• Diana McLaren

Feminism and explanation

Anyone who knows me knows I love me some feminist girl empowerment so I’ve decided to dedicate my Fridays to feminism. But even as I thought of doing this it did occur to me the number of responses I might have to deal with from people assuming that I’m a man hater, think women are better than men, want men to be subservient to females, or they think that women already have more rights than men etc.

I love these people but writing out my response over and over again will eventually give me a repetitive strain injury so I thought why not kick of my 'Fridays are for Feminism' campaign with an article I can direct everyone to when these questions continue to come up repeatedly. And I encourage you all; on those days when you’re tired of explaining, just direct them here.

We live in a patriarchal society, that is to say that the males have been the dominant power for the majority of history. An unfortunate side effect of this is our culture is widely misogynistic. This means that men and all the associated traits are considered better than women and their innate skills.

Now that opposite of that is what is known as misandry. This is the same prejudice as misogyny reversed. It predisposes men are lesser than women and has an ingrained bias against the skills and abilities of men.

Many people assume that feminism is about hating men or lowering their status within society but that would in fact be misandry. Most feminists I know are aiming for an egalitarian society in which women and men are equal and are treated as such and the skills or traits associated with either gender are valued and not arranged into a hierarchy of better and worse.

So what is feminism? Feminism is one of the awesome tools we have for rebalancing our society so that it can be egalitarian. It is a movement dedicated to female empowerment, the demystification and de-taxation of the female body, it addresses the rights of the individual to their body and the importance of consent, and it’s a chance for men and women to come together and value both difference and similarities between the genders without making judgments.

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