Bear with me, because this is something of a love letter to feminism. I’ve never had the best relationship with it and I’ve always found their methods questionable at best, but seeing what has happened to the movement in the past few years has made me increasingly more sympathetic towards them – and it’s all because feminism in and of itself no longer exists. It has been appropriated and absorbed by the broader label of progressivism, encompassing all groups that are “oppressed”, even whey they are ideological opposites. The major problem with this is that under the new label of progressivism, feminists cannot speak against other groups that exist within it or are protected by it, forcing them to abandon and betray central ideas that have existed in feminism for decades. The two major groups with which this becomes a particular issue have shot up in the hierarchy of the oppressed in the past couple years – transgenderism and Islam.
For decades feminists have taught the idea that gender is a social construct. They reject the notion that biology has a basis in how people of different genders behave and want to abolish the “harmful” stereotypes that perpetuate certain behaviours and societal expectations. Or in other words, feminists want to allow boys to play with dolls and girls to play with cars.
And then comes the transgender rights movement, trampling all over everything feminism has fought for. Trans people believe that gender is based on biology, that there is such a thing as male brain and female brain, and that it’s possible to be born in the “wrong body”. What’s more, the vast majority of trans people choose to take on stereotypical characteristics, and they champion and glorify pop culture idols (such as Caitlyn Jenner) who reinforce societal expectations of beauty by appearing in covers of magazines dressed and made up in a very stereotypical manner. This glorification of stereotypes goes so far that many pro-trans parents believe boys playing with dolls is indicative of them not being boys at all. Feminists, of course, cannot say anything about it – they simply must accept it as fact, ignore everything they’ve been saying for ages, or face being ostracised and accused of being transphobic.
Islam is an even more curious case, because its latching onto the progressive left seems to be entirely reactionary. There’s been a slow and steady escalation of the attention paid to Islam by the progressive left in the past decade – first it was with the post-9/11 terrorist scare and the “not all Muslims” campaign, then more recently it was the refugee backlash that brought it to mainstream attention. The left has been forced to adopt a heavy pro-Islam stance as a simple counteract to the anti-Islam and anti-immigration stances of the right. It has never been about protecting the rights of Muslims in and of itself, but they’ve made it aboard the social justice train on piggyback. Now you can not only not criticise immigration, but simply criticising Islam in general is hugely problematic – and this is a massive issue for feminism, because it has a long history with criticising Islam.
Oppression of women is perhaps the most important topic in feminism, and for decades Islam was used as the perfect case study for it. Women forced to be veiled, women being treated as second class citizens and rampant sexual assaults in Muslim countries were frequent topics of discussion that today you simply can no longer talk about. It’s perhaps a little ironic that two major concepts in effect in feminism today, the patriarchy and rape culture, are best exemplified in Islam and Muslim nations – but this is something feminists can’t even acknowledge. They must swallow all their dignity and integrity and are forced to employ ridiculous double standards if they are to be taken seriously. Those who refuse to do it are ostracised, ridiculed, called bigoted, transphobic, Islamophobic, silenced and refused a forum for speaking. There are many prolific examples of this, such as Julie Bindel and Christina Hoff-Summers, both very accomplished feminist authors in their own right. It’s hardly even questionable that any mainstream feminist from just a decade ago would today be considered a bigot.
Feminism has always been an easy target of criticism, but it’s hard to not feel a little sorry for them. Their entire ideology has been forcibly abducted and everything they once stood for has been diminished to nothingness. Behind the advocacy for killing all men and blatant female chauvinism was a force for good – equal treatment is an intrinsic value that I’m sure most people can agree with. Sadly, not even that seems to have survived. Rape victims in Germany are silenced because they criticise immigration. Women are told to dress a certain way and keep people at “arm’s length” to prevent being sexually assaulted. We live in a world where the right stand up for these women while the left protect the rapists. It’s not the future feminists wanted – and it’s uncertain whether real feminist values can ever make a return from the grasp of the progressive left.
To open this up for discussion: can classical feminism make a return or is it gone for good? Is the world headed in a better direction or is it regressing? Personally, I feel like I owe a small apology – for long I was a harsh critic of feminism, but I have to admit, I’m a little sad now that it’s gone.