Feminism’s failings?

hmm..

seems to me that when we bring up the supposed failings of feminism, they are eerily similar to the pitfalls of the patriarchy.

I mean, the criticism that feminism comes under from its own side (i.e. not the nonsense spat out by sexists) is usually centred around how individuals who call themselves feminists have either failed to be feminist enough or failed to adhere properly to other positive parallel movements. I have heard of people who call themselves feminist being transphobic, homophobic, racist… time and time again this nasty fault is linked to them also identifying as feminist.

I believe, as many of us do, that we live in a rather unfair world which encourages the alienation and oppression of certain groups of people; there is no reason to think that prejudices that lead to institutionalised oppression and alienation will not leak into positive movements. I take issue with many people’s point that this is an inherent failing of the movement. A movement for women’s rights is always going to be for women’s rights, nobody, not even Sarah Palin, can change that, no matter how much she might call herself a feminist. It can’t be more than that, and it will never be less than that. I call myself a feminist but it’s not the only thing I am. I’m an activist in many fields, I’m an ally to many causes. There are some people who are feminist but also free-market capitalists. I don’t think this changes what feminism is, I think it’s a cause, and you can be part of it or not.

I’m a big fan of anarchist ideals. I am also aware that almost all anarchist gatherings and groups are populated and dominated by men. These men could be utter bastards (let’s face it they probably are), this doesn’t change what anarchism means. Anarchist groups may have patriarchal leanings, may have sexist members but this isn’t because of some flaw in anarchist doctrines, this is because we still exist in a patriarchal world and anarchist groups unfortunately do not exist in a vacuum.

So maybe next time we talk about how someone who identifies as feminist fucks up, we shouldn’t say ‘that’s the problem with feminism’ or ‘some feminists are like that’ because it isn’t accurate or constructive to do so, oppressive behaviour is much much much more likely to be a product of the status quo than of a positive civil rights cause.