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The fabulous 'F' world
Feminism is about equality.
On International Women’s Day, I didn’t celebrate the fact that each time I see the appointments section of the newspapers, I only see the occasional woman’s face celebrating a high-calibre new role.
Nor did I celebrate how no manager I ever had the fortune to work under was female. I love seeing success for fellow females - but I’m more interested in seeing how they use it. I like seeing how, with the help of our sisters, the glass ceiling in careers has apparently shattered - but I am more interested in seeing the lives of women beyond a select few.
To me, feminism has done so much for so many, and yes, that’s men included. To think that feminism begins and ends with women being successful in traditionally male occupations is a severe underestimation of the ‘f’ word. Feminism is about equality. Not for a select few. “Feminism is the single most powerful social movement of our time, one that addresses every aspect of human and social life” as one man has said (Richard Epstein, author of Bargaining With the State, 1993).
Think of the way our society functions, and the work that is done for little money, no respect and no opportunities within. I’m not just talking about child caring and housework, though without feminism nobody would pay any attention to that. Look at the people who clean our schools, our hospitals, our streets, and our houses. The people who care for our elderly and our disabled. Who care for children whilst the high-powered lads and ladies go out to earn the dough, and the respect that goes with it. They serve us in shops, in restaurants, bars, in hotels. The work that is done: so well done, for little money and even less respect. Our hospitals, our service industry; they would all collapse and cease to function without the thankless work of these honourable people. Men and Women.
All the ‘important’ people in society (at one stage) were cared for by a caregiver (for no money), and, when their lives come to an end they will be cared for again. This will be a twenty-four hour job, without pay and without respect. This is what feminism is all about. It’s partly about making public life equal; seeing women succeed in the public arena. But it’s also about exploring the private realms of life that are tucked away from view and normally filled with women. It’s about treating the care work that women (and men) do with the respect it deserves. Care work is the backbone of every functioning society. If men had to do it for as long and hard as women have been doing it, I am pretty sure there would be a Nobel Prize for it.
Feminism is so powerful an ideology that it can reach out to all parts of society; including the forgotten. Including men. Feminism does not discriminate. Feminism gives the voiceless a voice. It offers dignity and definitions of strength beyond the physical. Feminism gives respect back to the work that is seen as ‘feminine’. The care giving. The cleaning up. The work that has to be done with an unnatural smile on your face and a spring in your step. Why shouldn’t this work be honoured with the God-like reverence given to the professions? Does a lack of qualifications mean a lack of skill? Looking at the work of any good mother or father would laugh in the face of such a presumption.
This is what feminism has given us, thanklessly and honourably. However, in doing so it has suffered by being called “anti-men”. Yet being a feminist means being respectful to all human beings regardless of their economic status, gender, race, colour, age, ability, and marital status.
This International Women’s day let’s put the ‘fabulous’ back into feminist.
By: Annette Carter
