Writer/director/television-and-movie-maker Joss Whedon has spoken before at Equality Now functions, an organization dedicated to ending violence and discrimination against women. You have likely have heard his “Why do you create such strong women characters?” rant somewhere on the internet, and more elsewhere about his choices in developing complicated female protagonists in popular media.
Whedon spoke again at an Equality Now benefit dinner just days ago, and he has a new beef with a certain word. That word is “feminist.”
So let’s talk about that.
Before we begin, here is a video of the speech in question, which can be referred back to whenever needed:
Whatever personal opinions on Whedon anyone may have, his desire to work toward equality for women is clearly a genuine effort on his part, and something that he cares about deeply. That does not make his work critique-proof, or make every female character he creates into a prime example of how writing women should be done. It does not mean that everything he has to say on these issues is automatically correct. It does not mean that he is unaware of his own trope traps either; on the Avengers DVD commentary, he talks at length about how one of the few scenes that didn’t have to be rewritten was Black Widow’s introduction because it involves his tried and true scenario—a small, seemingly helpless woman getting the drop on a slew of strong men who have underestimated her.
With that said, we can turn our focus on what Whedon is talking about when he says he has come to dislike the term “feminist.” He begins by comically breaking down the sound of it, but ends by pointing out that the ending of the word echoes other terms—atheist, communist, horticulturalist—that are not innate states of being. They are things that human beings learn to be. Why is this a problem?
“Feminist” includes the idea that believing men and women to be equal, believing all people to be people is not a natural state, that we don’t emerge assuming that everybody in the human race is a human, that the idea of equality is just an idea that’s imposed on us…
An excellent point, because the rhetoric is geared that way: how often do people begin conversations about gender equality with the words “I became a feminist in [insert specific point in life] because…”? It is viewed as a discipline, something that you acquire, because even if you understand inherently that men and women are not equal, recognizing the ways in which society has stacked the deck takes time, and demands attention and analysis.
Except being a feminist does not actually require a background in academic study and specific terminologies. All it demands is your personal desire for men and women to be treated equally in all aspects of life. That’s it. You don’t have to “become” anything—if you believe that men and women should be treated exactly the same, you already believe in feminism.
Which is why it makes sense for Whedon to bring up Katy Perry, and her acceptance speech on winning Billboard’s 2012 Woman of the Year award: the one where she explicitly stated, “I am not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women.” Whedon is attacking the problem sideways; not only does he point out that the term feminist might implicate an unnatural state of being, but it’s gone so far now that people consider it to be some kind of “dirty word.” Being a feminist means you have a specific stance on these issues, and more importantly, that you will be identified alongside anyone else who calls themselves a feminist.
It’s for this reason that so many people have become reticent to associate themselves with the word and with other feminists, but what they don’t realize is by denying it, they are literally saying, “Hey, I don’t think people should be equal. Because some of the other people who like this word seem strange or loud or discomfiting to me. No, I have never looked up the word in a dictionary.”
Joss Whedon’s solution is to bring a new term to the table. He likens this word to “racism,” in that human beings understand and use that term to acknowledge the horrific mistakes and unenlightened attitudes of the past that still exist and inform the present. Racism still exists, clearly, but it is not socially acceptable: there are very few people today who will admit to being racist (at least, if they want to be taken seriously), even if they happen to actually be racist—it’s not a concept people want to be associated with. We need a word that captures similar connotations when it comes to gender inequality—that drives home the sense that discriminating against people on the basis of sex is fundamentally a negative position that is no longer socially acceptable. His suggestion is the word “genderist”:
I would like a word that says there was a shameful past before we realized that all people were created equal and we are past that…
To make it clear, Whedon is in no way suggesting that we live in a post-racial, post-gender society. He is trying to draw a line in the mud, to say that people who believe gender inequality is okay are clearly wrong and we can all agree on that. He finishes up his speech by reminding the audience that, of course, these fights will never truly be over. His recommendation is that by adjusting our terminology to make something clearly taboo, we can get there faster. We can make more progress right now.
