Why do some women and girls not like feminists?

This morning I was talking to my friend (who's female), and we had a little bit of an argument about feminism, in which she said that she doesn't really agree with it and finds feminists annoying. Why is it that some women and girls don't "like" the people campaigning for their equal treatment of society? Because they kind of know but ignore how patriarchy is objectifying them, because it makes your life a whole lot easier, but with the presence of feminists, they can't ignore it as well. Feminists disrupt the cycle of ignoring that so many women engage in.

People aren't going to like it when you tell them they've been brainwashed or are oppressed without their noticing. Inherently, I think humans all have too much of a narcissistic trend in order to just accept if someone tells them they wrong about something.  And we've been conditioning women and girls not to notice or really care about the fact that society treats them very differently to men and boys. Can you force it onto women and girls to realise how the patriarchy is effecting their lives negatively? If you try to convince someone that their opinions are wrong, they're most likely going to harden their views and be more opposed to changing their point of views.

"I mean boys will be boys, but when they really embrace the LAD Culture, that really annoys me" Does that mean she's beginning to realise, but it's only the very extreme of the spectrum of behaviour that she finds irritating? The reason that you only find lad-culture in boys is that it is based on sexual difference, and objectifying females. You don't find it in girls, because "objects" can't objectify.

Alsop, Fitzsimons and Lennon write in Theorizing Gender (2002): "Until we treat men and women the same socially then we have no way of telling what natural differences there may be between them." They found that the impact of cultural conditioning is so great that it can impacts our abilities. Following that, it seems obvious that if you tell a group of people that they should spend a great amount of time and money on trying to make themselves look nice, and that, physically, another group of people will always outperform them (when in fact that depends on training, not sex), well, then OF COURSE THEY ARE GOING TO START THINKING THAT. If we would start treating sex difference as not important, however, the gender stereotypes employed by out culture would fade and we would see, what we as a human race are truly capable of, not what our men and our women are truly capable of. I hope that the wider acceptance and knowledge of intersex and transgender people will help, because there is (obviously) no fitting stereotype for these people, so people will need to change their ways of thinking.

Society needs to change how we treat women and men, though. At the rate we're currently going, near half of the next generation will believe that dressing up and putting make up on is more important than anything else - with our current issues of for example global warming, with only about half of the scientists that we could have, might not be able to find a solution (but a greater pool of talents has greater chances of success and development).

So, about 30-40 years after Second Wave Feminism, we've arrived at a even more difficult point of view. What does this teach us? Do we need to spread our ideas on how both (or all) genders should be equal more aggressively? I doubt that that would do any good. Instead, we should try to change how we talk about all genders, the kinds of attitudes we express, and the kinds of attitudes that we spread. And if we have an important position in our culture, we should use our ability to reach out to people and just show them a different set of attitudes than the ones that they might currently be applying.

Humanity has such a great variety and diversity in character and thoughts, why do we have to class it by race or gender or sexual orientation? None of these factors detract from our thinking ability. We are able to do so many amazing things, we have built cars that can go up to 300 km/s, triple of the cheetah, the fastest animal. We have left our planet, we can communicate with each other using radio waves. Humanity has such a great potential, well the half that has so far been participating more. Imagine what we could do, if 100% were allowed and able to contribute?

Charlie Crxsh

Sexism in India

Over Easter I've had the chance to visit the country India, and while I have enjoyed it and learned a lot about it's culture and history, I've also encountered a lot of misogyny here. Sexism is common in Europe, too, but it takes a whole new form in India. In Europe, sexism is more passive, and less violent, I feel. Being in India made me realise, why a woman would want to wear a headscarf, or a veil, simply because the way some men look at me here makes me feel more uncomfortable than I've ever felt before. I feel like if they're going to look at me anyway (because of my skin colour), I at least don't want them to actually see the shape of my body. However, I quickly realised, that this is only treating the symptom of the problem, not the cause. The cause would be to teach the men here that you shouldn't objectify and silence a woman simply because of her gender. A large part of society (the conservative part) follow to some degree the rules, that a woman, once married, has to live at her husband's family's house, be a house wife (but it's okay for them to have a job before) and sometimes even wear a full veil in front of her parents-in-law, as a sign of respect. Rules are also placed on women regarding who they can speak with and who not - for example a married woman may not be allowed to talk to her father-in-law, or her husband when in public.

I actually met a about 30 y/o Hindi man, who told me that his wife has to fully conceal her face when at home, and is not allowed to talk to his father. When we responded with confusion and surprise, he continued to tell us that this is a sign of respect that his wife is not showing her face to his parents. I really do fail to see how having a veil in front of your face 24/7 is a portrayal of respect. I can slightly understand that wearing a headscarf that covers your hair can be respectful when in a religious place, because it hides an aspect of physical appearance that we usually highly decorate (plus it also protects you from the sun), therefore making a visit to a temple or mosque more about following a religious ritual or prayer, and less about how you look. But it annoys me how men don't have to hide aspects of their physical appearance, because it assumes that women will always be more decorated than men. 

Back to full veils - I've tried wearing one once when I forgot to put sun cream on my face and I was fearing a sunburn. While I successfully avoided a sunburn, I also noticed that the scarf I'd wrapped around my nose and mouth made it difficult for me to really engage in conversation. It drowned my voice slightly, it hid my mimics, if I wanted to be a noticed part of the conversation, I had to put a lot more effort in it than usually. I didn't wear it for long, and sought the shade instead, because wearing a full veil made me feel uncomfortable. This experience made me realise that, having to wear a full veil all the time would probably make whoever wore it feel rather horrible and restricted at first, and then probably apathetic. Why bother engaging in conversation when it is such an effort, and your probably rather traditional mother-in-law probably wouldn't quite listen to you anyway? And you weren't even allowed to talk to your father-in-law? Seems like a pretty good way to make sure that those women stay put. 

Walking down the street here, as a European woman of pale skin colour, you can expect men to stare at you. Take pictures of you on their phones without asking your permission. Point at you and discuss your appearance with the other men around you. Making it obvious they "enjoy" your presence a little more than you'd want. They probably won't stop taking pictures of you even if you've told them through waving your right hand dismissively (or your left hand, which is considered an insult here). The simple act of someone taking pictures might not sound so "bad" if you've never experienced it, but imagine walking down a street and having random strange men of all ages take pictures of you, and you don't even want to imagine what they're going to use those pictures for.. Street harassment takes different forms here. 

As a European, you might not find it odd or invasive if someone brushes past you in a public place, or places your hand on your back, but in India this doesn't have the same implications as in Europe. There are rather strong rules on PDA in India, and even touching a woman in what would be considered okay and non-sexual is not permitted here. Then ask yourself why the men do it to Western women, because they know it doesn't mean anything to us, and they want to touch women, even if it's just on the shoulder or her arm. 

More on this later,

Charlie Crxsh