This morning I have read the following:
1. should Beyonce have been wearing underwear on the cover on Time magazine while being declared the worlds most influential person
2. are organised nurse-ins a good thing or do they they actually harm the breastfeeding in public cause
3. should women stop wearing high heels as a feminist statement or should we reclaim them as a feminist statement
Oh and I have also just remembered a couple of days ago the article criticising the way the women who run The Vagenda stood with their hands on their hips, and were therefore subconsciously mirroring the very over sexualised female they argue against. Really? Is this really where we are at??
Of course debate is good, these things need to be discussed and I'm glad I live in a time when they can be openly debated, but I am so tired of the fact it is only women having these conversations. I have yet to hear a man utter the line “should David Beckham really have posed in his pants, I think it undermines men everywhere and sets a false expectation on us all by portraying us as sexual objects”, and I don't expect I ever will hear it.
Men can just “be” without the actions of some of their own sex having a reflection on them as a whole. They don’t have to argue and debate and justify and try to convince each other of the true definition of masculinity. I really cannot imagine how liberating that must be.
I guess the counter argument is that women are the ones fuelling these conversations and therefore voluntarily dividing ourselves, but of course we can’t not discuss these issues. When you come from a place of inequality and are striving for change everyone is going to have different ideas of what the end result should look like. Does equality mean that lap dancing is empowering and allows women to express their sexuality without moral judgement, or does it mean lap dancing is really male fantasy sold to women as empowerment? Or was Caitlin Moran right in How To Be A Woman and we need more porn of the female friendly variety, or is an equal society more in keeping with the aims of Object and Gail Dines? Its a minefield and one which only women have to navigate, while men can just, well, just live really.
Of course I want feminism to be my kind of feminism and am willing to argue and debate it so I realise I am part of the problem I am moaning about, so I know there isn’t an answer. It just made me quite tired today and very very aware of the luxury of male privilege and in need of a little rant.
