So Netmums did a study on feminism. Actually, it was feMEnism, which looks suspiciously like feMENism (secret patriarchal plot alert!) but is apparently actually just about the rise of individualist feminism, or something like that. Feminism that’s all about ‘me’ rather than, y’know, all those other pesky pronouns.
Depressingly, only 1 in 7 out of 1300 polled women said they’d describe themselves as a feminist, with about half saying that ‘the loss of chivalry, like opening doors’ was the biggest downside to equality between the sexes. Presumably that’s the half who like seeing men literally slam doors in the faces of other men. And to be fair, a bit of slapstick humour on the daily commute never goes amiss – but really, ladies? You’d give up equal pay in favour of a more privileged transition through a doorway?
Anyway, Grazia jumped on board of the possibly-promising study and immediately steered it into an iceberg. Under the headline of ‘Feminism Rules, OK! Err, Or Not Apparently…’, the author lined out her Daily Fail-esque analysis of the world with ‘You might have heard – feminism is on the out.’ Congrats, Grazis – you turned a sedate holiday cruise into the Titanic of social research.
‘A lot of what is written by traditional ‘feminists’ makes me so angry I want to tug on their armpit hair,’ she says, suggesting in the next sentence that feminists never stop telling you to stop shaving, grow your bush and ‘bag the top job – preferably from under a man’s feet.’ How does she know what I’ve been up to on my city-wide excursions, jumping out at other women from concealed doorways and screaming – in a direct quote from the article – ‘don’t even think about waxing your pubes!’? As a feminist, I like to think of myself as the equivalent of pro-lifers outside an abortion clinic, camping outside beauty salons with my ‘Feminism Rules OK’ billboard and a scarf made of my own leg hair, protesting for the oft-ignored rights of your pubic triangle. And only 1 in 7 women are willing to join me? Scandalous.
The article ends on the note that we should stop being aggressive and start letting women have choices. But as you know, the Vagenda prides itself on being a hostile environment that campaigns for as little choice as possible for women, the people we hate and love to oppress. The only people we hate more than women are men *shudder*, which is why we wouldn’t let them ever have a platform on our sacred, armpit-worshipping, po-faced blog.
Oh wait…
Funny how the original article has disappeared.
Do you have a knitting pattern for the leg hair scarf? Sounds practical and economical (wool is so expensive).
I’d wondered who that woman who leapt out from behind a tree in Hyde Park and tugged my armpit hair was. Geez. Unnecessary.
For anyone with an unsatisfactorily low level of annoyance in their bloodstream, the article is still available:
http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/conversation/archive/2012/10/22/feminism-rules–ok-err–or-not-apparently-.htm
Does the use of the word ‘ladies’ grate on anyone else? Granted it’s a stylistic preference, but I always associate it with a level of condescension towards women. As my (feminist) mum used to say to me ‘a lady is someone married to a knight’. We are women! Let’s own it.
Yeah, I hate ‘ladies’ too, so patronising.
I think this is a bit unfair, reading the article its clear she’s trying to make a distinction between “traditional” feminists and modern feminism. She’s making the point that traditional areas of feminism are radical to an extent that many women feel is no longer necessary (rightly or wrongly) and consequently alienating these women.
I do agree however that her article is badly written, poorly informed, over generalized, counterproductive and altogether pretty shit, how it ended up in a national magazine is beyond me
Quite frankly I don’t care how many people I alienate as a feminist. If someone is too stupid to realise that they continue to have fewer rights than other people in this world then they are not worth pandering to. UGH!
What irritates me most is that this is being taken as a gospel slice of real life regarding how all modern women view feminism. The original “survey” is laden with staggering bias which they never acknowledge at any point. Of *course* the women they interview are going to be focussing mainly on children, maternity, traditional roles of a married couple, etc; their “randomly selected” 2,000 women are all active members of a maternity website!!! Not that this makes them better or worse in any way, but as my mother (who may not be a feminist activist, but who is a statistician) never tires of pointing out, statistics can be skewed in any way you want them to be. And the most important question to ask is: who are the subjects, where did we find them, what do they want etc. Interesting though the topic no doubt is, this is not a valid, worthwhile survey, so why are Grazia treating it as if it were organised by a government think-tank taking a random selection of people from across the country?! Aaargh!
I’ve just read the original article ” The men we’ve grown up, men our own age at least, around think of women as their equal ” I dont know how old the illusive writer of this article is but I’m 20, and not all of the men my age think of women as equals. In fact, far from it. The writer of this clearly hasnt met any LADS #BANTER. In 1 of my lectures the other day my teacher asked a class of 45 to raise their hands if they were a feminist. 2 people did. The next question was if you believe women should have equal rights. EVERYONE raised a hand. And i dont think its because they think feminism isnt needed any more or that its “too aggressive.” But its articles like that and the ideas that come with it and the stigma attached to it that make young people feel ashamed/embarrassed to call themselves one. #Bantz