First World Feminism

This year I took part in a feminism campaign organised by my university’s student union’s women’s campaign, in which pictures were taken of students holding a whiteboard with the message “I need feminism because...”. On my whiteboard I wrote the message “I need feminism because Private Eye, the Economist, NME, New Scientist, etc. shouldn’t be categorised under ‘men’s interests’”. Though mainly positive, the picture did elicit some negative feedback, perhaps most annoyingly a comment that read “Nice to see you all keeping the major issues in the spotlight...”.

This kind of attitude, the one which seems to say that such ‘first world feminism problems’ do not matter is a pervasive one, and one I find utterly patronising. Obviously, Tesco’s magazine categorisation (just one of many retailers I could have used) does pale in comparison compared with, say, the high levels of female genital mutilation in developing countries. But that doesn’t mean such issues are not worth thinking about. If anything, they represent the ubiquity of the relentlessly insidious misogyny that occurs in developed countries perfectly. Part of the reason why my whiteboard message got so much positive feedback is because people hadn’t even noticed that magazines were organised in such a way. This begs the question as to how is it, in 2013, we can fail to even notice that a supermarket in which 1 out of every 7 British pound is spent has decided that the latest scientific breakthroughs, or the state of the economy, or even what new bands are up and coming, are all ill-suited to the female brain, and that instead, we could only possibly want to read magazines that count judging the boobs of celebrities as an ‘interest’.

Magazine racks are only one example of feminist issues that slip under the radar. For example, my friend was recently talking to me about the difficulties of having a feminist wedding, and how much it irked her that the line is always ‘you may now kiss the bride’ rather than something along the lines of ‘you may now kiss each other’ i.e. something that doesn’t imply complete ownership on the part of the man. In retrospect, the blatant patriarchal subtext of the quote is staring at me right on the face, yet until my friend had pointed it out, I just hadn’t noticed. And that is exactly the problem.

A further example that never fails to annoy me is signs on building sites that read “Men At Work”. Yes, the majority of people who work in construction are male (with only 13% of employment being held by women in 2010), but signs such as these do nothing but perpetuate the notion that women are not suited to or capable of outdoor physical jobs.

Feminist issues lie on a continuum, however, taking issue with first world feminism problems doesn’t preclude me from also caring a great deal about women getting stoned to death in Saudi Arabia or rape being used as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It also doesn’t mean that I am not aware of these larger problems. I do accept that it is clearly easier to complain about magazine categorisations, because the smaller problems are easier to change. But I do not accept that such complaints are a waste of time. Feminist issues lie on a continuum because the attitudes that underlie them stem from the same maladaptive beliefs. And these beliefs need to be challenged, one magazine at a time.

P.S. To see all the whiteboard messages written by students for the campaign, click on this link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.126172794221421.22512.113709282134439&type=1