We Should All Be Feminists

"Not long ago, I wrote an article about being young and female in Lagos. And an acquaintance told me that it was an angry article ant that I should not have made it so angry. Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice. I am angry. We should all be angry."

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We Should All Be Feminists

A few days ago, I reposted an article on Facebook. It was an article on the subtle forms of discrimination, things that women experience often at the hands of wonderful, if sometimes thoughtless men. "8 Ways Men Don't Realize They Are Subtly Shaming Women." It's a good article. It points out things that many women experience and, sometimes, often, explaining why these behaviors, while seemingly harmless, aren't okay. The post got many likes, from both men and women. But it had some unintended reactions.

Two men, men that I knew personally (not just 'facebook friends') and thought highly of commented on, commented in negative ways. The first commented with "If you're offended by the way a large group of people (i.e. "males as a gender) speaks, the problem is not without, but within." This worried me. This man was telling me that my experiences in which I was treated as 'less' and many women who have had similar experiences with subtle systematic discrimination that the problem was all in our heads. This very behavior, is a large part of the problem, this writing off and discounting our experiences as women as 'inadequate.' I proceeded to call him out. Another man, one that had worked with over the winters responded, "This is a double-edged sword. Alleviating all woman or any victim of any and all responsibility to predict, prevent, or even subconsciously invite abuse, is to reduce them to hapless, incapable creatures, and in fact, re-victimizes them. Woman can think for themselves and don't need terms like 'internalized misogyny' or 'privilege' to victimize them and make it seem otherwise." 

This astounded me. The response in itself seems absurd. The responsibility for any action should not fall on the subject. It is not the oranges fault that it is peeled by the child. It is not a mans fault if he is shot in a theatre. It is not the elderly couples fault if someone breaks into their house and steals their possessions. It is the child who peels the orange, the shooter who shoots the man, the burglar who robs.Why then is it deemed okay for this faulty logic to be used in cases of women? Why is it that when a women is raped, the question is always asked "why didn't she take the precautions to avoid the situation?" "Why was she walking home alone at night?" Why is it okay for the statement to even be thought "She must have been asking for it?" 

These questions are not okay. The fact that society thinks that they are just shows the underlying assumption that women are, somehow, inherently guilty. This is absurd. It is not a woman's fault if she is raped, any more that it is the mans fault that he was shot, or the oranges fault that it was peeled. This same logic follows to small infractions, that happen and happen often.

The conversation digressed from there, and you can read all of it in the picture, but this was the part that really bothered me. This inherent blame of women, this very blatant discrimination. This idea that I was thought of as inherently less than these men due to the nature of my gender, regardless as to my skill set, my intelligence, my various merits. This idea that no matter how 'good' I was, I would

always be less. That I would never be an equal. And while this is something that I had experienced countless times at the hands of strangers, it was something entirely knew to experience this behavior and judgement from people who I had thought of as friends.

"The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are."

We Should All Be Feminists is a book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and is adapted from a TED talk of the same name. I fled here after this interaction in order to find a better vocabulary to express how I felt about this interaction, as well as to find community and comfort in reading the writing of someone who has experienced the things that I have felt, especially after I had been told that it was all in my head (you think I wouldn't be bothered being told that I'm crazy, or on my period, or hysterical, for being upset at poor, but socially acceptable, behaviors in others, but I have this irrational need to be liked). This speech is phenomenal. 

Everyone should read this book. Everyone.This book is so important that every 16 year old in Sweden was bought a copy. It is only 48 pages long, so there is no excuse not to read it, and if you don't want to read it you can watch the TED talk. In it, Adichie talks on the effects, and absurdities, of sexism, and outlines the reasons that everyone should be a feminist. She talks on the effects, how it would be beneficial to not just women, but men as well. She explains why sexism is bad for not only women, but for men as well. And she does so extremely eloquently. 

Sexism is something that almost all women, on all continents and in all cultures, will have to face. The few who don't are extremely lucky. It is not, however, a problem that we have to live with. It may be our culture now, but "culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture." We must do better. Cause were we are now is not good enough.