This isn’t a feminist article.
If it was, every Y chromosome out there in front of their laptop screen would visibly shudder and their balls would retract. As would their attention span.
Because feminism, it appears, has become somewhat of a taboo topic. Gone are the days of bra-burning and legions of women proudly wearing suffragette badges. Now we’re scared of associating ourselves with a movement clearly filled with short haired hockey players who have never had a boyfriend and can knock a grown man out with a single right hook. So we don’t like to call ourselves ’feminist’. I’m not saying we all sit quietly doing the ironing until he asks for a steak sandwich and blow job then happily get on our knees and oblige. We don’t. We go out, put on our perfectly fitted suits and fill offices in bigger numbers than that of sexually harassed secretary. The kids go off to a childminder and we are climbing the corporate ladder; the kind of proud successful empowered woman Cosmopolitan magazine encourages on a monthly basis.
There’s no mention of the glass ceiling. No mention of the fact that just one fifth of partners in the leading 100 UK law firms are female, or that at the close of the 2009/10 session only 20% of MPs were women: we’ve got the equality box already ticked. We already made our big stand – there’s an equal pay act and the principle of non-discrimination is now enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. We’ve recognised the fact that women are, in fact, people too. They’re allowed to work, vote and ask him to do the washing up every now and again. So why are you still complaining?
The fact is that although we’ve undoubtedly improved things, we haven’t perfected them. We’ve given up on true equality and set it as ‘something to get round to’ without doing anything proactive to achieve it. In the meantime, we’ve settled.
This means that these proud successful empowered career women are trying to DO IT ALL. Husband, kids, keeping the house nice, having a social life and climbing that all important career ladder. That’s not to mention fitting in gym sessions and a daily dose of rabbit food to fit in with society’s current obsession with the well groomed skeleton. They’re so afraid to admit that they’re not quite coping that they refuse to ask for help. So many women feel like they’ve got something to prove and any admission of anything that could be construed as weakness is inconceivable. Well, isn’t this is what we wanted, all this equality? It’s this determination to man up and deal with it that leads to tragedies like Catherine Bailey. This high powered lawyer and mum of two had such a perfect life balance that she threw herself off a balcony. No mental health issues, just trying to be superwoman when in fact she was painfully human. And crumbled.
We are set in a society that constantly reaffirms women’s insecurities by propounding photo-shopped images of minute models and magazines filled with glossy features on ‘how to make him fall for you in five easy steps’. Royal College of Psychiatrists research showed that women were ten times more likely to suffer from anorexia or bulimia than men. Now, I’m not saying that anorexia is caused by the pressure on women to be thin – it’s a complicated mental disorder with various causes and factors – but ask any woman if she’s been on a diet and chances are, she has. Women are far more likely than men to have an unhealthy relationship with food, worrying if they’ve eaten too much and constantly calorie counting. How many men do you know who would be happy to sit down to a meal of vegetables and grilled fish?
Now let’s have a look at ‘truelad.com’, a website that subscribes to the new cultural movement that is the ‘Lad’. A red blooded, heavy drinking, twattish phenomenon led only by The Penis.
‘Broke up with girlfriend of two years on good terms, went over the next day to collect my stuff to find her out and her sister in. She starts spouting about how she always fancied me. Furious shagging for a good two hours. I get a text the next day saying that my ex could smell me on her sister! LAD’
Readers are giving this so-called ‘lad’ a pat on the back for treating two women like utter shit. A quick scan of the site reveals a hell of a lot of stories where the crux of the joke is the ‘gash’ being an idiot/slut/good for a shag and that’s about it. By the way, I’m not completely naïve; I realise the majority of these stories are complete and utter bullshit. The issue lies with the fact that demeaning women is so often the source of humour and pride. Every now and then you come across a ‘ladette’, continually getting a ‘shit lad’ rating of course, but her attempt to join in with the big boys is just embarrassing really. Why try and join in when the joke is always on you?
And so that’s the crux: the fact that women now refuse to stand up and complain against discrimination or unfairness. Be it in the workplace where they stay silent no matter how much they struggle, or in the commonly held views which are just unfair towards the ‘fairer’ sex. It is in the things we let slide because ‘everyone does it’ or ‘it’s just banter’. We don’t want to be labelled with the ‘feminist’ tag any more, so we don’t complain when in fact we have every right. Fuck ‘feminism’; the point is acknowledging when things are unfair and not just letting them happen.
So don’t keep quiet. Stand up for yourselves a bit. Things aren’t equal yet and feminism shouldn’t just be something we read about in the history books.
