Feminists give feminism a bad name. Saying the word ‘feminism’ causes my husband to have some sort of mini seizure he rolls his eyes and blanks out for at least 3 minutes / however long your lips are moving whichever lasts the longest. It’s not because he doesn’t believe in equality or recognise the rights of women it’s because for him the word conjures images of a specific type of person, an angry masculine cropped haired man hating lesbian. I doubt he is alone.
I recently bought tickets for myself and the girls to attend a feminist driven event held on international women’s day. “Enjoy your lesbian night!” my dearly beloved shouted gleefully as we were getting ready to go. “It’s not a ‘lesbian night’” I retorted in an exasperated tone. I was wrong as it turns out.
There it was, validation of Cockneys feminist stereotype some 200 guests strong all making it clear that my friends and I were not welcome. I’m not suggesting we’re the Kardashians but we are definitely women who love being women. We love fashion and make up and being, well, girly which apparently was offensive to this crowd. We huddled in a corner and built a barricade of cocktails around us to escape the attentions of a very aggressive stand up comedienne. Behind us I overheard a woman ranting about how this was meant to be a feminist evening and yet one of the acts was a tall, slender, rather ample bosomed belly dancer which apparently flew in the face of the evening’s theme.
“Isn’t feminism about acceptance of all women though?” I interjected. “Everyone’s been banging on about how judging women on their appearances is bad and yet here you are judging her on her appearance, she has every right to look stereotypically attractive and take her clothes off for entertainment if that’s what she wants to do.”
I’m pretty certain I would have lost several nails in the inevitable cat fight that would have ensued had a group of gay men not took pity on us and echoed my sentiments.
I am a mother with a full time job, I don’t have much time to dedicate to my appearance and on a daily basis I’m too caught up with the terrible twos and my career to give it much thought so on my one night off a month I like to have nice hair/make up/nails/clothes, not because I’m conforming to other peoples definition of beauty or because it defines me as a woman but because it’s my one evening a month where I can indulge me. I have chosen to be a wife and mother as well as continuing with my career, how I look has no bearing on my success in these fields. There are a certain sub-group of feminists that will belittle you for being stereotypically attractive, I know because I have met them en masse, and were it not for the sympathies of 4 gay men may not have lived to tell the tale.
It isn’t wearing high heels and red lipstick that makes me wary of flying the banner of feminism, it’s other feminists.
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