I make no secret of my hatred of feminism.
I am sick and tired of the feminist claim that they represent women; the implicit message that they speak for all women and know what's best for them.
I'd like to start a movement called "free women".
Free women oppose feminism, because as far as the West is concerned, women are free.
The point of this movement would be to call feminists on their claims that uphold "the truth" about women. Feminists like to conflate their movement with women, and their ideology with what women want or need.
So you have feminists like Antonia Zerbisias who are mad at Stephen Harper for dismissing "women" as a left-wing fringe group.
We know that's a load of BS.
Harper has no problem with women.
Harper has a problem with feminists.
But feminists think that their movement and "women" are synonymous-- or should be.
If you don't belong to it, or don't want to, you are not treated as a "real" woman.
I am personally sick of it.
And the media just eats this all up, never questioning that a heck of a lot of women reject feminism and don't want to be represented by it.
The basic premise of this "movement" would be that women have a right to the same ideological diversity as men.
Therefore there is no special interest group called "women".
Men are not a special interest group. Men are not a "gender". Men don't go around demanding justice, trying to claim that there is only one way of thinking among men, or that if you don't think a certain way, you're a man-hater.
I want that same ideological diversity for women.
I want it to be assumed by this culture and by the government feminist group represent themselves not women.
Because women are free, and as free women, they have a right to their opinion, and the right to have that face represented in the culture.
In other words, the culture and the government have no right to assume that feminists speak for all women, or are the only holders of truth on women, or that women all want the same thing.
Just the same as men.
The problem that I have with this movement, as I conceive it, is that it's not really a movement as we typically understand it. Being an ideologically diverse lot, I don't anticipate national organizations or free women's studies' programs in universities.
I see it as a current of expression that I want to see filter up into the government and eventually reflect social policy.
To organize a new women's movement around a new ideology would defeat the purpose of what this is about. We are NOT united by any one vision, except to say that we are free to be ideologically diverse and not have the government treat feminism as the women's monopoly.
Perhaps free women might get together to denounce feminism.
But I don't see free women being a monolithic group at all, and it shouldn't be.
So that's my utopianism for the day.
