We both wondered how young women could have so little respect for a movement that won them the right to vote less than a century ago. How could they hold such a skewed view of feminism, believing it to be the domain of bitter, man-hating, hygiene-deprived women? How can they declare in the same breath, “I believe in equal rights,” and I don’t need feminism”?
As Veronica observed, “If you didn’t have feminism, you wouldn’t be allowed to speak your mind about anything — not even your opinion about feminism.”
She feels understandably angry. “I hate it that women are made to feel shamed about being a feminist,” Veronica said.
I felt mostly sadness that some young women are still so brainwashed about the meaning of feminism, and that they have internalized so many anti-woman sentiments.
I thought we would have come much farther by the time my daughter became a young woman.
But where in the general culture do we celebrate the achievements of women? There is no monument on the National Mall honoring the suffragettes who overturned one of the gravest injustices in American history. They are generally treated as figures of mild derision or amusement, like the mother in “Mary Poppins” who gallivants off to her women’s suffrage meetings while her neglected children languish at home.
Her passion for women’s right to vote is portrayed as a frivolous hobby, not a struggle for equality for future generations. For her own daughter.
And now we have tumblr and twitter and YouTube to tell us we don’t need feminism.
One woman opined that she didn’t need “the ability to walk around like a shameless slut while condemning the male population for being born.”
Another posted, “I don’t need feminism because my self-worth is not directly tied to the size of my victim complex. As a woman in the western world, I am not oppressed and neither are you!”
A short time after reading that, we listened to a BBC report about a Muslim Somali woman, Ruqiya Farah Yarow, being shot to death by militants for refusing to wear a veil inside her own home.
The irony wasn’t lost on either of us.
“Even if you think that things are perfect here, how do you not care about women all over the world?” Veronica asked.
The anti-feminist groundswell is worrisome for women of all ages. “Feminism is not a bad word,” said Mada Fernandes of Kettering, 15. “All we want is equality.”
Observed Linda Lombard of Oakwood. “Many younger women have no idea what those of us who have fought for equality for all — not just women — faced. I grew up in the ‘50s and often women were programmed to find a husband, get married and have a family with no thought to having a fulfilling career. Luckily, not all accepted that. Feminists are not wild-eyed, bra-burning women. In fact, they are not always women. I know. I was married to one.”
Pastor Laura Leach Shreffler of Versailles recalled studying at a Lutheran seminary in the 1980s: “One of our professors, the late Dr. Barbara Jurgensen, would tell us, ‘You’re pioneers. You know who pioneers are, don’t you? They’re the ones face down in the mud with the arrows in their backs.’ As an editor and a pastor I have fought for respect every day of my life and for young women to be dismissive of that is frustrating and discouraging.”
Fortunately, #idontneedfeminism has inspired a movement of its own.
On her popular YouTube channel, Laci Green delivers a brilliant, breathless rant on “50-plus reasons why I’m a feminist.”
All over the Internet, pro-feminist young women – and men – are holding up signs of their own. They understand that feminism is nothing more nor less than equality for women. That there’s no litmus test for being a feminist, even on such controversial issues as abortion.
One said, “I need feminism because I am sick of being called a bitch for rejecting a man.’’
Another wrote, “I need feminism because I’m afraid of walking or riding the bus at night. # rape culture.”
A young man held up a sign stating, “I need feminism because Spotify keeps trying to sell me a vacation that includes the hottest women.”
A young woman wrote, “I need feminism because I don’t want people to tell me that the only goal in my life is marriage and motherhood.”
Another said, “I need feminism because my mother worked too hard to get me rights to have some guy tell me I don’t deserve safe and affordable health care what to think and feel about my body.”
And another: “I need feminism because when I talked to my dad about college and the future he told me, ‘You don’t need to worry, you’re pretty and you can marry a rich man.’”
And another: “I need feminism because I was taught ‘Don’t get raped,’ not ‘Don’t rape.’”
For all the anti-feminist backlash, in other words, many young people are getting it.
For today’s young women to boast, “I don’t need feminism” is a bit like saying, “I don’t need a surgeon” after your appendectomy, or “I don’t need a house painter,” when your home has a fresh coat of paint. Without the feminist movement, women wouldn’t be attending college or even casting votes.
It’s hard to be complacent when you look at today’s soaring numbers of date rape and domestic violence. Not to mention the daily indignities of catcalls or condescension to the “little woman.”
But if there are young women who truly feel they have never known discrimination, who honestly believe, “I don’t need feminism”?
For that, they can thank a feminist.
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