Why I Am Not a Feminist Read online

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  an imprint of Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd

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  First published by Melville House Publishing, 8 Blackstock Mews, 46 John Street and Islington, Brooklyn, NY 11201, LondonN4 2BT

  Copyright © Jessa Crispin 2017

  Jessa Crispin asserts her right to be known as the author of this work.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Creator: Crispin, Jessa, author.

  Title: Why I am not a feminist: a feminist manifesto / Jessa Crispin.

  ISBN: 9781863959056 (paperback)

  ISBN: 9781925435450 (ebook)

  Subjects: Feminism.

  Feminist theory.

  Women—Social conditions.

  Design by Jo Anne Metsch

  A book should open old wounds, even inflict new ones. A book should be a danger.

  —E. M. CIORAN

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. The Problem with Universal Feminism

  2. Women Do Not Have to Be Feminists

  3. Every Option Is Equally Feminist

  4. How Feminism Ended Up Doing Patriarchy’s Work

  5. Self-Empowerment Is Just Another Word for Narcissism

  6. The Fights We Choose

  7. Men Are Not Our Problem

  8. Safety Is a Corrupt Goal

  9. Where We Go from Here

  Author’s Note

  Introduction

  Are you a feminist?

  Do you believe women are human beings and deserve to be treated as such? That women deserve all the same rights and liberties bestowed upon men? If so, then you are a feminist, or so all the feminists keep insisting.

  Despite the simplicity and obviousness of the dictionary definition of feminism, and despite years of working at feminist non-profits and decades of advocacy, I am disowning the label. If you asked me today if I am a feminist I would not only say no, I would say no with a sneer.

  Don’t worry—this is not where I insist I am not a feminist because I am afraid of being mistaken for one of those hairy-legged, angry, man-hating feminists that are drawn up like bogeymen by men and women alike. Nor will I now reassure you of my approachability, my reasonable nature, my heteronormativity, my love of men and my sexual availability—despite the fact that this disclaimer appears to be a prerequisite for all feminist writing published in the last fifteen years.

  If anything, that pose—I am harmless, I am toothless, you can fuck me—is why I find myself rejecting the feminist label: All these bad feminists, all these Talmudic “can you be a feminist and still have a bikini wax?” discussions. All these reassurances to their (male) audiences that they don’t want too much, won’t go too far—“We don’t know what Andrea Dworkin was on about either! Trust us.” All these feminists giving blowjobs like it’s missionary work.

  Somewhere along the way toward female liberation, it was decided that the most effective method was for feminism to become universal. But instead of shaping a world and a philosophy that would become attractive to the masses, a world based on fairness and community and exchange, it was feminism itself that would have to be rebranded and remarketed for contemporary men and women.

  They forgot that for something to be universally accepted, it must become as banal, as non-threatening and ineffective as possible. Hence the pose. People don’t like change, and so feminism must be as close to the status quo—with minor modifications—in order to recruit large numbers.

  In other words, it has to become entirely pointless.

  Radical change is scary. It’s terrifying, actually. And the feminism I support is a full-on revolution. Where women are not simply allowed to participate in the world as it already exists—an inherently corrupt world, designed by a patriarchy to subjugate and control and destroy all challengers—but are actively able to re-shape it. Where women do not simply knock on the doors of churches, of governments, of capitalist marketplaces and politely ask for admittance, but create their own religious systems, governments, and economies. My feminism is not one of incremental change, revealed in the end to be The Same As Ever, But More So. It is a cleansing fire.

  Asking for a system that was built for the express purpose of oppression to, “um, please stop oppressing me?” is nonsense work. The only task worth doing is fully dismantling and replacing that system.

  This is why I cannot associate myself with a feminism that focuses dementedly on “self-empowerment,” whose goals include not the full destruction of corporate culture but merely a higher percentage of female CEOs and military officers, a feminism that requires no thought, no discomfort, and no real change.

  If feminism is universal, if it is something that all women and men can “get on board” with, then it is not for me.

  If feminism is nothing more than personal gain disguised as political progress, then it is not for me.

  If by declaring myself a feminist I must reassure you that I am not angry, that I pose no threat, then feminism is definitely not for me.

  I am angry. And I do pose a threat.

  Feminism is:

  •a narcissistic reflexive thought process: I define myself as feminist, so everything I do is a feminist act, no matter how banal or regressive—i.e., no matter what I do, I am a hero.

