Taking the Fear out of the “F” Word

As part of the ActNow Incubator I chose to undertake an action in the community on an issue that I felt needed some attention. My initial goal was to dispel the fear of the ‘other’ in the community. Given my time constraints I realised that this goal was too broad. Nonetheless my initial research did uncover another related issue that I felt needed some attention. This issue was the unnecessary and detrimental myths, fear and inaccuracies surrounding the dreaded “F” word. By “F” word I don’t mean a four letter swear word, I mean a word that seems to conjure up images in many people’s minds of man hating, hairy, bra less, militant women who go around quoting Australia’s most famous bogey woman Germaine Greer. Yes, that’s right, Feminism!

For me feminism has never caused any fear or conjured up these negative stereotypes. I put that down to having a Grandmother who read feminist literature and did not resemble these particular traits and to encountering feminist theories at uni that also did not match these negative stereotypes. As a consequence I’ve always just thought of feminism as one of many social justice movements that consist of normal people fighting against injustice. And like any movement, I noted that feminism has some voices that are more extreme than others, but ultimately I felt this did not warrant throwing the baby out with the bath water. As I fully support men and women achieving full equality, I’m proud to call myself a feminist. Yet while most people in the community would subscribe to the former, I’ve discovered that very few will do the latter. My action therefore was to dispel the myths and stereotypes about feminism and to show that it is still relevant to young women and men today.

To carry out this action I needed to do two things. Firstly I needed to research feminism thoroughly. Then I needed to, where feasible (i.e. not piss anyone off too much and get myself black listed from social occasions), bring up the topic of feminism with friends and acquaintances and actively dispel the myths that they may hold. Before I began carrying out this action I thought that the research task would be the least emotionally difficult task, while talking to people about feminism would be the much harder task. Interestingly the opposite proved to be the case. As I undertook my research I realised that inequality between men and women ran much deeper than I had thought, that it is still quite entrenched in our society and that women (and men in some areas) continue to suffer many real life negative consequences. I also began to realise that the history of feminism is not one of a series of progressive achievements that will inevitably lead to equality between the sexes. The history is more like a series of gains and losses which have ebbed and flowed and the gains are only sustained as long as women (and men) continue to fight to hold onto them It also became apparent that we are in a dangerous stage where gains are being chipped away and the fight has receded due to complacency and the fear of feminism. So rather than the research being an easy task, it turned out to be quite an emotionally difficult task. I began to feel quite pessimistic and depressed at times. It also made me quite conscious of the sexism that still exits in our society to the point where I’ve had trouble watching TV, going to the movies or being in social environments without out reflecting negatively on how entrenched sexism still is. I’ve even began to think that “Ignorance is bliss” may have some truth to!!

Thankfully the research was only the first part of my reaction. The task of talking to people about feminism and busting myths proved to be the emotionally easier more and rewarding part of my action. Rather than being nervous and having to think about when to bring feminism up or how and with who, I found that I naturally began to bring it up in conversations on many different topics. I actually discovered that feminism is quite relevant to many areas of our lives. Initially I did face some strange looks and comments like, “oh no you haven’t become a man hater have you”, when I linked what people were talking about to gender and equality issues. Yet I found that due to the greater knowledge base that I had acquired, I was able to quite effectively and confidently deflect those comments and actually dispel some myths about feminism and more importantly show how it’s very relevant to their lives. While not fooling myself into thinking that I had got through to everyone, I was fairly sure that for a lot of people I had provided food for thought and for some had actually made them more open to feminism as a positive and relevant movement. This made me feel much more positive and balanced out my previous negative feelings. It also activated me into getting more involved in the feminist movement. I’ve now seen first hand that alleviating myths and showing the relevance of feminism to sceptical people is possible so long as we aren’t complacent and get out there and show it.

While officially now my action is complete, I’m still reading about feminism and equality issues, I’m still getting disenchanted at times, but I’m also balancing this with the positivity that comes from talking to people and actually making a difference to how they perceive feminism. All in all it’s continuing to be a roller coaster of emotions, but one that is certainly worth the ride and one that I would encourage more people to join! Together we can achieve true equality between men and women if we act and make it happen!!