Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A critique of feminism
Bisong, Peter Bisong and Samuel Aloysius Ekanem
Department of Philosophy, University of Calabar Calabar Nigeria
ABSTRACT
Feminists are on a daily basis transforming the way women are viewed in the world. Today,
thanks to the effort of the feminists, women are no longer seen as good only for the kitchen and
the bed. They have been liberated from the shackles that held them bound to the homes. We see
them now everywhere, contributing their quota to the development of the society. While this is
commendable, this paper sees some demands of the feminists as too extravagant, destructive
and unfounded. If these demands are attained it would have dysfunctional effects on both the
women and the society at large. This paper using critical reasoning is therefore, aimed at showing
the feminists where they got it right and more especially where they got it wrong. They got it right
when they demand for freedom from all forms of discriminations and when they campaign for
their inalienable rights but they got it wrong when they seek political, economic and social
equality. These rights are alienable and thus cannot be granted but attained. The rights that are
fundamentally human, can be granted but there are others that can only be developed by the
individual. The feminists are wrong to demand for such rights. The feminists are therefore advised
to work hard to attain equality, for it is a product of hard work and not something that is to be
granted. However, while working to attain this equality they should be mindful of the
consequences of this struggle.
KEYWORDS FEMINISM, CRITIQUE
INTRODUCTION
Feminist activists take campaign for women's rights
as their central aim. These rights include: right to
enter into contract, right to own property, right to
voting, rights to bodily integrity, autonomy, and
reproductive rights amongst others. These Feminist
campaigns are yielding enormous results; for there
have transformed the societal structure, especially in
the West, by achieving women's suffrage, gender
neutrality in English, equal pay, reproductive rights
for women, and the right to enter into contracts and
own property (Butler, 30). Feminists have also helped
to protect women and girls from domestic violence,
sexual harassment, and sexual assault.They have
also advocated for and gained workplace rights, like;
maternity leave, and discrimination against women
(Messer-Davidow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism).
In
Africa
feminists have achieved much in areas like; female
circumcision and genital mutilation, widowhood, girlchild education et cetera.
From the foregoing therefore, it could be said without
mincing words that feminism has actually achieved
much in the liberation of women from the shackles
femininity, which (according to them) overemphasized the experiences of upper middle class
white women. The third wave therefore expanded
their ideology to cover; race, gender and feminism.
The wave also witnessed the involvement of different
shades of feminism from different societies and
culture. They argue that the feminist movement
should address global issues (such as rape, incest,
and prostitution) and culturally specific issues (such
as female genital mutilation in some parts of Africa
and the Middle East and glass ceiling practices that
impede women's advancement in developed
economies) in order to understand how gender
inequality interacts with racism, homophobia,
classism and colonization in a "matrix of domination
(Harding 12). Third-wave feminism also contains
internal debates between difference feminists, who
believe that there are important differences between
the sexes, and those who believe that there are no
inherent differences between the sexes and contend
that gender roles are due to social conditioning
(Galligan, 184).
Radical Feminism: Radical feminism sees the malecontrolled capitalist hierarchy as the root cause of
women's oppression and thus advocates for a total
uprooting and reconstruction of society (Echol,
416). The reason this group gets the "radical" label is
that they view the oppression of women as the most
fundamental form of oppression, one that cuts across
boundaries of race, culture, and economic
class. This is a movement intent on social change.
Cultural Feminism: As radical feminism died out as
a movement, cultural feminism got rolling. As various
1960s movements for social change fell apart or got
co-opted, some people got pessimistic about the very
possibility of social change. Many of them therefore,
turned their attention from radical feminism to
building alternatives, so that if they couldn't change
the dominant society, they could at least avoid it as
much as possible. These alternative-building efforts
34
35
36
for his family; pay school fees and other bills. All
these for an average Nigerian are not things that are
easily attainable. Thus the average male in Africa
would have to work very hard to be able to achieve
this. And in a lot of occasions, (no matter how hard
one works) these are not achieved by a lot of them,
making them to resort to arm robberies, kidnappings,
bombings and other risky and dehumanising ways of
getting money. Some die while trying to get this
money, others are maimed and still others suffer from
one or more sicknesses which result from frustrations
and worry. I believe that if the feminists work hard to
achieve equality for all genders, then this strain on
men would reduce. At least the feminist would soon
realize that one major cause of their subjugation by
men is the bride price system. The male sees himself
as the head of the family and the female as
somebody under him, since he is the one that did all
the paying. I am of the belief that very soon, the
bride-price system would be abolished or at best
adjusted so as the female and the male would
contribute equally to it. This would be one big step to
getting equality and I believe the indefatigable female
activists would soon realize it and campaign against
it. The abolishment of dowry system and all other
responsibilities that is heaped on the man by the
society would bring true equality between the
genders this also would liberate the man, while
attaching additional strings to the already loaded
female. It is my belief that true equality would favour
the male more. It is like making a ten years boy to run
the same distance like a twenty five year old boy. The
small boy would feel the strain more than the big boy.
It also follows that when the society makes the
female and the male equal, the female would feel the
strain more. The female is not as strong and free as
the male, what the male can achieve at a given time,
the female would need to strain more to achieve that
same feat at the same time. By craving for gender
equality, the female are therefore, doing a disservice
to themselves. Patriarchy, the feminists are fighting
against, has provided enough for female protection, if
they destroy it as they will, judging by the way they
are going, the females would be more vulnerable to
death and other ailments than they are presently.
Patriarchy provides for instance, that in a taxi, the
male should be the one to sit nearer the door
allowing the woman to sit inside; this is aimed at
protecting the woman in cases of accident. This
arrangement is evident in all spheres of relationships
between the man and the woman. The man is
supposed to take the riskier jobs and positions and
the woman would take the less risky ones. This is
37
why the men die more than the women. However, the
females are trying to overturn this arrangement, is it
not a shot at the self? It is postulated that we have
more women than men now, but I know in the near
future with the trend the feminists are going, that the
reverse would be the case. Women are increasingly
beginning to refuse protection.
REFERENCES
Barbara Ehrenreich. (2013). What is Socialist Feminism".
http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/socialist
-feminism.html. Retrieved 27 April, 2013.
Butler, Judith (March 1992). Feminism in Any Other Name.
Differences 6 (23): 30.
Cott, N. F. 1987. The Grounding of Modern Feminism. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1987 at 13-5.
Echols, A. (1989). Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in
America, 19671975. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press. p. 416.
Goldstein, L. (1982). Early Feminist Themes in French
Utopian Socialism: The St.-Simonians and Fourier,
Journal of the History of Ideas, vol.43, No. 1.
Gilligan, C. (1993). In a different voice: psychological
theory and women's development. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press. p.184.
Harding, S. (2003). The Feminist Standpoint Theory
Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies.
London: Routledge. pp. 116, 6780.
Messer-Davidow, E. (2002). Disciplining Feminism: From
Social Activism to Academic Discourse. Durham, N.C.:
Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2843-7.
Oxford English Dictionary (2012). (online ed.). Oxford
University Press.
Walker, A. (1983). In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens:
Womanist Prose. San Diego: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich. p. 397.
38