Why Feminism Needs To Be Angry

This article is in response to Jonas Ekblom’s article ‘Stop the Man Hating: Feminism is for everyone’.

The biggest threat to feminism today is not so-called “aggressive, man-hating, militant feminists” but widespread apathy towards the movement because of the misguided belief that woman’s equality has already been won.

In my colleague Jonas Ekblom’s article on Wednesday, it is claimed that supporters of women’s rights are scared to post anything online for fear of abuse from other feminists who claim to have a superior brand of “feminism”. I am not denying that such instances do little to progress the movement yet the vast majority of online abuse is in fact directed towards feminists by misogynists who hurl far nastier abuse, often anonymously.

The Internet and social media has, I believe, invigorated the movement, not confused it. The launch of several online magazines has democratised the movement: Feminist Times, the f word and Knockback to name a few. This is without mentioning the countless blogs and opinion pieces that can and have been shared with the click of a button, bringing feminism to a far wider audience.

In fact, what presents the biggest obstacle for feminism in 2014 to overcome is not, as Jonas puts it, “hysterical” women “sitting behind keyboards” shouting at everyone but the fact that most men (and many women) believe the cause to be defunct. In other words, that all the major battles have been won and that men and women are legally, socially and politically equal. It follows that those who continue to call themselves feminists are irritating, pedantic and unhelpful.

Such a view is extremely seductive. Like Jonas, I have more than once been told by women that they don’t care for the movement, yet this is not because they are embarrassed to be associated with bra-burning “femi-nazis” but because they don’t see how it is relevant to them.

This view more often than not comes from a Western (and therefore privileged) positive. Most people when they say such things don’t think of the hard won battles that came before them. It is easy to assume in modern Britain that contraceptive and abortion rights have always existed; yet they were hard fought for by dedicated campaigners.

The low rate of rape convictions in this country, unequal pay, the objectification of women in the media are but a few reasons why feminism is needed today.

Beth Sutton’s interruption of Monday’s debate to denounce  George Galloway as a ‘rape apologist’ may not have been the popular choice but it did succeed, in a small way, in bringing these issues to the forefront.

The outspoken anger that Ms. Sutton displayed on Monday, (which the article claims to devalue the feminist movement) has long been a necessary facet of pushing forward woman’s rights. Voting rights, divorce rights etc. were won through aggressive public campaigning and often without the support of public opinion.

I don’t believe, as some claim, that any serious feminists see feminism as a battle between genders rather than simply to end inequality between the genders.

Presenting a sanitised version of feminism so that it is palatable for the majority does not push woman’s rights forward in any meaningful way. Ever since Viscount Helmsley in 1912 questioned the “mental equilibrium” of the suffragettes, feminists have been abused and mocked as lesbians, ugly and man-haters.

People assume feminist rhetoric against the patriarchy must be anti-man when it is actually fighting against the dominance of men. Accusing modern feminism of fighting for the superiority of women is therefore a weak and misguided criticism.

This response is no doubt undermined by the fact that both sides of this debate have been framed by men yet the issue at stake is if men feel threatened by feminism and, as a man, I do not.

So I agree with Jonas that “feminism is for everyone” yet it shouldn’t have to bend, compromise or change in order to include everyone. To do so would result in forgetting the whole point of the movement existing in the first place; there is no compromise on equality. Feminism wouldn’t be doing its job properly if it didn’t irritate a large number of people. So what if it pisses a few people off?