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Open Future

How to convince sceptics of the value of feminism

An essay written in three parts based on reader feedback, by Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project website

Open Future

Aug 13th 2018

Welcome to our Open Essay, a new format in which a writer develops an argument in three instalments over the course of a week, in conversation with readers.

Part One (August 13th)

Part Two (August 16th)

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Part One: August 13th

To be a feminist is simply to believe that everybody should be treated equally, regardless of sex. It means you think that there should be equality of the sexes economically, socially, politically and personally. When you put it like that, it’s surely difficult for anybody to deny being a feminist. But for such a simple concept, it is often dramatically misunderstood.

Perhaps the most common objection to feminism is the argument that it is unnecessary, because equality has already been achieved. This idea feeds into the common stereotype of feminists as angry, man-hating witches, who must be overreacting since there is no real problem to solve. So how do we convince sceptics that feminism is still necessary and, indeed, valuable?

The easiest place to begin is by disproving the notion that gender inequality no longer exists. This is simple enough. Globally, according to the United Nations, at least one in three women is beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused by an intimate partner in the course of her lifetime. In 2016, a UNESCO report estimated that over 130m girls worldwide were out of school. And campaign group Girls Not Brides reports that each year 12m girls are married before the age of 18.

In Britain, official analysis from the Crime Survey of England and Wales revealed that in the 12 months leading up to March 2017 over 510,000 women experienced some type of sexual assault, including an estimated 144,000 who experienced rape or an attempted rape or assault by penetration. Aquarter of women and one in two disabled women in Britain experience domestic violence in their lifetime. Almost a third of 16-18 year old girls report experiencing unwanted sexual touching at school.

It is undeniable that these problems, and a great many more, from wage inequality to so-called “honour” violence, female genital mutilation to workplace sexual harassment, disproportionately affect women.

It is also easy to demonstrate that women are far from equal when it comes to representation in positions of power and influence. As of 2017 less than a third of British MPs were women, just a quarter of members of the House of Lords and less than a quarter of judges in the Court of Appeal and the High Court. More FTSE 100 CEOs are called David than are female. The representation of women of colour is particularly low. The first public statue of a named black woman in Britain (Mary Seacole) was erected in 2016.

Some sceptics will argue that feminism remains problematic because its true objective is not to achieve equality, but to advantage women at all costs, to the detriment of men. Many fear that focusing on women’s rights means neglecting men’s problems, such as the high male suicide rate.

Not so. I urge sceptics to take any issue that particularly affects men. It is often closely connected to the sort of outdated gender stereotypes that feminists are committed to tackling.

The tragically high male suicide rate, for example, cannot be divorced from the fact that men are far less likely than women to seek support for mental health problems. When we bring men up in a world that teaches them it’s not manly to talk about their feelings, we damage them terribly. And gender stereotypes don’t exist in a vacuum. They are two sides of a coin. In this case, the other side is the common notion that women are over-emotional, hormonal and hysterical; a cliché which disadvantages women in the workplace. Feminists are eager to dismantle these stereotypes, in all their forms. So tackling gender inequality at its root, as feminists seek to do, would help everybody, regardless of sex.

Finally, an argument for the sceptics who don’t oppose feminism, but simply feel that it has nothing to do with them. We can show them that it is not just at an individual level that feminism is in everybody’s interest: at a wider organisational and societal level, too, its benefits are demonstrable. Research has repeatedly revealed that gender diversity on companies’ boards is correlated with higher productivity growth and returns to investors. And at an international level, thevery best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is not its level of wealth, its level of democracy, or its ethno-religious identity; but how well its women are treated.

The media often portray any question related to feminism as a battle pitting men against women. “The battle of the sexes.” “Gender wars.” These might be catchy, clickbait headlines, but they give an inaccurate and (sometimes deliberately) misleading impression of the objectives of feminism.

We are often encouraged to win over sceptics by imploring them to think of their sisters, their mothers, or their girlfriends. But really, we shouldn’t need to imply that men are damaged by association when the women attached to them are harassed, discriminated against or assaulted. It should be enough to argue that any woman, related to you or not, deserves equality, and to live a life free of these forms of abuse. Isn’t that reason enough to call yourself a feminist?

Part Two: August 16th

Thank you for your numerous comments on the first part of this essay. I have read your thoughts in the comments section, as well as on Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook and Instagram and will respond to as many of the points as possible.

It has been said that the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism, and there were a few readers who seemed determined to prove this. Feminists weredescribed as “Satan-adoring witches”, women were accused of simply having inferior brains, and one commenter succinctly demanded: “don’t blame me for your bitterness and frustration.”

Yet the vast majority of those who commented did so in good faith, raising nuanced, varied and interesting questions.

One of the most common was about the use of the word “feminism”. As one readerasked: “if someone “genuinely” believes in equality between men and women, why would they insist on a term that is inherently preferential to one sex by its very name”? Other readers suggested that “egalitarianism” and “humanism” might be more appropriate labels.

The short answer to this is that you have to name a problem in order to solve it. We use the label “feminism” because it is women who are disproportionately harmed by gender inequality, in its structural, systemic forms. Of course, men also suffer in a misogynistic society. Indeed, as outlined in the first part of this essay, many of the things that harm men and boys could be alleviated by dismantling gendered stereotypes and power dynamics.

Many readers also took issue with what they described as a feminist insistence on equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. “Women and men are equally valuable but are of different vocation, predisposed biologically for some tasks or other tasks,” tweeted one. Another said: “There need not be equal numbers of men and women in nursing and engineering if the talents and interests of men and women differ, for instance.”

The trouble is that this makes unproven assumptions about biological determinism. It is very easy to say that girls simply are not as interested in maths and technology; that women just have no drive to be business leaders; or, as one commenter put it, that: “women are just not that interested.” But it could just as easily be argued that girls’ school subject choices or women’s job applications are heavily influenced by the gender stereotypes that bombard us from childhood. Think of “Pretty as a Princess” baby clothes for girls, while the boys’ version reads “Future astronaut”. Or media that present far fewer female role models in the arenas of sport, science or mathematics.

There is extensive research to rebut the notion that men and women have different brains, with different career choices hardwired into our DNA. Rather, the disparities are much more likely to be caused by the fact that half of women in STEM have experienced gender discrimination at work. A study in 2018 revealed that college-bound women aren’t deterred from entering specific fields because of tough maths or science requirements, but because of the gender discrimination which they are likely to encounter in those fields.

Linked to this was a repeated suggestion that it is, as one commenter put it, “natural for a woman's career advancement to stall when compared to her male colleague if she decides to take three years off from work while her male colleague keeps turning up at the office day in, day out.” To consider this “natural” though is to accept that our society, workplaces and businesses are structured so that when people have children, it has a very negative impact on women’s careers, while men’s careers are largely unaffected (and can even bepositively affected). To see this as a woman’s “choice” is to ignore the structural barriers in place.

Parental leave policies that heavily prioritise maternity- over paternity leave push mothers into the primary caregiver role from the start while effectively denying fathers the same opportunity.Discrimination against new mothers when they come back to work can further damage their professional prospects. None of this is “natural” or fair. Correcting it could have a hugely positive impact on our economy, as well as bring benefits to men, women and children.

What are your views? Contribute to the conversation by leaving comments here or on social media using #openfuture. Part 3 of the essay will be published on August 20th.

_________

Laura Bates is a writer and the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project website, ateverydaysexism.com (on Twitter at@EverydaySexism). She was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2015 Birthday Honours for her work on gender equality.

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