Emma Watson once said:
“Feminism is about giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women”
A big part of my feminism is my relationship with my body hair. This attitude empowers me, but of course this isn’t the case for everyone. Like all forms of identity and beliefs – people display and vocalise things in different ways. What defines me as a feminist isn’t what will define everyone.
We love to put people in boxes, and when physicality, fashion choices and behavioural traits align with the stereotypes of a particular group or identity, it’s easy to assume that means the box in question is ticked. We learn there is a ‘right’ way to present yourself as a certain gender, sexuality, religion, for example, in accordance to stereotyped tick boxes. I think our endless need to box and label comes from the fact that containing people in categories makes them easier to understand.
The concept of spectrums is too broad to grasp. Too much effort.
Yet more and more, we as a society, are beginning to understand that things are a spectrum. We are beginning to unlearn the stereotypes that assign a right and wrong to every kind of identity. Gender, for instance, is widely embraced as so much more than simply the expressive, domestic, nurturing woman and the authoritative, breadwinner man.
Striving for the ‘right’ way to be, just like seeking the ‘ideal’ body, is not possible. We judge people on our assessment of right and wrong – the right and wrong way to do feminism, to do gender, to do sexuality, as if there is such a thing!
One person’s ‘right’ may juxtapose someone else’s. That doesn’t make them wrong, just different.
I know I need to work on my understanding and appreciation for other people’s feminism. Just because it might not align with my own, that doesn’t diminish it’s validity. I might differ in what empowers me as a feminist but I, or anyone else, am in no position to impose my opinion as superior.
Activist icon, Jameela Jamil has often referred to herself as a ‘feminist in progress’ since she feels there will always be ways things to educate herself about and ways to grow her understanding of women’s issues; an attitude I think we could all do with adopting.
As Jameela rightly points out, this isn’t a process that has a completion point; growth and empathy will never have a start and an end.
We need to stop judging people on our own standards, what may be right for one person won’t always translate. In relation to feminism, there is no correct way to present yourself as such, and we cannot invalidate other people’s choices by deciding they’re wrong simply because they don’t align with our own.
Tolerance of people who are polar opposites to us is one thing but embracing people who share our beliefs or parts of our identities, only differently, is in some ways all the more important.
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