What an intriguing question for a debate. It wasn’t my idea, unfortunately but still. Intelligence Squared is an annual series of provocative live debates and the series “Feminism has Failed” took place in Melbourne in September. I caught the speeches broadcast one day on ABC Radio National’s Life Matters program (you can listen to the podcast of the series here) and I was so inspired and incensed and INTERESTED by what I heard that I contacted some of the presenters to share their words here.
I considered running them all together but there’s just too much to digest and it wouldn’t do them justice.
In this, the first Mamamia installment of Feminism Has Failed, we hear from Monica Dux, co-author of The Great Feminist Denial.
By Monica Dux
To claim the movement is a failure is not only wrong, it fails to grasp its complexity.
In the past decade we’ve become used to gloom-and-doom announcements – that feminism has let women down, has been unsuccessful in delivering on its promises, and that the hoped-for feminist utopia has failed to materialise.
And, of course, it’s true that women everywhere still face problems, some of them enormous and daunting. But is this a sign of feminism’s failure, or simply of how much work remains to be done? No feminist that I have ever met thinks feminism has ”succeeded” in the sense that it is a completed program, with its work finished and all its goals achieved.
Indeed, I think the feminist revolution has only just begun. Gender inequality is complex and pervasive, and it manifests in many different contexts around the globe. There is no quick fix; no simple solution to all the problems that women face.
F is for feminism
Let me give an example. I recently came across a 19th-century discussion of so-called conjugal rights; a man’s legal right to have sex with his wife – rape her, in effect – whenever he wanted. For the first wave of feminists in Australia, active in the 19th and early 20th century, the abolition of conjugal rights was an important goal. Yet it took a century for rape in marriage to be outlawed in this country – 1985 in the state of Victoria.
Should we see these early feminists and their ideals as failures because it took a long time to achieve this goal? Or should we see them as heroic women whose fight would be continued by other women, and whose aims would ultimately be achieved?
Saying that feminism has failed is short-sighted and simplistic, because it misunderstands and underestimates both feminism and the problems feminism is seeking to solve.
After all, who are these feminists that are said to have failed? We’ve usually got that archetypical feminist in mind – often she is the second-wave activist who marched for women’s lib in the 1970s and became a femocrat in the ’80s, hammering away at the glass ceiling. The feminists who fit that description did incredible work – they helped secure many of the fundamental reforms that we take for granted today – but still, they represent only one strand of feminism, and one approach.
Real feminism is constantly evolving and splintering; it’s broad, it’s dynamic. Feminism attempts to articulate and redress injustices against women in a dazzling variety of contexts. We don’t have a bible. It’s not a cult. And there never was a feminist central command, with Germaine Greer at the head of the coven, declaring that by the year 2010 a specific set of demands must be met.
Yet reducing feminism to a simplistic stereotype, then declaring it a failure, is far easier, more entertaining and probably more satisfying than grappling with nuance. It makes a better headline for a Sunday magazine supplement. It just happens to be completely wrong.
Yes, some feminists have failed to achieve their goals. Others manifestly have not. There have been mistakes made, and unintended consequences that still need figuring out.
Yet feminism will continue anyway, even if there are occasional setbacks and failures, because at the heart of all feminist activity is a simple desire to create a better, more just world for women.
This does not mean that we should never be critical of feminist ideas. It’s not a love-in. Disagreement among feminists is a sign of health, not failure.
Do we expect our rights handed to us on a plate?
The very fact that we are able to define and discuss the many complex problems that women still face is due to feminism; that words such as sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexism – words we now take for granted – have entered the vernacular.
Feminism has given us a language to talk about these issues. And in doing this, in putting them on the public agenda, feminism has succeeded even if women’s problems have not all been ”solved”.
Feminist voices are highly vocal in broader social justice groups, in mainstream political parties and their youth organisations.
Internationally, there is growing momentum for movements that tackle sex trafficking and gender-based violence. And feminists are all over the internet, from blogs to online campaigns. Tony Abbott only needed to utter the word ”virginity” and there was an army of feminists ready to take him to task.
To me, this groundswell of activity does not equate with ”failure”. It looks more like a renaissance.
One thing I know for certain: feminism has not failed me. It has allowed me have a career. It has given me financial independence. It encouraged me to take control of my reproduction, to value my body, to see my worth as more than what I can do in bed and what my womb can do. It has given me a sense of unity with other women, and opened my eyes to many injustices that I do not suffer, but that other women do. It has inspired me, infuriated me and challenged me.
But this isn’t the point, feminism is not about ”me” or, more correctly, what it has done for me.
Feminism is about a more just and equitable world for women, all women in all their many and varied contexts. And as long as we keep saying this – as I know my feminist sisters do – we have not failed. We’ve only just begun.
Top Comments
Feminism has not given me what i wanted, for me equality means women being able to be jmust like men i.e being able to be as fit and in shape as possible and walk down the street without getting looks at her body, having clothing made that is not aboput showing off certin areas. Not having to be pretty feminine etc instead going to the gym and gaining strength and speed as a measure of sucesss rather then trying to be as weak and small as possible. The end of male preditor behaviour and for it to become unexceptable for a male to chat up a woman in a public space that he does not know unless she is sat in an area that is reserved for copping off. Women to be subjects in all life experiences rather then objects. Children to wear unisex clothes and toys to be de gendered. Genderless pronouns the norm. All clothing styles to be aimed at both sexes and the end to the forced femininity done to women. Science also should be looking at ways to fix the inequalitys nature has created. Low dose testosterone should be an option for all adult women who feel trapped in a feminized box nature has created. Women are more prone to a range of illnesses as a price of having less testosterone, todays women have lower then normal testosterone due to environmental estrogens and birth control methods. Low testosterone in women effects the brain and bones and muscles. Workplace dress should be the same for both sexes always, formal dress should be the same for both sexes. A woman should be able to dress for something other then sex appeal. School girls should be taught that sperm doners are a valid reproductive option. Feminism should be replaced with a radical gender reform front that will take a no nonsense approch to ending gender inequality and getting freedom to be something other then our sex.
Could MM do a post on the definition of feminism? I think it could get some interesting reponses- everyon's definitions can widely vary.