Is that true? I’m not certain. As a rule, language is forever changing, and words come to mean different things over time. Is it better to create new words rather than alter the definitions (or perceptions) of old ones? As an example, the change in discourse between the emergence of the terms “global warming” and then “climate change” indicate it can help under the correct circumstances. And with so many people adamantly opposed to the word feminist—without even knowing what it means—offering up an alternate term could be useful in breaking down some barriers.
Still, I’d like to believe that we’re smart enough as a species to overcome our preconceptions. Can we reclaim “feminist”? Does it need reclaiming? Will the ignorance of others force us to abandon the term for words with no history behind them, new words that we can engrave our own meaning onto? Is that better?
I have no answers. But I do share Joss Whedon’s frustration that so many people would prefer to be called anything… but a feminist.
Emmet Asher-Perrin is a feminist, and has no problem telling people so. You can bug her on Twitter and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
“If you believe that men and women should be treated exactly the same, you already believe in feminism.” I’ve yet to meet anyone who actually believes that.
There is, within a certain larger group that I’m loosely associated with, a group of people who claim themselves to be feminists. They support this claim by vehemently attacking anyone who does not immediately and massively agree with everything that they say.
One of these feminists (a female) attacked another female, from the podium at a conference, for daring to suggest that maybe the feminists’ ideas weren’t the best way to accomplish something.
Some very good friends of mine have been labeled ‘rapists’, ‘rape apologists’, and ‘male rights activists’ for daring to suggest that publiclly shaming people who didn’t think that all men are inherently rapists is wrong.
These are the kinds of ‘femminists’ that a lot of people are having issues with.
I’m all for equality. I prefer that to anything else. I am not for equality at the expense of any other group (out group or in group).
My experiences may not be common and, outside of the culture of which I am a part, are largely unknown. However, it does color my thinking about the label “femminist”. And I agree with Whedon. A nuetral label may be more meaningful than a gender specific label, even if it’s that gender fighting for the same rights as the other gender.
There’s obviously a lot more to my position than can be described in a few paragraphs here. Again, I agree with Whedon in this instance.
I’m suffering from Joss Whedon burnout.
I’m not saying his point isn’t valid, I’m not saying his point isn’t correct. I am saying I”m sick of the guy. I think he gets way too much acclaim for midling projects.
Buffy and Angel are two of my favorite shows that I’ve watched, but since then he hasn’t done much.
I enjoyed Firefly, but obviously not enough people felt the same to keep it on the air. (yeah yeah the schedule shuffle, Fox screwed him, blah blah. There was a show called Miracles that aired at the same time I thought was better got the same treatement, been lots of shows over the years that have met that fate).
Dollhouse was okay, not great and barely could be called good. Again not enough people thought it was good enough to continue (and Fox gave it more than fair treatement, giving it a second season when it didn’t deserve it based on the ratings. 2nd season was way better, but I think it was already doomed. By the way, Terminator: tSCC was sacrificed for a 2nd season of Dollhouse. Wish that had been opposite)
I don’t get Dr. Horrible’s popularity. (I may be soured because I dislike Felicia Day – Oh, no, I disrespected Joss Whedon and Felica Day in teh same post! SOmeone tear up my geek card!)
Avengers was a great popcorn movie, in the vein of Michael Bay (who gets knocked for movies with glaring plot holes, deus ex-machina and lots of explosions, but Joss gets accolades – shrug). Nothing revolutionary there. I saw it once in the theater with my nephew and once on DVD with my wife. I have no desire to watch it again, there is no depth (contrasted with The Dark Knight or even the Dark Knight Rises that actually had themes that they were exploring).
Agents of Shield is a mess that I stopped watching because it was so bland.
The last two projects Avengers and AoS I watched not because of Whedon, but because of the MCU investment I had.
