Is Feminism An Attention-Whore Or Really Necessary?
I’ll start by saying that I am not a very “extreme” or political person in general. I find myself surprised writing about this topic. Though, I (& other women in my environment) have recently encountered situations that made me think about women’s position in society today.
I used to be part of the people that thought that women have it pretty well today compared to the earlier days; “so we can’t complain”. Compared to where women where even a few years ago, I feel like I am very lucky, I am a free woman and have almost nothing I can’t do that men can. Still, I’ve found myself triggered in situations where men downplayed the importance of feminism (e.g., a guy at a dinner telling us “to quit our bullshit” about how certain things are still not equal between men and women today) or when men act in a downgrading way toward women (i.e., not listening or respecting opinions, looking or talking in an objectifying way).
I am a millennial and people say that we are the generation that revolts against everything and that we are “over-sensitive”. This made me wonder if that's the case, too, with feminism:
“Are we overly sensitive or is this movement actually necessary?”
First off all, I don’t think there’s a thing such as “over-sensitive”. All feelings are valid. If a situation leaves you feeling a certain way that is how you feel. And it’s your right to feel that way. Second, I do believe women today are in a good place, in the parts of the worlds we live in. I won’t overlook the progress. And I feel grateful about that. We CAN do most of the things men do, and that is amazing. But, in certain ways this makes feminism today harder than ever. Because the things we are fighting for are the subtle underlying/implicit/deeper things.
I think this counts for most of the movements today, such as, for example, BLM, LGBTQ… Most of these “movements” are about bringing forth the factors that aren’t as easy to perceive.
On “the surface” I am a strong independent woman so when a man will not listen to my opinion or look in an objectifying matter at me on the streets we won’t see a problem, right? That’s the thing. There is a problem. And it’s the deepest one and hardest one to change. It’s people’s (collective) belief systems.
We humans all have our individual belief systems but there is also a collective one. Some beliefs are so embedded and old and this is what we are working on changing through these movements. Certain people are still stuck in previously enforced beliefs that women are merely objects, or have less value than men (and so counts for the other movements too).
I was talking with my friend (who is a female business owner that still gets devalued by macho men in business meetings) about what she thinks of all these movements (i.e., BLM, Feminism, Me-too…). I was myself a bit skeptical of them at first. Are they useful? Are they just here to draw attention and make a buzz? Do they actually have an impact? Are they targeting the right people? Or does it it only impact the people who don’t actually need the message? These were all my questions.
Finally, we came to the conclusion that those movements are, in a sense, extreme. But, they are useful. These movements, that may seem extreme and/or redundant in today’s society are useful because (a) They bring to light issues that are deeply rooted in a collective unconscious that require time, effort and awareness to change. And (b) by going into extremes they allow things to eventually retrieve equilibrium.
PS: I don’t follow politics from a close but I understand that these movements have gone too far in certain parts of the world. Like always, some people will take advantage of certain situations. I believe destructive, violent or hatred behavior is never the way; however, I believe that in the situation we are currently trying to reverse some imbalance is necessary for change to occur.
