My Beef With Feminists

I call myself a feminist because I believe in equal rights for women worldwide. However, more and more, I’m almost embarrassed to associate myself with this title, and I’m not alone. I’ve spoken to plenty of women who, when asked, are hesitant to call themselves feminists. Each woman’s reasoning for this may be different, but I know my hesitation to associate with the title is because so many feminists out there give the more reasonable among us a bad name.

In my experience in dealing with many other feminists, I have found that they’re quite picky about who can and cannot label themselves a feminist. On the feminist blog site Feministing many commenters claim that a feminist cannot wear makeup, feminine clothing, etc. because doing so sells out to the patriarchy. I guess that pushes me off the feminist bandwagon because I love makeup, dresses and heels. Oh and also handbags :)

On another feminist blog site, Jezebel, many commenters recently complained about Rihanna’s new GQ cover shoot in which she is topless. Many claimed that showing skin for a men’s magazine is also not a very feminist thing to do. I guess the ability for a woman to make decisions regarding her body and what image she chooses to present to the public is also not OK with feminists.

Not to mention that despite feminists’ claims that they want to empower women, they’re always very quick to pass judgment and insult women when they don't behave in a way feminists approve of .

But perhaps my biggest issue with feminism is this: feminists are hell bent on proving that men and women are the same. They claim that any differences between the sexes are entirely the result of society's influence i.e. society forces women to behave in gender specific ways. To me, it’s pretty obvious that men and women are not the same and that these differences are not the result of social upbringing (at least not entirely). Aside from physical differences between the sexes (which no one can deny) varying hormone levels in male and female bodies do have an effect on the interests and behaviors of each sex. Obviously, there are variations within each sex (nothing is ever absolute) but all those things people say about women (they’re more empathetic, they’re more emotional, they’re less physically violent, they’re better communicators, etc.) may have a biological basis. 

I think it is very damaging to both women and men to continue to deny that obvious differences exist between the sexes in order to further feminist rhetoric. What feminists need to understand is this: difference does not imply inequality.