  •a fight to allow women to participate equally in the oppression of the powerless and the poor

  •a method of shaming and silencing anyone who disagrees with you, inspired by a naive belief that disagreement or conflict is abuse

  •a protective system utilizing trigger warnings, politically correct language, mob rule, and straw man arguments to prevent a person from ever feeling uncomfortable or challenged

  •an attack dog posing as a kitten with a droplet of fresh milk on her nose

  •a decade-long conversation about which television show is a good television show and which television show is a bad television show

  •a bland, reworked brand of soda, focus group tested for universal palatability and inoffensiveness, scientifically proven to leach calcium from your bones, with an enormous marketing budget; tagline: “Go ahead, be a monster. You deserve it.”

  •aspiration. Those below you may be pitiable, but not really your concern. Those above you are models of behavior for attaining the best life. The best life is defined as a life of wealth, comfort, and firm buttocks.

  •all about you.

  For these reasons and more, I am not a feminist.

  1

  The Problem with Universal Feminism

  Every woman should be a feminist.” You hear this a lot now, online, in magazines, in conversation. And the thing is, these advocates of universal feminism insist, you probably already are! If you believe women should receive equal pay for equal work and have the right to make their own medical and family planning decisions, then you actually already are a feminist and you should “reclaim” the word.

  The idea of universal feminism has entered popular culture like never before, after decades of female celebrities trying to distance themselves from the label so as not to appear unfriendly and unmarketable. The tide has turned. What was unfashionable has now become very fashionable. What was unmarketable is now a marketing strategy. Celebrities, musicians, actresses all proudly proclaim the word. It’s in our fashion magazines, i
t’s on our television shows, it’s in our music. Feminism is trending.

  So we know that we should all be calling ourselves feminists now. What’s less clear is what exactly that accomplishes. Or even what, once we do reclaim the label, using the word, buying the appropriate t-shirts (like the $220 scarf from Acne Studios that reads “RADICAL FEMINIST,” or maybe the $650 sweater that says the same) and wearing them proudly in public, what exactly are we supposed to do then? And who, dare I ask, are we supposed to be taking the word back from?

  Is it men who ruined the word for us? They spent a lot of time twisting the word around into an insult, creating panics about feminazi witches causing the downfall of society and conjuring up hurricanes and earthquakes from God’s wrath. No, it turns out having a right-wing preacher fling the word at you, trying to make you feel ashamed, just makes you prouder to accept it.

  Instead, today women are asking women to reclaim the word feminist from other women. Today’s feminists accuse the actual feminists of ruining the movement’s good name and putting other women off from joining the cause.

  Feminism was always a fringe culture, a small group of activists and radicals and weirdos who forced society to move toward them. It was not an overwhelming majority of women who became suffragettes, chaining themselves to fences, going on hunger strikes, breaking windows and throwing bombs. The overwhelming majority of women either didn’t care or wished the others would stop making such a fuss. It wasn’t an overwhelming majority of women who created a public life for women, organizing women-owned banks and businesses, creating a network of safe (though still illegal) abortion providers, fighting for women’s spaces in educational systems, and writing radical texts and manifestos. The overwhelming majority of women during the second wave just wanted a comfortable (married) life with a little more independence.

  It was always a small number of radical, heavily invested women who did the hard work of dragging women’s position forward, usually through shocking acts and words. The majority of women benefited from the work of these few, while often trying to disassociate themselves from them.

  But now there is a different dynamic between the radicals and the mainstream. Now the mainstream wants to claim the radical space for itself while simultaneously denying the work the radicals do. I hear the word feminazi coming from young feminists’ mouths today way more often than I have ever heard it coming from the mouths of right-wing men. And they’re using it in a similar way, to shame and disassociate themselves from the activists and revolutionaries. The most prominent feminist writers right now have twisted themselves in knots trying to distance themselves from their predecessors, willfully misrepresenting the work of women like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon and denying any association therewith. Dworkin’s “weaponised shame,” Laurie Penny wrote in a column at New Statesman without explaining how she has come to sum up Dworkin’s belief system as such, “has no place in any feminism I subscribe to.”

  In order to make feminism palatable to everyone, they have to make sure no one is made uncomfortable by feminism’s goals; so the women who advocated for radical societal change are out. Making people uncomfortable was feminism’s whole point. In order for a person, or society, to make drastic changes, there has to be a mental or emotional cataclysm. One has to feel, strongly, the need for change before change will willingly be made. And a feminism where everyone is comfortable is a feminism where everyone is working for their own self-interest, rather than the interest of the whole. So, while feminism has become fashionable, the actual feminist work of creating a more equal society is as unfashionable as it has ever been.

  Making feminism a universal pursuit might look like a good thing—or at the very least a neutral thing—but in truth it progresses, and I think accelerates, a process that has been detrimental to the feminist movement: the shift of focus from society to the individual. What was once collective action and a shared vision for how women might work and live in the world has become identity politics, a focus on individual history and achievement, and an unwillingness to share space with people with different opinions, worldviews, and histories. It has separated us out into smaller and smaller groups until we are left all by ourselves, with our concern and our energy directed inward instead of outward.

