There is a war between the rich
and poor,
a war between the man and the
woman.
There is a war between the ones
who say there is a war
and the ones who say there
isn't.
“There
is a War”, Leonard Cohen
Those that have read my articles or
know my work have heard me say time and time again how I proudly call myself as
a Feminist, a Feminist Advocate, or a Feminist Gentleman. In my youth I had strong
female role models, women who taught me about dignity and empowerment. I
learned from them to challenge a world willing to impose a role based on a socially
imposed label, be it because of your gender, your race, your sexuality, your
social standing, or your religion. They taught me that the greatest gift I
could give anyone was dignity and respect. For those reasons I considered
myself a Feminist. And for those same reasons I find it hard to use that label
any more.
My problem here is not that I no
longer believe in the lessons I learned as a child, or that I no longer believe
in gender equality, but quite the contrary. Writing and working in favor of
gender equality has actually opened my eyes to the extent of the inequality our
society has to deal with. Before I began, I had only a basic idea of just how
unfair the world was towards women. And if I am completely honest, I never
really took into account just how unfair the world was towards men.
In my eyes back then, objectification,
sexism, domestic violence, and sexual assault were things women had to deal
with because of men. If we created better men, the problem would be solved.
Yes, I took a side in a battle against prejudice and gender inequality. Yet, the
more I thought and discussed with others about women’s inequality the more I
realized how men also suffered from the social double standards, just in a
different way. I also started to realize how women’s inequality was also
directly tied to men’s inequality. I realized that the problem isn’t men nor is
it women, but the lines drawn in the sand between the different camps of the gender
debate.
Imagine my surprise when I realized
this idea was nothing new, as many men and women, a lot more versed in the
topic, had come to the same conclusion. The great Gloria Steinem, during a
speech a few years ago, mentioned how we need to stop the idea of sorting each
other by gender and skin color. She went further in supporting how we need to
fight, not only for women, but for men as well. “Women are not going to
be equal outside the home until men are equal in it.”
More recently, Emma Watson’s UN speech spoke more of a movement of inclusion,
where men and women worked together to achieve a greater good. Yet when you see
the actual application of the UN resolution, it was a completely different story.
Today we have most people involved
in the debate banding together under the label of feminist or anti-feminist,
Feminist advocate/ally or Men’s Rights Activists. And THAT is the great
challenge here. As many of the leaders go and give a message of unity and hope,
there is a small band of extremely vocal and aggressive members within the
different camps that promote and thrive on conflict and shaming. It’s these
members who have caused most of the stereotyping and divide within the gender
issues. Depending on what side of the debate you are, you will routinely view
one group with pride and the other with disgust thanks to these extremist. They
reinforce the labels, using them as a reason to attack someone, as shields to
ignore criticism, and battle standards held high in the field of battle, more
important than the cause they fight for.
And that is where I have drawn my
own line in the sand. I am no longer willing to accept that gender equality, or
any other equality issue for that matter, should be a movement based on
conflict between those involved. I refuse to participate in an extremist-manufactured
war based on semantic short-cuts that only work to stall the real conversations
about pay parity, healthcare, and childcare. Doing so only keeps us from address
the real underlying, practical inequalities that are strangling our society. I refuse
to recognize a hierarchy of suffering, where victims are used for a pissing
contest between sides. I refuse to participate in the constant double-speak and
double-standards used conveniently in the discussions of equality. And I refuse
to allow myself to be dragged into the “your with me or against me” that so
many of the extremist within the debate love to use to enforce support in their
actions.
The greatest irony within the debate
is that, after you remove all the labels and insults, the message within all
the camps is the same, people asking for safety, respect, equality, and
empowerment. None of these are finite resources; where you have to take it from
one group to give it to another. In truth, we need to look past the
mudslinging, the insults, and the shaming done by the worst elements within the
debate and step out of our trenches. We need to turn the debate into a
conversation.
The easiest cop-out to the label
issue would be to simply view everyone as humans, and simply call yourself a
Humanist. But this is denying what individual groups go through within society because
of who they are, be it gender, race, sexuality, or religion. It’s easy to applauded
equality when everyone is the same. We need to promote equality when everyone
is different. We might all be human, but the inequalities dealt with by women
are different than the inequalities dealt with by men. Because I see the parts
of you, doesn’t mean I don’t see the human in you; just as because I see the
human in you, doesn’t mean I don’t see the parts of you.
As for now, since I don’t call
myself a Feminist and don’t quite fit within the label Humanist, what word do I
use?
I have become quite fond of “Me.”