I’m not trolling, I just wnat to understand why Joss Whedon gets so much attention from genre audiences. I don’t get it and, as I started, I’m burned out about hearing about/from him.
@2 —
If there’s equality of all, everybodyd is equal. Thus equality for women is not at the expense of any other group.
So what you are really saying here is that equality for women comes at the expense of men losing their traditional status which chooses how women are spoken of, spoken to, choosing to never listen to women, choosing when and if at all women get to speak, choosing to interupt whenever you wish, but claiming that you cannot ever be interrupted, and so on and so forth.
@Emily
You seem to believe that there is one single, generally accepted definition of “Feminism”. I think that this assessment is wrong. The aims and views of self proclaimed feminists vary as much as the perception of the word.
The believe in equal rights and equal opportunities is one thing, the believe that all differences between men and women are nothing but social constructs is another. Also a lot of things that run under the flag of feminism are in fact power plays of certain groups.
In Germany for example there is a strong push for a law that forces companies to appoint a certain quota of women in their board of directors. As such boards are often filled with politicians, it is quite understandable, where the push is coming from… it is in fact favoring the strongest members of a group and justifying it with the problems of its weakest members.
@Zorra
You are not necessarily right… you just assume that feminism cannot lead to unjust situation in the other extreme. These things do happen though. And there actually are aspects of society where men are at the disadvantage.
I have to admit, when I hear the term feminist, equality for all is not what comes to mind. Overall I think there is too much grouping by labels as well as group-think on such issues.
But how is genderist different from sexist?
Intriguing. I like the idea of the word “genderist,” but as someone who considers himself to be a feminist (albeit someone who comes at it from an academic/intellectual angle…) share your shared frustration.
“”Feminist” includes the idea that believing men and women to be equal, believing all people to be people is not a natural state, that we don’t emerge assuming that everybody in the human race is a human, that the idea of equality is just an idea that’s imposed on us”
This, to be honest, is a little baffling. Of course Feminism isn’t a natural state. Neither is equality. Neither is justice. Neither is belief. Neither is freedom, nor slavery, nor affirmative action, nor marriage, nor Naziism, nor… Well, you get the idea.
I don’t get this privileging of the supposedly-natural. (Hey, have you guys seen how, for instance, cats, act in nature? It’s pretty nasty. I don’t think we want to immitate that.)
One unnatural idea I’ve come across recently is Kyriarchy.
This is the idea that our social systems are “built around domination, oppression, and submission” in general, regardless of the one doing the domination.
It’s like patriarchy, only broader.
Kah-thurak makes an excellent point here:
I think this understanding has gotten around so much in scholarly circles now that people talk of “feminisms” instead of “Feminism.” (And even outside it. There’s a Reddit board called “feminisms”!)
My main problem with his speech is this: he is a white man. It really sounds to me like he is saying we are past the acute impact of sexism. It’s something that used to be, and clearly sensible people reject. That’s an audacious statement, and I feel like others would have more credibility to speaking on the matter. Like, I don’t know, women. Another problem is with strictly equating feminism with the belief men and women are equal. How many people would really argue with that in America these days? (and yes, I know they’re out there somewhere) To define feminism so narrowly cuts off all sorts of conversations about gender relations. In short, Tolkien, contributor to the OED had a lot of cred. when it came to linguistic judo. Joss Whedon? Let’s cut the mansplaining and let actual self-avowed feminists define the word.
@9 Comment deleted for the accusatory tone: it’s fine to disagree with another commenter, but please phrase your arguments in a way that addresses the content of their comment, and doesn’t devolve into a personal attack. Thanks.
@10
Letting an obviously sexist and racist statement stand, just because it aims at the right group is not acceptable to me. Equality can never be achieved that way and it is exactly what OgreMk5 is complaining about above.
@@@@@ 8
So a man cannot be part of the conversation because he’s a man? Huh…
Gonna be hard to accomplish anything if you exclude half the human population.
