I Don't Need Feminism oh wait...

Women Against Feminism is a tumblr account where women send in photographs of themselves with signs stating why they don't need feminism. I first spotted the link on a friends facebook page where she posted it along with a sentiment like "this makes me want to cry." I didn't click on the link as that day I was shielding myself from the things I know upset me- I do that on occasion so that I don't just give up getting out of bed. This morning I saw a spoof on the women agaisnt feminism tumblr called Confused Cats Against Feminism and I had to take a look. It made me laugh because it's really funny but it also made me go and give Women Against Feminism (WAF)a thorough look.

Part of why feminism has a bad rap is because there are things about it that are not perfect. Feminism has many different schools of thought. Put two people who consider themselves feminists together and you won't have identical ideologies. You will have conflicts and you may even have differences at the very core of what these people consider feminist thoughts, ideas and policy. Feminism isn't a easy thing to discuss but I think if we did it more it may become easier. When these women hold up their signs about why they don't need feminism they are clearly referring to many different definitions of feminism, some more accurate then others.

I can't condemn the WAF posters as much as I both 1. disagree with them and 2. am confused by them. I more want to know what their experiences with feminism and feminists have been. I am intensely curious about these women and where they come from.

Feminism is not the problem. We don't know how to live in a world without patriarchy because it has not happened yet; that is the problem. The other problem is that there is no one universal experience for human beings. Everyone is experiencing different realities and that is the only reality that one can speak to- our own. What someone else experiences is not of any more or less value but it is different. Your experience doesn't speak to how the world works entirely...we need everyone's experiences in order to put together a broad picture of how things work, then we can start to ask why.

So when I read these signs that are being held up by predominantly (nearly exclusively) young white women I think about why we might not need feminism anymore. I think these signs however, demonstrate that we as a society need feminism very much. I don't pit myself agaisnt men as a feminist. I also don't think the stereotypes of men and women give credit to us as individual human beings. We are more than our gender though it is a big part of our identity. Issues of class, race and gender are interdisciplinary because they often cannot be separated. There is no one school of thought that identifies and deals with the cross over between the gender we identify with and the life we live. I think society is complex and if these women don't want to identify as feminists than that is their right, they don't have to.

So if you want to laugh a little I would suggest checking out the Cat version of WAF (see link above). If you want to know more and this issue and to think about why these women feel the way they do there are some great articles from both perspectives online- simply google the term women against feminists. If you're finding yourself in a third category like I did though, I suggest you make your own sign about why or why not you need feminism and post it on your tumblr, facebook, twitter or instagram. Mine can be found below.