The Shortcomings of Feminism

When feminism turns to shaming, it loses focus

Julia Badamo, Staff Writer

Feminism: a word that has been marketed so many times that teenagers today hardly know what it means. All of us are aware that feminism is about equality; however, the actions of the movement today have many wondering what feminism’s current focus is. What once started as a courageous fight to break the silence of social injustice for women has transformed into over-Instagrammed chaos with an unclear message.

According to the Women’s March website, the organization’s mission is to “harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.” Well, what more “social change” needs to be done exclusively for women? Women have proven that they are powerful, that they matter just as much as men, and that they deserve equal rights.

Here are some of the reasons why many don’t support the feminist movement, according to Forbes:  it’s associated with angry women, men will lose everything (from influence, authority, and economic opportunities), feminists want to “control the world and put men down,” they want to break away from ‘honored’ traditions, which many find scary, and feminism will cause negative tides in business, marriage, and society. 

Modern feminism has swapped the fight for human rights (which we’ve already earned in the Western world) to the fight for self-empowerment. Selfishness, power, money, and competition lie at the core of the movement. Feminists focus on how many higher degrees they’ve earned, how much money they make, how high they are in the corporate world. Power feels good and they’ve gotten sidetracked by it. While achieving these goals is not unimportant, they aren’t all that matters. All of these factors are traditional indicators of patriarchal success, not feminist success. 

While empowerment is an admirable quality to promote, feminists are going about this the wrong way: by only focusing on ourselves, we don’t think about how to help all women.  We women should ask ourselves how we can structurally change the government rather than post a tumblr picture on Instagram about how much we should be confident in ourselves. While those posts make you feel good, they last only for a certain amount of time, achieving little in the long run.  Women have long outnumbered men, but I don’t see our society becoming any more compassionate and genuine. 

The issues that the Western world faces today include sexual harassment, rape, assault, stereotyping, stalking, trafficking. While many people perceive these problems as affecting women exclusively, please understand this: any form of harm can happen to anyone, regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. All kinds of humans are facing these difficult issues. One in six men and 44% of LGBT youth have been sexually abused in some way. These issues are not solely about women, and “feminism” is not the correct banner under which we should fight against them.

Feminists have created a culture of fear in which many of us feel afraid to speak our opinions. Some feminists shame and silence people who politely disagree with them. Yes, I agree that some men are extremely rude and deserve to be called out, but often such attacks are overreactions. People make mistakes and jokes are sometimes interpreted as insults. 

I believe in taking a stand against these hard-to-tackle issues whose effects go beyond women. Like Halsey said in her speech at the NYC Women’s March this past January, there are still wars to be won. But we must remember that all kinds of people, regardless of gender, color, and sexual orientation, are victims of violence and harassment.  If feminists wish to grow their base, they must make their values more clear, be more open to differing opinions, and focus less on patriarchal values.