Let us talk feminism. Not so long ago I have come across an
article on PolicyMic that claimed that Brittany Spears, and Lady Gaga, and Katy
Perry were spearheading the feminist pop music and could only say “What?”
I am not the biggest specialist in feminism, but even I know
that ‘feminism’ stands for a “collection of movements and ideologies aimed at
defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social
rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for
women in education and employment. A feminist advocates or supports the rights and equality of women.”
(Wikipedia)
Fair enough, and it is the rights and equality part that I
want to draw my attention to (the emphasis in the quote is mine). When a
minority/repressed group (in this case women) strives out for equality with a
majority group (men here) they can achieve two different goals.
1) They can strive for equal rights with the majority, as the
Wiki suggests.
2) They can strive for equal privileges with the majority
instead.
The trick is distinguishing between the two, they are often
intertwined and by acquiring one of them a minority can achieve both. However,
more often a minority seeks to achieve only one of those goals, and usually it
is the privilege.
Cue back PolicyMic. It honestly believes that Brittany, Gaga
and Katy are feminists, while Miley Cyrus (we all remember her recent stunts,
right?) is “an agent of Patriarchy”. (Their quote & idea.)
Okay, let us see. Miley is many things, but patriarchy is
one that she is not. Wait, let me guess, in her latest...stunt she has degraded
womanhood (or something along those lines) by dancing nearly naked and in a provocative
way. Yes, she has crossed a line, but Gaga’s “Applause” comes close to it – and
that is why Gaga spearheading the feminist pop music movement?
Brittany... half the time she appears as a pathetic fat
mess, but in her songs she tends to appear as a dominatrix or a “strong girl”
that puts the men in their place. Of course she also sings songs like “Toxic”,
where the men are more on top...but then again, she hadn’t sung much in a
while, so who knows, maybe PolicyMic just forgot.
And Katy’s “Roar”... Do not get me started on the animals.
She is supposed to be some sort of a lady Tarzan, right? What does she do?
Brushes alligator’s teeth and paints an elephant’s fingernails. Putting the
matter of fairness to animals aside, how exactly it is feminist/girl
empowering? Do tell, because for me this is a very traditional role of a
girl/young woman.
Now about popular music. Without going back to Wikipedia or
similar sources, it is a music approved by the masses – the proletariat, so to
say – and it is simple. It is catchy but it does not tend to carry any deep
meaning. Feminism does not need to be complex, but overly simplifying it is not
the right way to go either. The masses, the crowd, tend to express the lowest
common denominator of the society – just look at the Roman Empire and its crowd
with ‘bread and circuses’. If feminism caters to this majority, it stops being
a tool of minority for equality and equal rights and becomes, well, a popular
fad – and fads fade with time.
Seriously. Just look at the Spice Girls. In the 1990s they
were popular – as much as Brittany, or Christina Aguilera, or etc. Now, when
they sang last time at the British Olympics they clearly faded - just a group
of middle-aged women that could blend in a crowd without particular effort. And
who is to say that feminism will not go the same way?
There is a movie, named “A Little Red Dot”, when a Pakistani
girl comes to an American school (that does not have a large Pakistani
population) and is teased because of the titular dot on her forehead. It is a
cultural thing, a bindi, and it cannot be removed. So, her new friends at
school turn this into a popular fad and the heroine is accepted but before long
the dot on the foreheads of others turns into stars, triangles, circles, other
geometrical shapes of various colors and the initial message, the initial
value of the titular dot is lost – and before long the fad fades. The girl does
become accepted by the school (aside from few hard cases) but she loses her
cultural identity in the process. Does this what PolicyMic wants for feminism?
Really?
Equality in equal rights means that both sides of a conflict
get equal rights and responsibilities that go with them: it is harder for some,
easier for others, but at least in theory both sides are equal.
Equality in equal privileges means that some people have an
easier time than other people do, for privileges do not really go to everybody –
that is what makes them privileges and there is no equality whatsoever.
Back to feminism. In theory, feminism in North America,
Europe and the rest of the world fights for equal rights between women and men
and that does not make them popular! In
fact it often makes them downright unpopular in their native countries
of Third world! Men, like many other majorities, do not want to give
equal rights – legal, etc – to minorities, including women. And when popular female
musicians/singers/entertainers, etc go on stage – this is not equal rights, it is
equal privileges with their male counterparts and nothing else, no promotion of
feminism, sorry. And when they go and sing or otherwise entertain rulers of
various Third world countries – they do not promote feminism abroad either. Rather,
they denote feminism as a fancy of various high-status women – wives, sisters,
daughters, nieces, more rarely mothers of various high-ranking men who can
embrace feminism as they did embrace other fancies, only to discard them when
they got bored or their men told them to. Is that what awaits feminism in the States
as well?
So. Here is what any feminist who reads PolicyMic articles
should do. Either she should strive to distance feminism from popular music and
popular anything. It will make her job that much tougher, but it will also
ensure that feminism will survive and go strong, at least in First world
countries and women will really have
equal rights with men, for that is what feminists strive to achieve, right?
Alternatively, she should strive to close the gap between feminism
and popular everything, ensuring that feminism becomes just another fad,
harmless to the “patriarchy” just as rap and hip-hop are. In this scenario equal
rights will be given only to some women and only grudgingly. If the feminist in
question is not one of those women – tough, if she is – she is really lucky. But
that is how the cookie crumbles, it seems.
And as for Hannah Rosin, whose statement that patriarchy is
dead and the feminists should get over it, has launched an initial reply that
it is very much alive as evidenced by Miley Cyrus? She is merely “running
before the train”, so to speak and does not equate feminism’s struggle with
Miley Cyrus. But that is just her opinion.
Live with it.
End
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