If you give me half a chance, and the right trigger, I will happily rant at you for hours about gender equality, equal pay, the glass ceiling, barbies and babies, or rude, discriminatory and aggressive phrases used in our culture that are defended mostly with arguments of "stop being such a girl" or "its just a phrase/movie/song". My husband will (not so) happily vouch for me when I say this, because he endures most of them.
However, according to this article in the guardian, perhaps I am not a feminist afterall. Although aimed at men, this article raises the point that if you are more interested in talking about men, or if you believe that there are some areas where men are discriminated against too, you're not really a feminist, so stop claiming to be allied with them.
So, here's my confesssion. Last semester I took a class on identity politics. Which is basically looking at the ways in which people are grouped together based on certain characteristics, and how that affects what we understand about who they are, what they are like and the kind of life chances they get. It focussed on feminism and sexuality based discrimination. So far, so good, right? Still a feminist? But when it came to writing my essay for the course, I chose to talk about men. And not in a "burn them at the stake for patriarchy" type of way, but to highlight how society is systematically failing to take domestic violence against men seriously. I argued that this came down to identity politics, to a lack of belief that men can be victims, and a lack of belief that women can be violent, and that this violence is dangerous. I also argued, that this leads us to a gross misunderstanding of what actually happens in many violent relationships, because, according to Straus' numerous population studies into family conflict, in 50% of violent relationships both partners hit. Furthermore, the other 50%, where only one partner is violent, is split down the middle: 25% is the woman perpetrating the violence, 25% is the man perpetrating the violence. If we believe his studies (and not everyone does) then the assumption that all domestic violence is wife beating is wrong 75% of the time. By only talking about violence against women at the hands of their male partners we are ignoring 75% of violent relationships, and we will neglect every single homosexual who suffers violence and abuse from their partner. It means that men who are trying to protect thier children from a violent and abusive wife have to fight all the harder to be believed. It means that men who go to domestic abuse shelters for help face ridicule, rejection, suspicion and are turned away because the vast majority of domestic violence shelters do not admit men.
To those who say that women's violence is not really a big is sue, because either women are not naturally violent and abusive, or not capable of inflicting harm- you are not only wrong, but guilty of the worst kind of assumptions about identity. It is equivalent to believing all women are poor, or need a man around the house to look after them, its like believing all women want children, all women are straight, all women love to cook, all are weak, all are victims. In the words of Malinen (2012) "If womanhood is coextensive with victimhood feminism is a hopeless enterprise."