@11 Again, if you disagree with what’s being said in the comment in question, there are ways of expressing that without being uncivil and accusatory. If you are not willing to participate under the terms of our Moderation Agreement and be respectful of other commenters and the moderators’ attempts to keep the peace, then your comments will be unpublished. This thread is meant to be a discussion, not an opportunity to attack people with whom you disagree.
@@.-@ While I can’t speak for #2 your comment is not necessarily correct. It could be that #2 is indeed saying that men should have a status of priviledge above women, but I don’t think that’s the case. #2’s comment seemed to me to be more in the vein of opposition to things such as affirmative action, which cause discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and nationality in the name of equality.
Are there men within western culture who hold the views you describe? I’m sure there are a few, but they are outliers and social deviants. It is not socially acceptable to treat women the way you describe in modern western culture and to stop treating women in that way would not be an expense to men.
There are cases where making the out group “equal” is not truly making them equal and is truly promoting them at the expense of others. An example from my own working experience: A female coworker was not performing her job to standard. She was frequently behind schedule, not providing needed information to other coworkers, not doing a good job on the tasks once she did complete them, and generally not being friendly. Other coworkers of mine asked her to improve her performance and nothing happened. Finally, they approached management. They were told that they were just picking on her because she was a woman and that they needed to stop. If she had been a man, she would have been disciplined or fired.
The intentions are correct. Don’t allow men to harrass women in the work place. However, in cases like this due to oversensitivity they protect objectively incompetent employees because of preferential treatment. It’s always going to be a challenge to find the right way to root out sexism without unintended consequences.
@@.-@ I think it’s more a reaction to the fact that some of the more vocal and extreme ‘feminists’ often degenerate into hating men and advocating a matriarchy which just replaces one supreme social class with another, instead of advocating the deeper meaning of the word ‘feminism’ based on equality.
Personally, I can almost never say I’m a feminist in public because that would mean that I’d have to explain that I’m not the sort of person who hates myself for being the white male that I am (which is what extreme feminists want me to do) every time. Feminism is broader than that, of course, but you’d be surprised how much people tend to remember the extremes.
ASG@14:
You don’t adduce whatever evidence was presented to management in this case. It is entirely possible that the evidence proved that management was right and you were wrong. It is also possible that you were right and management was wrong, but your flat statement doesn’t qualify as evidence — so this particular example of some woman getting an unfair advantage is worthless as argument.
The reason “genderist” is such a stupid idea on Whedon’s part is the same reason “racist” is a slippery word that’s lost most of its value: Mewling scrota get to make the same claim as someone who actually is, like, oppressed by a system.
Show me a system where the brown end of the stick is handed out equitably to all genders on a per-capita basis and I’ll change my language. Till then, or until such time as hell has been reliably determined to have frozen over, I’ll stick with calling myself a feminist.
@17 Comment edited to remove the last line–again, I’d like to direct everyone to our Moderation Policy, and reiterate that comments that veer towards disrespect of other commenters will be removed.
@Katharine
So why does comment 8 still stand? If saying “your opinion is meaningless, as you are a white male” is not showing disrespect what is?
@20 That was not the argument of @8, if you’ll read the entire comment in context. Again, disagreeing with ideas is different than disagreeing with and personally disrespecting other commenters, and this is the last time I’ll explain that distinction in this thread.
Those who giving examples that show equality comes at the price of someone else’s equality are not speaking of equality.
Equality means things of this nature, quoting from an article here, that is also talking about Whedon’s unfortunate vocabulary regarding equality and feminism:
The examples provided here, so far, have nothing to do with either equality or feminism.
A woman getting paid the same amount for doing the same job that a man does does not take away his equality. It brings her in a state of equality with him.
