Feminism isn’t working for me

Feminism. Just a few decades ago, women were expected to stay at home, raise kids and basically do as they were told. Understandably, they were pretty pissed off about it, which gave rise to the Feminist movement.

Over the years, Feminists have campaigned and raised awareness of some incredibly important things that affect women the world over (domestic abuse, reproductive rights, female genital mutilation and workplace inequality, just to name a few).

But where are these brave women now? On Twitter and Tumblr telling people to check their privilege, probably. So many “feminists” (and I’m going to put these people in quotation marks, as they are not true feminists in my opinion) seem to spend their time being offended rather than trying to make a difference and get shit done.

This is why I, and I suspect many other young men and women, are incredibly reluctant to label themselves as Feminists, for fear of being associated with this militant group of the movement who give everyone else a bad name.

Very recently, Kit Harrington, best known for his role as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, spoke out about how men are objectified and the victims of sexism too. Pretty predictably, he faced a huge backlash from “feminists”, who suggested that men could never be the victim of sexism, or that he didn’t know what sexism was.

Imagine every time a woman, rightly, complained about being objectified she was told her feelings weren’t valid. “Reverse sexism” doesn’t exist, indeed. Sexism is just sexism, it doesn’t matter who is the victim.

Sadly, some “Feminists” are very keen to partake in a self-created oppression Olympics, whereby they must always come out on top as the group most victimised. These women, in denying the existence of sexism towards men, are actually flouting the most core value of the Feminist movement: equality.

In fact, very recently, “feminists” were up in arms about the claim that in a lot of workplaces, women are still made to wear heels as part of their uniform. They claimed it was objectification and sexist to reduce their work to just a pair of tits in some Louboutin’s, all the while branding anyone who didn’t agree with their point of view “sexist” or a bigot.

So why, when the genders are reversed, is the objectification of women sexist, while the objectification of men in Hollywood, not? Kit Harrington and countless other men are asked to strip down in photo shoots, which “feminists” stay quiet about. Yet, weren’t there 10,000s of names on a petition to ban topless models on Page 3? Where’s the outrage for men being forced to pose topless?

As I am really keen to reiterate, I am not for one second claiming this is every feminist, as that would be a huge generalisation. However, it is a very vocal majority, who because of social media, are put at the forefront of the movement. The quote “he who shouts the loudest gets heard” is really quite true in this instance.

A lot of “feminists” will probably also question why many men and other women are reluctant to give their support to Feminism. It’s really quite simple: “feminists” don’t make it clear who their enemy is. Rather than try to educate people about the movement, they angrily present themselves as morally superior to non-feminists. By painting anyone who doesn’t agree with labels like “misogynist” or “bigot, these radicals try and silence any alternative opinion that conflicts with their own.

By trying to diminish the sexism and inequality faced by men too, they alienate 50 per cent of the population from aligning themselves with the movement.

Not only this, by staying silent on issues affecting men more than women, such as talking about mental health, suicide, biased custody battles and a skewed criminal justice system, “feminists” show how little they care about the core Feminist goal of equality…unless it benefits them.

I agree wholeheartedly with everything true feminism tries to achieve, and has achieved. I just can’t align myself with Feminism in its current very flawed form. Quite simply, if you want feminism to work, you need to get everyone else on board. By acting like petulant, morally superior children, you won’t achieve this.