Wo/Men, stop being ashamed of being feminists!
Why I haven’t spoken about feminism and why I start now
For almost 2 years now, I’ve been running FemGems, a labor of love boosting female entrepreneurship. So why haven’t I talked about feminism? And why do I want to do it now?
Why I haven’t spoken about feminism
To be completely honest, I just didn’t want to get into constant discussions about it and I didn’t want to be associated with the image most people have of a feminist. But I realized one thing now. That image won’t change if people like me and many other types of people don’t show up as feminists. So I need to stand up and show what kind of feminist I am. Same as Madonna did in this eye-opening speech that inspired me to launch FemGems:
Camille Paglia, the famous feminist writer, said I set women back by objectifying myself sexually. So I thought, ‘oh, if you’re a feminist, you don’t have sexuality, you deny it.’ So I said ‘fuck it. I’m a different kind of feminist. I’m a bad feminist.
Living in Germany for 13 years now, I’ve often felt ashamed of the country I come from — Bulgaria. Simply because what most people know about Bulgaria are bad things and so they have many prejudices. This was the main reason for me to create the documentary Unseen Theater at the end of my film studies here. It portrays the world’s first theater group of visually impaired actors creating a theater of shadows. I wanted to show what kind of awe-inspiring people there are in Bulgaria, and thereby shift perspective.
Now I want to show what kind of awe-inspiring people are feminists.
When the #BlackLivesMatter movement started, I came to realize that if I’m not proactively positioning myself as anti-racist and calling out racism in all kinds of situations, I am actually supporting it. What applies to racism, also applies to sexism:
“Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socio-economic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.”
– Scott Woods
In fact, racism and sexism are more connected than you might think.
“Right-wing extremism and anti-feminism share a common functionality: combining megalomania and persecution mania with the notion of male self-sacrifice.” That’s a quote from yesterday’s front page topic of the German newspaper taz titled:
Nazis’ fear of a matriarchy — why so many women receive death threats signed with NSU 2.0
Right-wing extremists perceive female lawyers, politicians, journalists expressing themselves publicly as a provocation. “From this they derive the claim to have to put these women back in their place.”
In this interview, researcher Eike Sanders clearly explains how feminism is being converted to an enemy image. “Anti-feminist discourses can lead to harmful action. They enable perpetrators to act in the name of a fantasized people’s will.”
They do. Even in Germany, the land of poets and thinkers, the country with the largest national economy in Europe, freely accessible academic education, and a high level of innovation.
The idea that there are only two sexes that are complementary and hierarchical to each other is still firmly anchored in society. So when some people plead for the existence of diverse gender identities and diverse ways of life, many people who’re not necessarily right-wing supporters also feel threatened.
Here’s why I will speak about feminism.
A couple of days ago, I saw a freshly published interview with someone from my network on a new feminist platform. The interviewee shared the interview on social media with the remark that she’s not a feminist. Within her interview, she also states she doesn’t support feminist movements.
My first thought was: wow, you are a feminist, but you’re so ashamed to see it, that you’re vocally and proactively denying it. My second thought was: Dora, how much different are you?
Like Ivirlei Brookes shared in her viral video on what white people can do to become allies of black people, the first step is to self-reflect. Doing my self-reflection, I realize that if I’m not “coming out” as a feminist, I am supporting the patriarchal system.
Here’s another fresh example of one expression of the patriarchal system:
Earlier this week, a Republican lawmaker referred to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez using a sexist vulgarity.
In front of reporters representative Yoho called me, and I quote: “A fucking bitch!” These are the words that representative Yoho levied against a congresswoman. The congresswoman that not only represents New York’s 14th congressional district, but every congresswoman and every woman in this country. Because all of us have had to deal with this in some form, some way, at some point in our lives. (…) This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture of impunity, of accepting of violence and violent language against women, an entire structure of power that supports that.
Being anti-feminist, or stating you’re not a feminist, or hiding the fact that you’re a feminist all enables and reinforces the culture of misogyny that inspired Yoho's actions and many others’ violent actions against women.
Speaking up and out against the rampant mistreatment of women — which is part of being a feminist in an open, vocal and educated way — reinforces the movement toward gender equality.
Being a feminist as a woman, you set an example for other women like you to do the same.
Being a feminist as a man, too.
And because being a feminist as a man is still pretty rare, I’d like to share a part of Justin Baldoni’s inspiringly honest TED Talk Why I’m done trying to be “man enough”, where he gives men a hugely important challenge:
I challenge you to see if you can use the same qualities that you feel make you a man to go deeper into yourself. Your strength, your bravery, your toughness: Can we redefine what those mean and use them to explore our hearts? Are you brave enough to be vulnerable? […] Are you confident enough to listen to the women in your life? To hear their ideas and their solutions? To hold their anguish and actually believe them, even if what they’re saying is against you? And will you be man enough to stand up to other men when you hear “locker room talk,” when you hear stories of sexual harassment? When you hear your boys talking about grabbing ass or getting her drunk, will you actually stand up and do something so that one day we don’t have to live in a world where a woman has to risk everything and come forward to say the words “me too?”
It’s 2020, for Christ’s sake. Let’s finally get these things straight.
Feminism is not a movement against men, but against the patriarchal system. The large part of this system is unconscious, and ingrained in both male and female minds. We need to do the work to become aware of it first — to then be able to act and react in better ways.
The liberation of women and the liberation of men are firmly tied together. That’s why feminism shouldn’t be a battle fought for women by women. We are all dependent on one another.
Feminism is based on the understanding that your gender has nothing to do with your intelligence, your worth as a human being, or your leadership potential.
In fact, women have quite literally just saved millions of lives during the coronavirus pandemic, and proven to be exceptionally effective leaders in crisis, as the Financial Times and other respectable media have noted. If coronavirus is not enough of a wake-up call, I sincerely hope a bigger one isn’t on it’s way. Let us wake up now!
Let’s wake up, stop assuming we know it all and open our minds for new perspectives, new knowledge, and new ways. The current state of the world clearly shows how much we need new systems and ways of thinking. We’ve come far enough. We can do it!
If you want to learn what inequality looks like, why it exists, and how to take action in real life, you can follow the work of Equalista.com (being built by two amazing female founders featured on FemGems podcast) or check out the rest of the links in this article.
