The spirit of feminism

After spending several months on a journalism training course I had some thoughts about the personal influence of feminism in our culture which I want to share with you. Here is not the place to go into the definition of feminism because it has become so wide-ranging and I would be sure to say something inaccurate, but I do want to raise a couple of points from my own experience.

I worked along side some highly competitive young women who lived and worked out of the general beliefs that you don't need a man in your life (and certainly shouldn't let a man influence your life), that gender is a social construction, and that being single and career-orientated is the path of liberation. This belief system has infiltrated all aspects of the media and entertainment and education in our culture, now being accepted by most girls as their worldview without any connection to the roots of feminism. It's just there, convenient, and culturally acceptable. Therefore, I'm not talking about academic feminism, because very few women know where their views are coming from, I'm just talking about the spirit of feminism that has filtered down into popular culture.

I have observed in many of the young women that I have spent time with that they have a hatred for authority over them in any form. They are particularly defiant of being led by any man in any sphere of life, resulting in a disdainful attitude towards men and often a dislike for chivalry. I have observed an arrogance about their liberated lifestyle, and a disdain for marriage and motherhood. Many girls I worked with never managed to sustain a long-term relationship because they were self-absorbed to the extent of being unwilling to give anything of themselves to the relationship or make any compromise. I can remember being like this myself, but I'm realising that it is both dangerous for our society and for the individuals themselves to buy into this. So, from my experience of the way I used to think and feel, as well as what I've observed around me, here are some thoughts:

The spirit of feminism...

• It stops you needing people, or at least admitting your need for people. This defeats real community/sharing/giving, which are all incredibly important for relationships.




• It makes you proud of your independence, which means that you might tend to bottle up or block out feelings so that you can survive, leading to unhealthy long-term consequences.




• It might make you feel good to say that you don't need a man, but it's not an honourable thing, men and women do need each other deeply.




• If you have accepted the popular feminism you will find the demands of a relationship very difficult - selfless love, compromise, submission, will be impossible.




• The feminist mindset makes you read everything with a defensiveness and indignation which makes it impossible to accept constructive criticism, and makes you paranoid that people are trying to belittle you. Neither are helpful because sometimes you do need to be told to change, and you do need to be humble.




• No matter how much you try to convince yourself that female solidarity makes a relationship with a guy unnecessary, it just doesn't.




• Feminism isn't the answer to all the abuse of women that has occured throughout history.




• Sometimes our views are used as a front or as an excuse because we are scared, lazy, or selfish.




• If it is true that there is no fundamental difference between men and women then this should be accepted entirely, yet there are some situations where it just doesn't make sense (sending women to fight in Iraq?).




• The spirit of feminism makes chivalry unnecessary (even despised), which is tragic because it's a really healthy and good thing for men and women.




• Our beliefs often rise out of bad or painful experiences with men. This is no basis for an ideology.




• If you end up acting like a man, that doesn't prove that women are self-sufficient. You can't copy someone and then say you don't need them.




• We have lost much of our softness. The spirit of feminism makes us disdainful of feminine things, instead of seeing femininity as beautiful and powerful in a different way to masculinity.
  

Whether we see it now or not, there are far-reaching consequences for lives lived out of these values. We need to consider how our culture is shaping us, maybe even without us being aware of it. What values affect your personal life? Who put them there? Why do you believe what you believe? Love,x