This move could be a PR stroke of genius. The idea, basically, is to not define yourself, but to define the other. When someone is asked to define “feminism” it’s easy to point out the most extreme positions, that sometimes seem to run against the notion of “equality for all”. But by defining yourself not as a word, but as an anti-word, you can define yourself as someone who attacks what that word stands for. So, instead of saying you’re a feminist, you say you’re anti-genderist. What are genderists? Wifebeaters, bigoted fellows. You don’t want to be on their side, do you? So you’re on ours. The initative of using the worse example is on the feminist/anti-gendered side now.
This strategy for acquiring the initiative to how you define yourself is used in the abortion debate. Those who are against abortion say they’re pro-life. Implicit is the notion that their opponents are against the life of infants. Those who are pro abortion say they’re pro-rights. Implicit is the notion that their opponents are against people’s rights. Notice how they both put their opponents in the baddest of lights just by changing their names.
This wouldn’t work if feminism was a political party. Using the example of communism, it was important for communist parties to define themselves as a different entity/movement, so that people would remember to vote for them and not for other parties that promised better conditions of life (like christian democrats).
I have no issues with the words ‘feminist’ or ‘feminisim.’ Why should I? These words simply state that one believes and works for the equality of the sexes; not really had to understand. If some who call themeselves feminists are extreme in the demonstration of for their ideals as feminists it doesn’t invalidate the word; it just means more people will tune them out.
If the people cannot understand that no group is without its own ‘hardliners’ or ‘radicals’ then that’s not the fault of the group; that’s the fault of people applying lazy or non-critcal thinking.
I think Joss Wedon adds a lot of clout to this debate as he is in an industry where women have traditionally played second fiddle to the men. Has he been a perfect example of a male feminist? Nope. But then none of us are perfect examples of anything really.
I do agree that ‘genderist’ isn’t a good choice. It has so much baggage attached to it & it hasn’t even been used yet. I think ‘equalist’ is a better choice honestly. Kind of hard to argue with someone who is for equal rights for all; or for women, in this particular discussion.
Kato
Why should we care what Joss Whedon says? He made one decent movie and a few decent TV series, it’s not like he’s some kind of great artist despite what his fanboys think. And just because his work is slightly better on gender issues than your average Hollywood director or showrunner (which is a very low bar to pass, as we all know) doesn’t make him a feminist hero.
And “genderist”? Come on, why use a silly word like this when “sexist” means the same and is well established?
If one wants a broader word for a broader problem, there’s nothing wrong with the old standby ‘egalitarian’.
@26Bergmaniac, all true points but Wedon is very popular with his fanboys & fangirls and is using this position to help address the issue of inequality endemic in society today. And if he’s not a ‘feminist hero’ at least he’s out there trying.
Standing up to inequality, adding a voice to the discussion, is important as far as I am concerned. He’s using his celebrity to help foment social good/justice/change.
@27JohnArkansawyer, dammit! I completely spaced out on ‘egalitarian.’ Much, much better.
Kato
Though he may be going about this in a manner I consider foolish, I don’t doubt Whedon’s heart is in the right place.
(I also think The Avengers was considerably better than decent.)
@12 I regret if my initial post came across as more fiery than I’d intended. Full disclosure. To be clear, I don’t dislike Mr. Whedon. I even like some of his works. There are also some things to like about his speech. I also quibble with a few things about it. See here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/what-joss-whedon-gets-wrong-about-the-word-feminist/281305/
and also here:
http://groupthink.jezebel.com/joss-whedon-is-actually-completely-wrong-1461554268
In response to above, that’s not what I said. More full disclosure. I’m a white man too. Men have to be part of the dialogue. Because, yes, you can never exclude half the world. But when Joss Whedon says of gender bias, “we are past that,” that comes across as a little dismissive of said dialogue to me.
I’m all for having a substantive (not purely linguistic) conversation about feminism… and I’ll put more stock in others when it comes to declaring its irrelevance.
