Feminism

Well, it’s been over a year since I last posted! Things have been busy. And it doesn’t look like there’s been a good rant on here for ages, either. Let’s fix that now.

There’s a lot circulating about feminism and what it actually means. All sides have something to shout at the top of their lungs, and I thought I’d add my opinions to the cacophony.

The actual meaning of feminism is dissolving. This is due in part to some factions of extreme feminists making everything more dramatic than it needs to be. But it is also due to the fact that humans love to categorize and generalize. The natural human condition is to simply throw one’s lot in with whatever resonates most. Not to step back, steady our selves, and promote a relativist look at things. What other creature on earth is so adept at deceiving itself? We create biases, and base opinions on those biases quickly. So, while people are busy taking sides and fussing, they fail to realize that we are arguing a simple matter of human rights. Man, woman, it doesn’t matter which you are, or if you’re somewhere on the spectrum in between. Both sides should be free from judgment and stereotype.

The definition of feminism is simply: “the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.” Not pointing fingers at men or putting them down or refusing to accept their help or saying, “we’d all be better off without you lot.” There are great men, and there are men who need to be enlightened. There are great women, and there are women who need to be enlightened. There’s a happy medium for everything, and it just hasn’t been discovered over the course of this conflict. Yet.

I do wonder if the word feminism can be brought back, because sometimes words become so toxic that we should let them go.

And, keeping with tradition and disregarding everything I’ve just said above, here comes the mini rant.

(Let us here note for perspective’s sake that you can dress however you want, but I personally am pretty darn conservatively minded when it comes to public modesty).

I possess a relatively unbiased opinion because I think most men are awesome BUT I have also experienced a fair share of leering and it makes me want to yell and punch things. Maybe even those men. But not all men! Generalization is the devil incarnate when it comes to political, racial, or religious issues. Actually, scratch that. ALL issues, ever.

I understand that given whatever situation-terrible role models, rough childhood, crappy high school romances, whatever-people are going to have emotional discrepancies or scarring. In the cases where men are total butts to women, there’s probably a backstory there. The problem is lack of awareness and education from an early age. The solution? I have no idea. Hate is often an easier emotion to conjure up than compassion, and changing people who are set in their ways is sometimes impossible.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that all the men in these hypothetical situations are complete stalkers, because there is a definite grey area between  “well that was blatantly creepy”  and “I feel like he was giving me a look but maybe it’s just my imagination, but then again I definitely got a creeper vibe…am I paranoid?” All it means is that some guys never had the experience of earning the right to call a woman beautiful. And that’s sad. They should go construct a proper relationship and learn from it.