As part of beginning a serious blogging experience, I want to start some features. I have other ideas, but one I particularly want to do is Feminist Mythbusters. Many myths proliferate about feminism, and they are frequently reinforced by the mainstream media. In short, digestible bits, I would like to debunk these myths and make feminism more accessible to everyone.
Without further ado, I bring you...
Feminist Mythbusters!
Myth #1: Feminists hate men.
This myth is wrong by a number of accounts. First off, it presumes the existence of only two groups: men and women. The existence of two and only two sexes/two and only two genders is a deep-seated idea that has been blown out of the water by the existence of intersex, transgender, genderqueer, and other people that do not fit neatly into a binary system. Furthermore, it presumes that only women are feminists, which is false. Feminists are ciswomen and cismen, transmen and transwomen, and everywhere inbetween.
Secondly, the myth is extremely simplistic and reductive. One thing that feminism has taught me is that rarely are issues black and white, and feminist beliefs range from easy to understand to extremely nuanced. Unfortunately, humans have a tendency to reduce nuance to simplicity, and in doing so, the meaning is lost. (Most) Feminists do not hate men. We do, however, recognize that there is a system of power in place that pits cismen over all women in a hierarchy. This hierarchy is referred to as "patriarchy", but it is not the only hierarchy that exists. In the US, we also rank straight over gay, white over black, cis over trans, and able-bodied over disabled, to name a few. A system of many hierarchies is called a "kyriarchy". Many feminists get angry at cismen for perpetuating the patriarchy. But we also get angry at women who perpetuate patriarchy. In general, the perpetuation of any hierarchical system within the kyriarchy by any person is enough to make me mad. However, anger is not the same as hate. Anger is a motivator for change, and that is why I became a feminist in the first place: to create change in the US.
Thirdly, I, as well as many feminists I know, have cismen in our lives that we love very much (shocking, I know). I have a father, cousins, friends, and of course my partner, all of whom are cismale, all of whom I love dearly. In fact, I love them so much that I want them to be free of the kyriarchy just as much as I want to be free of it. This entails the loss of cismale privilege, which can be extremely threatening. But it also means that I wish for them the freedom to live their lives free of a constraining prototypical masculine ideal.
To sum up, feminists do not hate men. Feminists work to end the perpetuation of hierarchies on an individual and group scale. One motivator for working for change is anger, which can be mistaken for hate. Feminists want everyone to be free of the kyriarchy, including cismen. Kyriarchy also hurts the privileged, and feminists want freedom for everyone.
ETA: I have tried, and retried, and tried again, to use the most inclusive language possible in this post. However, if I have misused a term or excluded anyone, please please please let me know in the comments so that I can do better next time.
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