MISINTERPRETED 21st CENTURY FEMINISM

  “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman” 

– Virginia Woolf

                                  

      PC: Michele Snow

                                    A recap of the history of feminism is necessary before an analysis of modern feminism shall be done. The history of feminism constitutes levels of development and changing ideologies were termed into ‘waves’. Each major movement was entitled under the four waves. The purpose was to ensure legal rights, equality and electoral rights. The age of enlightenment facilitated the writers and philosophers like Mary Wollstonecraft to defend the rights of women. They strived to secure equality, women’s suffrage, reproductive rights, abolish gender norms and so on. The activism of the period primarily engrossed on achieving equality. In the course of time, women raised their voices against injustices and sexual harassments like ‘Me too movement’.

                                    The modern feministic wave is denounced by the society because of so-called feminists or pseudo feminists. They tend to believe in women superiority and do activism upholding the essence of feminism. The particulars are doing harm to the rest of the activists by making them unpopular. The pseudo feminists can never free women from patriarchy and tendency of being judged. Another misconception existing in present feminism is related to the word ‘equality’. It means enjoying equal opportunity and rights to that of men. However, the idea of the word is twisted to a sense that it is used to hate or protest against men. The pseudo feminists must cease from utilising it against all men. Sally Miller Gearhart, political activist and radical feminist made a statement in her essay “The Future-If There is One-Is Female”, “The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race”. Here, a reason is understood why women are questioned or criticized by society when they claim to be a ‘feminist’.

                                            Most of the pseudo feminists might not be even aware of the true intentions behind the movements but feminists who are conscious of the purpose must be better understood as ‘feminazis’.  Nowadays, women are more resistant to the word feminism than men. Women still dissociate fearing social backlash. The 21st century feminism is beginning to be accused of being anti-men. Before arraigning all men, a thought about our fathers who kept safe and protected us must be considered for preventing the pseudo feminists from unleashing their frustration as they condemn one or two men in their life.

                                             Both men and women have good and bad lots. Campaigns like ‘we have legs’ anguished many men creating a social disturbance. It is an evidence of the unchanged mentality prevailing in the society; also it shows that all men are not the same as came forward in support of the campaign.  Men must be educated and their support is essential to conquest against social evils. Intolerance towards men isn’t the way to free the unfree.