@15 I do agree with your first point as well. I am a white male, who supports equal rights for women, though I’m not a feminist. At least in my experience it seems that feminism requires a belief that society must be radically changed to bring about equal rights for women and I do not agree with that view. I’m sure my views on women’s rights don’t go far enough for at least 80% of those who frequent this site and to some here I might even seem sexist. On the other hand, in other crowds I almost seem feminist. Funny how that works.
@17 I understand how you could view it that way, being outside the situation. However, since I did personally experience it and you did not, I will simply say with complete sincerity that she was not performing her job adequately and did not recieve any known discipline from the company. I don’t feel it’s appropriate to go in any more detail than that on a public internet discussion. If you believe I’m making this up, lying, or misrepresenting the facts so be it. It was an anecdote anyway, I do not believe that a story from my personal life is very meaningful in the grand scheme of this discussion.
The point of my story was to say that sweeping legislation or policies can and do have unintended negative side effects. It’s admirable and right to want women to have an equal playing field with men. I will always be in favor of laws that remove handicaps and hurdles placed in the way of women being successful in society. I will probably not be in favor of laws that place handicaps and hurdles in the way of men to raise the fortunes of women.
“Egalitarian,” while accurate, won’t work. Not snappy enough. Too intellectual sounding.
Like it or not, once a tipping point has been reached in the public consciousness about what a term for a class of people means, trying to re-educate everyone about what it REALLY means is worse than useless. Ask a liberal.
The point of this speech is not to combat what the perfectly good word “feminist” has become, it’s to sidestep the ruination of the term and put those people against the concept of feminism on the defensive and on the clearly wrong side of history. I agree that genderist is awkward, though.
The problem with feminism/feminist as a term, as with most terms (political and otherwise), is that it covers too broad a spectrum of people. There are indeed radical “feminists” who believe all men are rapists and should be castrated. It’s one thing to fight for equality; it’s quite another to sincerely believe that men are unneccesary and might as well be gone from the Earth. So I agree with Joss about not liking the word feminist, though perhaps not for the same reasons.
It’s rather reminiscent of the word “socialism” – the most informative book on it I ever read was titled “Socialisms” and covered the whole shebang. Today when I hear the word bandied about as a term of abuse I’m tempted to ask, “Which one?” Proudhon’s? William Morris’ ?
Part of the problem as I see it, is that homo sapiens is a mix between two styles of great ape, the chimpanzee with its patriarchy, and the bonobo with its matriarchy – I’m using the words descriptively, not as terms of abuse: to wit, a patriarchy is where the males have nearly all, if not all, of the say; a matriarchy is where the females have the say. Homo (or Pongo) sapiens has something similar to the competitive male display set-up of the chimpanzee while at the same time containing something like the cooperative female networking set-up of the bonobo.
It’s a lot of fun – both sexes get to claim the other is cheating on the deal.
We have a word for “feminists” who aren’t for equality, but rather stand for switching patriarchy for matriarchy: misandrists. Just because they call themselves feminists when they really aren’t, doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being one myself. “Egalitarian” is a good word, but I’m not going to abandon “feminist” to the misandrists. To do so would justify the claims of those who deny that sexism (among other things) exists/is still a problem.
Nothing is more tedious than the claim, perpetually unexamined by its authors, that feminism is about “equality.” There is strong evidence against that from the word’s fixation on one gender. At best, feminism is about overcoming injustices to women, as perceived by self-described feminists. You will rarely find feminists concerned by female over-representation in higher education, or the greater tips earnings of female servers, or, frankly, any issue that is of more concern to men. Moreover, feminist interpretations of equality are inevitably drawn with an eye to what will benefit women more. See e.g. here.
In the real world, feminism tends to connote support for a specific basket of policies, many of which have tenuous or no connections to “equality”. Formal equality means “treating relevantly equal things equally.” Clearly this has no application to things like government subsidized birth control, maternity leave, or abortion rights, as men and women are simply not relevantly equal in these realms. It has questionable relevance to topics like rape law policy, where men and women typically find themselves facing opposing faces of the policy. Insisting that feminism is about “equality” is a rather insincere way of shutting down debate over the specific issues that feminists care about.
