What
Men Don’t Understand About Feminism
By Catherine Elms
“What!? You’re not a feminist!”
I
had just told my friend Morgan that I was a feminist. It was not even a formal declaration; I had simply
mentioned in passing that I’d written a new song that was about feminism. But he didn’t seem as comfortable with it as
I was; in fact, he was so shocked that he felt the need to sit down and to stare
at me, as if I had just revealed that I was pregnant or something. “Morgan, I’m a feminist” should not be
a sentence that is as difficult to say as “Mum, I’m a bisexual”. Yet once the words were out, I experienced
the same familiar feeling I’d had two years ago with my mother; an uneasy
combination of defiance and shame.
“What!?
You’re not a feminist!”
“I
am. I totally am.”
Morgan
stared at me with his mouth agape, his gaze a mixture of astonishment and
curiosity.
“But…
you can’t be! You’ve got a boyfriend!”
“…
y’know, it’s a myth that all feminists are power-hungry lesbians.”
“It
is?”
Bloody
hell. I could be xenophobic, homophobic, racist, mean-spirited, , with no
questions asked… but heaven forbid that I actually believe that women are people. I could’ve told him this; I could’ve let my frustration
out and stamped my feet and shouted and screamed out a load of reasons as to why
feminism is NOT what he thought, and how incredibly stupid he was to think
so. But he’s been brought up in a
society where feminism is demonized, where we’re all bra-burning, man-hating,
rebellious hairy lesbians. Who is he to
know that it is false? He can’t help his
ignorance. So I bit my tongue, and nodded,
making sure that my face showed no trace of feminist rage.
“So
… what DO…uh… feminists… believe in?” I ignored his refusal to say the word
feminism properly, the way he treated it like a dirty word.
“Equality.” It should be obvious. Conversations like this, with my good friend
Morgan (an Oxford graduate no less) remind me just how much work there is to be
done.
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