GWSS 1001 - Gender, Power, and Everday Life

However, men are not the problem, and that is clear by our recognition of male feminists, but the general public has been educated otherwise. Most people that I encounter have the same notion of feminism as the one depicted above. The English language is full of fallacies that people follow blindly. Just because a feminist is pro-choice doesn’t mean they are anti-children, but most people assume that if you are one than you automatically oppose the other. With the media making a mockery of feminism and the issues it takes, such as a prevention of sexism, racism and violence, it’s difficult to bring the “true� message of feminism to the majority.
However, the confusion of these issues is not solely the media’s fault. Feminism within itself is full of schisms. Evens elaborates on this by showing that the “loss of historical memory would have fat-reaching consequences.� (Evens pg. 5) A major part of the reason for all the anti-feminism actions stems from a confusion within feminism itself because, as Evens points out, feminists do not have a clear knowledge of the past and thus, fall into the same mistakes. There’s such a large spectrum of feminisms to me, that I get confused on whether or not I can consider myself a feminist.
Not only has the confusion within feminism brought about the misconceptions about feminism, but the patriarchy bashed it because it felt threatened. Who wants to lose their power over another? It’s fear that is creating the backlash as well as confusion as to what feminists are trying to accomplish. At one point, many feminists decided that love was the culprit. Well, hearing your wife, mother or sister refusing love wouldn’t sound too good to a “content� patriarchal nation enveloped in all the exaggerated warnings from the press. And when that theory on love failed, many feminists did a complete 180 saying that love was actually necessary to bring us out of racism, sexism, and oppression. That, to come to a state of “mutual partnership [in] the foundation of love� (hooks pg. 104) is what this world needs to move towards. No wonder there was confusion. No wonder the media was able to turn the general public away from feminism so easily. Not only were sexists controlling the press, but they utilized the conflicting feminist issues to their advantage.
Personally, I think the stereotypes on feminisms are absurd, but feminism covers such a broad range of issues that these backlashes, though ridiculous, are able to hold up when feminism keeps slipping away.