i realize this is long but i wrote it for a class and wanted your opinion on it.
it does not fit the parameters of the paper at all but i dont give a shit.
The Absurdity of Feminism
I don’t understand feminism. I never have, and after going through this course and researching this paper, I still don’t so I doubt I ever will but this was an attempt, however unsuccessfully, to find out why. Simply why are feminists, feminists? Why do women believe they should have equal rights? What turns a picture from art to objectification? There are so many questions that go along with feminism. I assume that I don’t understand this because I don’t know enough girls, and I don’t have enough friends who are girls. I never have; since I was five years olds I have had girl friends but they never stuck around for more than a year. They would move on and I would have to find another pariah to befriend. I assume much of this lack of ability to communicate with and lack of ability to understand females comes from my Asperger’s Syndrome, which the DSM-IV describes as the “extreme male brain.” This idea that the brain of an autistic is more to the male end than female (extremely so in cases where the sufferer is already male) was first presented in 1941 by the man who discovered the disorder, Hans Asperger (Baron-Cohen). This may be the main cause for my lack of understanding when it comes to feminism but there was no reason not to explore the issue regardless.
I began with a most basic question: What is feminism? One answer I found was “a theory and/or movement concerned with advancing the position of women through such means as achievement of political, legal or economic rights equal to those granted men” (Offen). There is no argument to be made against this as it is simply an ineffable fact. This is what feminism is. The question that arises from this, however, is whether it is warranted. Surely there is a fight going on for the equality of women in all institutions and a fight to suppress the patriarchy we live in, but is this necessary? Why should this be done? I do not believe there is any reason to fight for women’s rights against the “powers that be.” I could find no evidence of women’s equality to men simply because how do you measure such a thing? How does such a fact become concrete? It cannot, and as such I can never be convinced.
I would like to know why women believe such things but honestly they never state why, they simply say they should have equal rights like it is a self-evident truth. Where is the justification?
The lack of backing information feminists provide forces that question to go unanswered so the questions will have to shift elsewhere.
The next question I had, referring to my original outline in the introductory paragraph, has to do with the so-called objectification of women. When someone holds up a picture of a women being “objectified,” I most often view it as art. Things like Playboy, Hustler, and pornography in general seem to me no different than ancient Greek and Roman statues portraying the female form. How are these things any different? The Greeks and Romans painted pictures of nude females; the only shift is that we now have cameras to do the work for us. Why do some women feel objectified by the camera while others glory in its flashbulbs? Certainly the thousands of girls who try out for Playboy every year do not have objectification on their minds. If a woman was sculpted out of stone for the benefit of the ancient Greeks, the sculpture literally is an object, but the woman who modeled for it is still flesh. She has not been transformed, merely replicated. And is this not honorable? The desire to have multiples of this woman should show her value. If men want to see pictures of women in magazines or on television or in music videos, does this not show that men value them? It shows the woman’s worth if she is desired.
Many feminists heartily disagree with this. They say it instead devalues women, that men put them in these base situations and turn them into so-called objects that men can defile. But what if a woman is creating the art or doing the “objectifying?”
In 2003, The White Stripes were a musical band on the come. They had released their fourth album and it was a hit. They had made a video for the first single the for album, but when it came time to make a second video for the new single, “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself,” the singer, Jack White, was unable to film as he had severely broken his finger in a car accident in Europe. The video was up for grabs, and it was decided that Sofia Coppola would direct it however she saw fit in whatever manner. She chose to create a video in which supermodel Kate Moss would pole dance for the entirety of the song. It was filmed in black and white.
Is this pole dancing objectifying Kate Moss? Moss chose to be a part of the project so there is no force involved, and it was Sofia Coppola’s choice to film a woman in such a way. If this is objectification, why would two women take part in it? Why do other women see it as so horrible? Not to mention, upon seeing the video Jack White was utterly disgusted and refused to let the video be seen in America. I like the video; I think it’s classy. But Jack White, as a man, had a problem with it. Perhaps this is because he is a devout Catholic and not because it is “objectification” but isn’t it odd that people would take offense at a video created by two women? That something women created would be deemed demeaning to their own gender? To me, this is a prime example of the absurdity of feminism and its claims that women are objectified. They call it objectification; I call it art. The fact that Jack White is Catholic has more to do with the “inappropriateness” of the video than the fact that its subject is being objectified.
I can tell this because most of the anti-feminist pages I found online - which I had hoped would give me names of famous anti-feminists I could research - were mainly run by Christians and religious groups. This is definitely not the same brand of anti-feminism I place myself into. These groups are pretty ridiculous but honestly no more so than the far left-leaning feminists.
Some of the quotes I found from supposed “feminists” were astounding. "I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them,” said Robin Morgan, editor of Ms. Magazine. What kind of image does this portray? Why can’t anyone just be in the middle? I realize that not all feminists are such extremists but I do believe most of them are.
I have felt condemned more by feminists in my time than I have in any church. I think that if feminists take what they believe in so seriously, they should not alienate people who do not want to live the same lifestyle they do.
I had an experience a few weeks ago that directly correlates to this point. I was at a poetry slam and the host was a feminist lesbian. She was really on a soapbox, preaching about the evils of marriage and men, all in poetry-form. It was ridiculous. I felt very ridiculed and almost harassed just because I did not share her view on these issues and I am sure, had she known how I felt, she would not have cared. I got up and went to the washroom where someone had written on the wall, “I miss him.” I thought that was about the saddest thing I had ever read, simply because I knew a woman had written it about a man she missed very much, and I think missing someone is the worst thing in the world. I decided that must be the saddest phrase of all time. But then I realized the “I” and “him” were too excluding, and I concluded that “miss” must be the saddest word of all time. Then I realized its other meaning - Miss, as in one unmarried. Then I was sure I was correct, for to be unmarried is just as sad as being separated from one you love.
Not so, says Catherine MacKinnon. "All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman." This paints an awful portrait of marriage. What a ridiculous notion this is, that all sex is rapacious or violent. I can’t believe anyone could make such a claim with a straight face!
Women accuse men of being hateful and not treating women as humans. Feminists who claim this and then turn around and say terrible things about men are nothing but hypocrites, and they are giving the rest of feminism a bad name.
My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don't even need to shrug. I simply don't care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don't matter."
- Marilyn French, The Women's Room
This quote really sums up what is wrong with feminism. It is no longer a fight for equality, it is a fight for domination, which is exactly what women thought was wrong with society to begin with.
I am not conceding and saying that feminism would be all right if it just fought for equality; I don’t think women ever should have fought for anything in the first place. But the above quote just shows how horrible feminism has become.
In conclusion, I think that women should stop fighting because it is to the point where they are not looking for equality anymore, they are looking to pick a battle that doesn’t need to be fought. Women should just relax a little. I don’t believe objectification has anything to do with violence against women. I think that is just a by-product of an amoral society, and I think society would be more moral if women stayed at home and raised their children properly. I do not believe there is any reason for feminism, nor has there ever been.
If there was no feminist movement there would be no women in uni etc etc.. As a woman you should appreciate what past woman have done to secure positions in society for women today.