So Joss Whedon is right. The word “feminist” as it’s used now is broken. If you really care about equality, call yourself something else, like an egalitarian, or a gender-egalitarian, or a supporter of sex equality. And if you are concerned about advancing the specific basket of gender policies currently associated with the word, fine, keep calling yourself a feminist. But try to see past the conceit that you are an agent of pure equality, and maybe you can participate in more honest discussion of the policies you want to advance.
@37: Ugh, just because you support rights for women doesn’t preclude you from supporting right for men as well. Not all feminists are the same. Every group has its radicals, and unfortunately, many people have a visceral reaction to those few radicals and decide to colour every feminist with that same brush. There’s no need for the majority of us to change the name that we label ourselves with, just because a few act like idiots. Yes, I can call myself an egalitarian, or a gender-egalitarian, but neither of those words are as firmly entrenched in the literature as the word “feminist” is. I’m pretty sure people will just look at me quizically if I say I’m a gender egalitarian.
I do agree that feminism is not an innate state of being. I became a feminist, and started labelling myself a feminist after I became educated on the relatively poor status of women in comparison to men, especially in parts of the world, like where I come from. Ergo, I focus on women’s issues, since I can relate more to them. That doesn’t make me a man-hater. Like SpaceBoots said, feminist doesn’t mean misandrist – one is a position of support, and the other of opposition.
@41
“Ugh, just because you support rights for women doesn’t preclude you from supporting right for men as well. Not all feminists are the same.”
I never said otherwise.
“Every group has its radicals, and unfortunately, many people have a visceral reaction to those few radicals and decide to colour every feminist with that same brush.”
I’m not talking about radicals. I’m talking about garden variety feminists like you who “focus on women’s issues, since I can relate more to them.”
“There’s no need for the majority of us to change the name that we label ourselves with, just because a few act like idiots.”
Of course there’s no “need”. But there are good *reasons* if you really care about equality, rather than women’s advocacy. I gave you a bunch of them.
“neither of those words are as firmly entrenched in the literature”
They are perfectly well entrenched in the literature concerned with actual equality, rather than in women’s advocacy literature. People aren’t going to be any more happy to hear you announce you are a feminist than to hear you say you support sex equality. Call yourself what you want but don’t fool yourself that people are thinking, “Oh you must really care about equality.”
“That doesn’t make me a man-hater.”
My point was not that feminists hate men. My point was that women’s advocacy is different than advocacy for equality between the sexes.
i love that Joss is working for this.
and by “this”, i mean granting women the same basic respect, across the board, that men get.
there are some here talking about, in essence, bending over backwards to “appease” or “make up for” the [historical and on-going] mistreatment of women… and miss the point.
for every story i hear of a woman not being “punished” for doing her job correctly, i can tell of a dozen women who were completely overlooked for doing their jobs BETTER.
hell, i’m one of them.
a few years ago, i was up for a promotion. came down to me and one guy, and we had the same basic qualifications. i routinely put in 10 hours of overtime a week while he didn’t. i routinely scored about 5% points higher on reviews.
*HE* was promoted.
why?
because i “didn’t dress professionally”
kicker – aside from the fact that i tended to wear to dress flats and he wore tennis shoes? we wore ESSENTIALLY THE SAME OUTFIT – kahkis or dress slacks, polo shirts or button downs.
but that’s LITERALLY the only reason they had for promoting him and not me – i “didn’t dress professionally”. i asked what they meant, and it was this list of feminized actions — i never wore skirts or dresses, i never wore make-up, my hair was always in either a plain bun or ponytail. i “didn’t make an effort with my appearance”.
and when i pointed out that the guy and I? essentially wore the SAME DAMNED THING?
i was shrugged at, and told that what was acceptable for a MAN was *NOT* acceptable dress for a WOMAN. standards were “different”
this was 4-ish years ago.
but hey — i don’t have to give my father/husband/son/male relative/male guardian all of my paycheck anymore, and i’m allowed to vote, so the fact that you see such unequal OUTCOMES when starting from the SAME PLACE is just… what happens, right?
