One thing I’ve noticed on the internet at large over the last few years is an increase in very black-and-white mindsets, and this has become… very apparent in a lot of different discourse settings. I’ve noticed a lot with regard to feminism as well, and admittedly, that bothers me a lot. A lot of these online discourses can’t be resolved with one blanket statement that basically says “thing bad”, because that just sucks all the nuance and critical thought out of it all. For example, a major one I see parroted is about calorie restriction– “if you restrict your eating, you have an eating disorder”. It comes from a good place, but ultimately sounds wildly ignorant because… well… it doesn’t make sense. Eating a few hundred calories below your maintenance for the purpose of cutting, or following a meal plan set out by a dietician tailored to your needs, isn’t “disordered” at all. It’s pretty normal and healthy, as we have control over our bodies and the choice to make decisions about our health. As a result, a lot of people who are trying to lose weight in sustainable and healthy ways tend to get accused of having stuff like Anorexia. Very ridiculous, and as someone who had a binge eating disorder spurred on by “intuitive eating”... I think it’s hypocritical. But I digress.
The reason I bring all this up is because of a certain terminally-online take I came across by a young woman which got reposted a few times in places I tend to frequent in my spare time. Sure, ranting about a dumb take online isn’t smart of me, but I’ve been brewing a lot of ideas in my brain as of late that need to get out some way or another. To boil the video down very simply, she had been making a resource about “TERF dogwhistles” to share to her followers, as people were concerned about 4B being “terfy” because it excludes anyone born male regardless of gender identity. In this video, she stated that the discussion of female genital mutilation (or, FGM) “too much” was a sign of someone being a transphobe, because it “shows they equate womanhood with certain genitalia”, or something along those lines. This kind of take is incredibly concerning on its own, but to see so many people agreeing that the discussion of how wrong it is that young girls are castrated in some countries can “happen too much” and that they associate it with bigotry just outright disgusts me. Given that FGM is something rarely discussed outside of feminist circles on its own, how can you even say that? Just because something doesn’t impact all women doesn’t mean it can be ignored or swept under the rug without a second thought. These are the lived experiences of women and girls in several countries, many of whom end up dying due to issues such as infections. Using discussion of their plight to disregard the takes of women you disagree with is vile at best and violent at worst. We need to bring back shaming for takes like this, seriously, it’s just disgusting. Especially since the poster of that video goes on to state that women in the global south are treated as an afterthought by these same feminists.
This is hardly the first instance of this, though. Again, if you were on spaces such as Tumblr for a lot of the 2010s, you would’ve seen a lot of discussion about the fact TERFs use female anatomy in their talk about feminism. Initially, it started off as a well-meaning way to avoid people who you disagreed with and encouraging people to think critically about these posts, but eventually spiraled into the idea that anyone who discussed female anatomy in any instance was a TERF, and that TERFs are obsessed with vaginas to a creepy degree. When I was younger, I didn’t question it, but nowadays, it’s something I feel has done nothing but dragged feminism backwards kicking and screaming. Sure, some women can’t give birth. Others have bodies that differ from what’s considered medically standard for a woman for various reasons. But acting like discussion of female anatomy excludes women just serves to shut down any discussion about social issues that involve these clear-cut signs of femaleness. I hate to sound curt, but these young girls aren’t being mutilated and assaulted because they’re wearing a she/her pin on their lapels, playing with little dolls or doing twirls in their frilly pink dresses. It’s to do with physical traits which identify them as female, which identify them as “lesser” than men in the eyes of the law, of religion, of the men themselves. It has very little– hell, nothing to do with gender identity what happens to young women and girls. We desperately need to stop acting like there’s no room for the discussion of female anatomy in feminist spaces and discussions all because a minority feels like they can’t relate to it. Not all women are even impacted by every social issue feminism (particularly intersectional feminism) covers, and if anything, you should care about what your sisters are going through. You don’t have to be personally impacted to care about a social issue, and I hate that people seem to think that they absolutely require a personal stake in something to give any degree of focus to it.
To close off in a similar vein, I’d like to admit that I really hate the “feminist” takes that are mainstream nowadays. I think about it regularly, and I feel like people get really annoyed when I say that wearing makeup and shaving just panders to men. Because to them, they’re girlbossing the fuck out of that eyeliner sharp enough to slice the patriarchy to pieces or whatever. They think that their smooth legs make the misogynistic insults slide right off them. Yadda yadda. So much of feminism nowadays has just been diluted into pandering to men as to not hurt their feelings, when really, change has come about for women by disturbing these men. Last I checked, suffragettes didn’t politely ask men to give them the right to vote or get their own bank accounts. I can’t blame these women, though, as it makes them feel that they have a sense of agency. That they truly do have the right to choose whether or not to shave their bush or spend hours doing makeup. The truth is though, until no social disadvantages are dished out from refusal to perform to beauty standards, there really isn’t a choice.
Sure, maybe it’s a little rich of me to talk like this about feminism and men-pandering while dating a man. But I do also think the male-centrism many self-proclaimed feminists spout is downright antithetical to the movement and does more harm than good. I wish we could see some change someday, but for now, I don’t feel all that hopeful.