Nice to see something like this on the tab. Other articles here seem to be doing their absolute best to paint feminists as akin to flustered hens – repeated reference to ruffled feathers is at best worryingly strange, and betrays a predictable lack of literary imagination.
I think that it's becoming more and more obvious why feminism is still relevant, and anybody who is worried about joining the ranks of those-portrayed-as-angry-and-flustered (the worst possible thing to be) needs to grow up and take a look at the huge amount of evidence that shows that we are nowhere near equality. The lack of women in our new cabinet is just one thing that comes to mind.
Hear hear, this article hits the nail on the head.
It upsets me that because of a vocal minority at the more 'extreme' end of the scale, many women are put off feminism. We shouldn't be afraid to stand up for our rights because of stereotypes and negative associations.
I agree with the central thrust of your argument, and think that women's rights are an outstanding fault with our society, regarded by many as resolved somehow despite the depressing reality of the situation.
However, two points. Firstly, I dispute your declaration that feminism causes men to suddenly turn into troglodytic neanderthals with the brain power of a pea. That is precisely the dismissive attitude towards half of the species which has caused the decline of feminism, even among intellectual circles. Certainly, some men react badly to the idea of feminism, some in the way you describe. But the eagerness of many feminist writers to blackball every man, even rhetorically, does the movement no favours. I would argue that it is one of the central reasons that it has had such difficulty captivating the minds of all people, men and women.
My second point concerns the 'Lad' ideal. This is a issue close to my heart, being a fairly effeminate bloke, who finds the entire thing pretty upsetting. However, I feel that you give far too much value to a fringe ideal, one in which humour plays a much higher role than anything else. Crude, unsophisticated, politcally incorrect humour, to be sure, but not something as disturbing or as unique as you might consider it to be. Cast your mind to the numerous teenage girl dramas, Gilmour Girls being one among a large genre. A bitchy, beautiful clique of young teenagers or even pre-teens gossip about the boys behind their backs, enforce the cultural norms of the female form and backstab each other, throwing once best friends onto the pyre for the sake of a moment's popularity. Is this an acceptable basis for a just and fair society? No! Can men ever be equally involved in such a situation? No! They are inevitably portrayed as the strong, silent and simple fittie, to be fought over by the ever smiling and ever plotting young women, trophies to be displayed at discos and discarded later in favour of a newer model. This is more than a television or book series. This kind of behaviour is acted out by hordes of young girls, creating a real life version of the bevy of young bitches envisioned by these culturally destructive paradigms.
I'm not claiming equivalence here. But both ideals create self perpetuating, arguably disgusting, mutually incomprehensible stereotypes for men and women to slot into. Both need to be stopped to create a wholly equal society. And articles like this, highlighting one tragedy while denying the existence of the other, don't help the situation.
This is a well considered article, but there are a few flaws. One of the most common arguments is about the demographic of people in the workplace, especially in the high powered positions, as you mentioned the new cabinet. Whereas it is true that women are not proportionally represented in such positions, two large points come to mind. The first is that not all women want this form of success and many are happy as housewives etc. In Cambridge this is not really demonstrated as most women graduating from Cambridge will go on to have successful careers, but in the larger scope of things that number is misleading.
Secondly, the women who would be at the correct age to be in high powered jobs, namely those over the age of forty (when most men achieve high powered positions) are proportionally less qualified as they come from a period in time when sexism was still prevalent and therefore those women did not go to university in the same quantities as men. This is still currently skewing the data. Given another 20 years the feminist movement will be vindicated, especially in this aspect, where the proportion of men and women at university are about even (except in the Engineering Dept. of course). I'm not saying that sexism doesn't exist, just that the current data is skewed by the demographic.
As for the 'Lad' concept, I think you're reading too much into it. It's simply a last ditch attempt by people who once used to reside at the bottom of a social hierarchy at school to ascend to the top of one here. It just happens to be done in a slightly bizzare, pint-chugging way. It's not going to severly harm the feminist movement as once these 'Lads' leave Cambridge they're just going to revert to being ordinary men who once a year return to their youthful 'laddish' ways at old boys rugby. But that's for a different article (there are about 20 on the Tab already, I'm sure these arguments have already been made).
NSD, in 1985, women earned 45% of bachelors degrees in business. It's not true about women of the "correct age" being proportionally less qualified. The problem is with fewer women progressing upwards – whether by choice (which I doubt), family commitments, glass ceilings…whatever, but the problem wont just go away in 20 years.
But where will the sandwiches come from?
Great article! This voice needs to be heard