[seriously – take two people. they graduate from college with the same EVERYTHING – degree, GPA, class placement, letters of recommendation, internships and classes – exactly the SAME. after 10 years, the male? is making around 20% than the female — and that presumes that she didn’t get married or have a kid. don’t even get me started on how getting married screws women over in the professional world while it’s a net boon to men.]
and, you know, i’ve got a friend. he decided to be the primary caregiver of his two kids. ten years later, when they’re both old enough he can go back to work, he can’t get hired.
because why was *HE* the one who stayed home? he must be lazy/goldbricking or something similar.
because raising kids? is WOMEN’S WORK, ya’ll.
just like women have to dress “pretty” to be “professional”, just like women have to choose between career and family [but men don’t]
sigh.
I think I’d rather read Ms Asher-Perrin’s post than listen to Mr Whedon – or Ms Perry….
…because *they* are simply trying to smooth the hurt feelings of the dude-bros who find “the other people who like this word … strange or loud or discomfiting.”
It saddens me that even ‘progressive’ men like Mr Whedon will reach a limit beyond which they won’t permit their privilege to be challenged – but I’ll keep calling myself a feminist, and pushing for women’s equality because “I just can’t help myself.”
It saddens me, too, that some women “don’t want to be identified as feminists” – after all, that label is so frightening to men and boys! It saddens me, but I understand it – when some men and boys have their privilege challenged, they become surly, aggressive and sometimes even murderous. Since no man wears a sign saying “I am likely to assault – or maybe even murder – any woman who steps out of line and asks for more than I am willing to give” … and since women, strangely enough, want to live, they tend to be the conciliatory ones, the ones who moderate their demands and pretend to see feminism as ‘passé.’
@44 This is a perfect example of why the word feminist has become such a touchy issue to many in recent years. As little as two years ago I would have read your comments and have been completely bewildered. As an adult extremely literate human being (albeit male) I would have understood all of the words and almost none of the meaning. Here someone who has done more than most to put women characters of note front and foremost wants to try to say that treating everyone equal should be the default and not a special status, and your response is to belittle him. For not using the right lingo, the technical jargon that the movement has embraced. That in and of itself points squarely to why some of us have gained issue with the term.
As a personal anecdote I am sure that this will be deemed of little value but here it goes anyway . At a recent Con my wife and I were pleasantly surprised to see that among the sea of male themed panels there was one on the modern Heroine. We eagerly attended with a friend and his young (7-8?) daughter the first panel she had any enthusiasm for. It was awful, as the panel of five (all women) debated about whether women had “made it” in popular culture, whether the word Heroine was a sexist term, and other minutia. In the end almost an hour of panel was taken up by several people arguing that “their” version of womanhood was right. When the rest of our party met up with us and asked us how the panel had been, our friends daughter piped up immediately. “No it was stupid they didn’t even talk about girl heroes, they only wanted to talk about how boys are stupid”. My wife only nodded and it was a perfect example of what the term feminism has come to symbolize to so many, not striving for equality just pointing out how wrong they think others are.
Instead of explaining to women what’s wrong with feminism, why doesn’t he go fix that crappy Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D? His mansplaining of feminism is boring and annoying the hell out of me.
I’m a huge Whedon fangirl, but this is seriously taking some of the gleam off him for me.
Most of the people I know who call themselves feminist believe that women are better then man, on any aspect.
I can’t accept that, no way. Women and men share the same limits and the same needs, they cry and laugh for the same reasons, so they can’t be but equals.
Difference doesn’t imply rank.