So, this is an update to my response to the Women's March and Lindsey's opinions on it. There's some thing that I either don't think I properly got across or I've changed my opinion a bit. Anyways, this is an update. If you haven't seen my original response, it's in the one shot book.
So, basically my main argument was that the reasoning of "I don't agree with the march because other women have it worse" is faulty. Now that I still stand by, but there's a few things I'd like to say to add on. There are women in the US who still suffer, and that's a problem. Other women having it worse doesn't make that fact any better. Now I will say that I do not consider myself a feminist. That doesn't mean I'm against gender equality, but rather how the movement itself operates. Feminism is a political movement, not another word for gender equality or women's rights. I appreciate the thoughts behind the march, although some things were a bit much like the vagina hats/costumes. But other than that, I didn't feel one way or another. Now a big reason why I felt the need to make an updated response was because in retrospect I got more heated than I actually would've under normal circumstances about this. Now in my eyes, the biggest thing that really is a women's issue is the issue of reproductive rights and healthcare. Now this I feel EXTREMELY strong about. I said why in my original response, but for those who haven't read it, I had to have an abortion. It's an emotionally traumatic experience to say the least and was one of the hardest decisions of my life, but I still stand by the choice because it was what was best for both myself and the baby. Some things had come up shortly before my response that brought some stuff back up that I would've preferred stayed in the past and there were a lot of raw emotions. I usually like to think of myself as a pretty level headed person, but I dropped the ball a bit. And reading it back it sounded as if I was having a bit of a victim complex which is a bit embarrassing to say the least. So, these are my final summarized thoughts now that I've had my time to rationalize everything.
Most of us in the first world are pretty well off and "privileged" so to speak. And as far as gender equality goes, there's still further to go. But I do believe feminists tend to focus on the wrong issues. As I said, I agree about reproductive rights/healthcare, but otherwise a lot of their points fall through a bit. For example, the wage gap. It's been debunked so many times, so it's easy to find a thorough explanation on google, but to sum it up (haha), the $0.77 to $1 isn't an accurate showing of sexism since it is simply an overall average. It does not account for the same job or work hours at all. And typically, women tend to swing towards jobs that get payed lower, such as teaching. Biologically, this makes sense since women evolved to take care of children, so wanting to work with kids makes sense. Things like that. If more women went into stem fields or jobs of the sort, the gap would decrease a lot. Other things they bring up, like rape and domestic abuse aren't only a women's issue at all. Both men and women have their different struggles with it. It happens to women more often, but it's a lot harder for men to report it and get justice, since the system favors women. If a guy reported domestic violence, the woman could say it was self defense and people are more inclined to believe her and the guy could face unjust legal consequences. It goes both ways, like a lot of issues brought up by feminism. But the way the movement operates is only solving women's problems which ends up fucking over guys. It's not true equality. You get what I'm saying? And don't even get me started on manspreading and mansplaining...
Those are my thoughts on the movement. As far as the march, I still think the argument of other people have it worse in any scenario isn't a good argument because it doesn't make the situation any better. And I appreciate the thoughts behind the march (although having a woman in a hijab on your posters is...questionable. Not because of hating Islamic women but because it's a symbol of misogynistic oppression in Islamic countries). So yeah, it had good intentions and I think people expressing themselves with peaceful protests is always a great thing, even though I don't support the movement. Hopefully I summed it up a bit better this time.
Until next time... :)
