintaining women’s bodies, cosmetic procedures, skin care hauls, makeup, nails, hair, lashes, fillers, botox, fashion, shoes (…etc etc) comes at the cost of current and future financial security, body acceptance and a focus on the non-physical aspects of being human — connection, movement, learning, the brain, the soul, movement, travel, good food, nourishment, and just inhabiting a body and using it to seek pleasure.
Capitalism is not feminism, it’s pretty much the antithesis of feminism sometimes.
Women don’t owe anyone pretty (thanks, Florence Given), especially if it stops them from getting a mortgage, or if they feel the need to spend a quarter of their paycheque on how they look.
Feminism needs men.
We urgently need men to step up and identify as feminists. There is a growing wave of hatred being directed at women by Tate followers, and misogyny runs rampant. While women can (and are) combating this, without men stepping up and being allies (i.e., not speaking FOR women in some bizarre performative regressive act of ‘stepping into your masculine identity’, but simply saying to other men ‘not ok’, and/or modelling respect), we won’t get very far.
This allyship also needs action — take a pay cut and drop a day at work so your female partner has parenting support or so she can go back to work, contribute some of your super to your female partner’s super while she is on parental leave, cook dinners for the family, don’t leave emotional labour to your wives and mothers, make and remember your own doctor’s appointments or your child’s vaccination appointments. There are many ways of engaging in feminist action. Walk the walk, don’t talk the talk.
There are some words to expunge from our language if we want to call ourselves feminists.
Bossy, bitch, over-confident. Language creates the world we live in, and has power.
Ahona this is so good 👏👏👏