Fantastical Feminism

Have you noticed the uptick in vigilante feminism?


Feminism is cool right now, if you didn’t know – almost desperately cool. Or is it? Feminist men are being triumphed as bold, strong, sensitive; but is the reason that they are because there is no opposition?


Now, to start, I am a feminist (although there are many that decry that men cannot be). I hate the word and it doesn’t etymologically reflect what is being sought; but that is the same as the fact that “gay” came from happiness rather than any direct association with homosexuality. The word feminism seems to suggest not just righting the balance, but actively preferring, prioritising females.


I would prefer the term “Equalists” – that we are striving for equality; regardless of sex. And the benefit of that term is that it could represent all equalities – those of race, of sexuality, age, ability – rather than just sex.


But then I’ve had the reverse of that problem with the LGBT “community” and lumping together unrelated or loosely connected interests in a manner which increases the lobby group, but dilutes the message.


But yes, I am a feminist (albeit the 'true' feminists, whilst adopting Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston within their ranks, absolutely otherwise deny that men can be feminists). I wholeheartedly believe that no-one should be discriminated against on the ground that they are a woman. And in this day and age it is impossible to argue against it. Impossible on two grounds – impossible because it is anachronistic; and impossible because you simply cannot be heard.


Well, that’s not quite right. You can be heard – perhaps too well. If you say anything antifeminist you are vilified. But it doesn’t even have to be antifeminist.


Take a couple of examples:


The Metro published an article with the headline “Harley St dentist’s wife died at home from asphyxiation. Complaints that this was feminist included this tweet from Dr Adam Rutherford which sought to argue the article is sexist because the Harley St dentist’s wife was also a dentist, and that referring to her as a wife demeaned her on two grounds – firstly, that she should be regarded as a ‘wife’ rather than the actual victim; and secondly that her dentistry was somehow inferior to her role as a wife. The argument is that the story should be about her, how she died.


But that’s not the story. When you read the story, it actually is a story about him – the inference is strong; that it was he murdered who her. And therefore it is a story about the killer rather than the victim – that this is a callous man who can smother his wife in a moment of fury and yet he held a privileged position in society. [SPOILER – read the first couple of paragraphs and you will see he was arrested for attempted murder. Read more than those teaser paragraphs and you find out that he was released without charge; that the investigation was no longer being treated as a murder investigation; that he was no longer under suspicion. The deliberately suggestive headline being somewhat misleading.]


And so a non-sexist story was readily adopted as an example of everyday sexism.


And then there was Matt Haig, an author who has done mightily well to garner some free media inches of publicity for his books which people might otherwise have been unaware were it not for his vilification at the hands of the public. You’ll forgive me being a sceptic here but it is very easy to
garner free publicity; but similarly you have to actively put yourself out there and sell the story.

Despite the frequent suggestion, stories do not just fall into journalists laps – they either go out and hunt them down; or they get handed them – usually by someone with a vested interest in getting them published.


And so, an author I have otherwise not heard of was thrust into his five seconds. He put out a badly typed provocatively worded tweet suggesting that his next book should be about masculinity. He then claimed he was set upon by the vigilante feminists – that he was crucified.
 

And so he enjoyed his twitterstorm and sales spike.


Now, there are a number of issues with his little bit. Firstly, yes – there are a lot of replies and mentions to that tweet. Has he been crucified by it? Well, when you look, a lot of the tweets are supportive of him; or entirely divergent from his ‘feminist’ argument, instead focusing on the mental health point of his tweet. A lot are from the same people who end up in conversations with others very vaguely related to the point which veer off at a tangent. Yes, there are some critical tweets – correctly so as the tweet was either deliberately or naively word provocatively – and there are the few, offensive trolls. This is, afterall, a tweet on Twitter, and there are some people with nothing better to do. Was it newsworthy?


But, to get back to my point, there has been the very incorrect assumption by the feminists that discussions around masculinity are – must – be sexist. That masculinity and feminism are mutually exclusive. And they aren’t – they are, necessarily, co-dependent. Not in the sense that if masculinity exists it must be to the detriment of feminism; but in the sense that if there are some discriminations which affect women, there must be an equal and opposite discrimination which affects men. And this is particularly as masculinity has been redefined over the last few decades. Blame metrosexuality, blame strong, supportive dads, blame David Beckham. It no longer emasculates you to be seen as pretty, as caring, as empathetic. Indeed, it can show how strongly comfortable you are with your role.


Now, there are a number of reasons out there why the aggressive feminists seem to be at the fore at the moment.


Because aggression is at the fore these days. In the angsty teenage years of the internet – or, more particularly, social media – we’re still getting used to how to control the hormones. But I’ve discussed that already.


But I think we are a bit hypersensitive to all equalities at the moment – almost desperately so. There are the various fights for same-sex marriage; the fights over racial killings in America (particularly by police officers); the arguments over immigrants in the Mediterranean sea.


And, of course, you don’t hear about people with mild opinions – either because they are so mild that it just isn’t worth saying; or that it certainly isn’t worth repeating-retweeting-rebutting or getting angry over. I think perhaps the most aggressive I’ve seen people get over antipathy is when it came to the recent general election – and it wasn’t proper antipathy that people were getting annoyed with, it was the anti-politicking. Again, people mistook the meaning of posts – one of my friends put something on Facebook about him getting bored with people posting their political views; one of my other friends mistook this as antipathy and launched into a tirade about how good it was that people were actively involved in the political process. The first friend was involved, engaged – he was going to vote and knew who he was going to vote for; he was just getting bored with the rhetoric, with other people - particularly non-politicians, people whose jobs didn't directly rely on his vote - telling him how to vote.


And, of course, I haven’t written an article on the 99.9999% of non-offensive, non-provocative or non-sexist tweets. They are just the background noise that you accept.

It’s the occasional gunshot that disrupts the standard.