  You might wonder, as you read your way through contemporary feminist literature: Why the emphasis on claiming the label? If a woman believes that she is deserving of equal pay for equal work, if she is pro-choice and votes accordingly, why should we care at all whether or not she self-identifies as a feminist?

  There are legitimate reasons why a woman, even a woman who believes strongly in equality, would be reluctant to don the identity of feminist. Feminism has had its bleak moments—from the blind racism of some of its leaders, to feminists’ siding with Christian leaders in its anti-pornography campaign—and some women understandably have difficulty reconciling these failures with the value of the movement as a whole.

  But instead of listening to why you are perhaps reluctant to adopt the identity of feminist, universal feminists, in their efforts to convert, will tell you what your reasons are. You must think, they insist, that all feminists are lesbians, don’t shave their legs, hate men, and refuse to become wives or mothers. You must think that in order to be a feminist you have to shave your head, make arts and crafts with your menstrual blood, and listen to folk music. They think the reason you have shied away from feminism is because of feminism’s image problem, and the source of this image problem is the radical feminists of the second wave.

  If the goal is universality, then these feminists need to simplify the message to such a degree that the only people who would disagree with their pitch are religious freaks and hardcore misogynists. They don’t seem to realize that this simplification of feminism into something soft and Disneyfied is one reason women turn away.

  And look, I get it, all you feminist missionaries. It is disappointing to find ourselves where we are. We are more than a hundred years into this revolution and it’s not just that the world remains resistant to women being in it (and it is). Women still face disproportionate amounts of discrimination and violence, and they somehow carry both the burden and the blame for that. If you get raped, it’s probably your fault. If you find yourself in an abusive relationship, it’s probably your fault. If you get passed up for promotion while male colleagues advance again and again, it’s probably your fault. And it’s not just that sexual assault rates remain high and prosecutorial success rates remain low, or that what society still values most about women are who they mothered and who they married rather than what they actually contributed to the world.

  It is also that so many women themselves are resistant to embracing their own liberation, and in so being, seem to frustrate our own plans for progress.

  Some women do refuse to call themselves feminist because the word is alienating to men. Women are still choosing to opt out of work and stay at home to raise children, and women are still taking pole-dancing classes, saying it is good exercise. Women are still painfully removing all of the hair from their bodies and pretending to be morons so as not to threaten their male suitors. They are still giving their money and attention to musicians who tell them they are worthless pieces of ass, now open your mouth bitch and take my dick. Women are still watching blockbuster films and aspiring to be the supportive wife or the sexy girlfriend who needs rescuing, rather than the one (man) saving the world. Women in Hollywood are still producing films where men save the world. They still love and support and marry wife-beaters, rapists, and misogynistic trolls. Women are still voting Republican.

  What to do about our reluctant sisters? Many feminists think the answer is converting them to the feminist cause. And the first (and often last in the new age of shallow feminism) step in that conversion is accepting the label and identity. Rather than, you know, showing them that the world and their role in it is fucked.

  First, we should acknowledge why it is important that women identify as
feminist. I mean, important to feminists, not to the world. This has nothing to do with how women choose to live their lives or conduct themselves at work or with their families and communities. With feminism’s new focus on labels and identity, rather than on the philosophical and political content of the movement, what becomes most important are the things on the surface. Like using the right words, rather than the wrong words. (The fact that the right words keep changing does nothing to quell the anger that builds in Internet Feminism if you use the wrong words.) This is what happens when simply calling yourself a feminist can suddenly be counted as a radical act.

  You see this regularly on feminist blogs and pseudo-feminist-friendly sites like BuzzFeed: lists of famous women who refuse to call themselves feminists. These women are listed periodically so that good feminists, properly labeled and identified, can ruefully shake their heads about the other women’s ignorance. In the comments, feminists will—instead of reading each woman’s reasoning for refusing the label, or understanding the different cultural contexts that older or international women might be coming from—use this public shaming to feel better about their own correct way of thinking and speaking and labeling. Bust magazine, back when it was a more outwardly feminist publication, used to ask each of their female interview subjects whether or not they identified as feminist. In 2005, the musician Björk said no, and that interview is still used in these online lists as of this year. Björk is a female artist often credited with being one of the most innovative and daring musicians of her generation, regardless of gender. She has collaborated with and supported women musicians, fashion designers, video directors. She has spoken frankly and openly in interviews about the difficulties of being a woman in a male-dominated industry. She has proven herself to be an exemplary human being and creator, and she is a tremendous role model for young aspiring musicians. If we understand that the problem feminists have with Björk has nothing to do with her actions and is only about her language and way of identifying herself, then we can recognize that this is about a feminist marketing campaign and not a philosophy.