Sparked by the new “Feminism is Equality” website and campaign, many students updated their Facebook cover photos this week, opting for banners that sport phrases like, “gender matters” and “feminism equals equality” over the typical group shot with friends. I immediately took issue with the phrase “feminism is equalism” When I tried to discuss this with a hallmate, however, I couldn’t get out a sentence without being interrupted by statements like “if you are for equality, you are a feminist whether you like it or not” and “you’re not using the proper definition of feminism.” I understand that the “Feminism is Equality” campaign on campus seeks to promote feminism by drawing attention to its core principles. But its rhetoric and assertions (such as: all those who support equality are feminist) sloppily disregard any reference to the movement that has hypocritically excluded, denied and alienated groups of women. This rhetoric forcibly assigns an identity based on a set of shared attributes. One doesn’t just have to “believe in equality” to be a feminist; one has to identify as such. And the feminist movement has provided many women with plenty reasons not to identify as a feminist. Last week’s article, “Not Post-Gender Yet” by Grace Tully, cited the Oxford English Dictionary as defining feminism as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men.” Tully’s article left out a second, key component of the OED’s definition: that feminism is also “the movement associated with this [advocacy].” Feminism is more than a set of core principles. It is a global, historied movement with numerous factions that have sometimes contradicted each other and alienated groups of women. Feminist columnists like Amanda Marcotte, historical figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and groups like Femen ridicule the Virgin Mary and protest Islamism to label religious traditions as inherently misogynistic or oppressive. By doing so, they send the message that religion is incompatible with feminism. When feminist groups organize marches against prostitution or the porn industry claiming that both barter away women’s equality for cash, they shame the women involved in those occupations. When popular feminist blogs like Jezebel deride women who chose to interrupt their work to start families, homemaking women may get the message that feminism favors the childless. Women all over the world happen to be religious, participate in sex work or sacrifice their careers to take care of their children. It is understandable that these women would feel excluded by the feminist movement, which deride and invalidate their decisions as upholding patriarchal oppression. In condemning choices that happen to line up with current normative constructions, the feminist movement perpetuates the same sort of behavior it seeks to eliminate: the restriction of women to limited roles. Is it fair to tell these women, who may support equality, that they are unarguably “feminists,” when public faces of feminism have jeered them away? Additionally, transgender individuals and disabled women have expressed feelings of exclusion from the feminist movement. Some have cited the fact that the conception of a disabled child is considered a valid reason for an abortion as the reason they no longer associate with the feminist movement. Some transgender women have abandoned feminism because feminists groups have excluded them on the grounds that they “weren’t really women”; likewise, transgender men face many of the same barriers that cisgender women do, but feminism falls short of advocating for them because they have “betrayed their sex.” I do not deny that feminism seeks to promote equality. I don’t have a problem with feminism itself, or with anybody who identifies as a feminist. I take issue with the assumption that opting not to call oneself a feminist entails opposing women’s rights or ignorantly misunderstanding the term “feminism.” Such behavior perpetuates a campus culture in which girls feel ashamed to speak out if they don’t call themselves feminists. Samantha Martinez is a four-year Senior from Berkeley Heights, NJ.
