Becoming a Feminist - Part 0
My Initial State of Mind (or the Things I believed)
Introduction
This series will accompany me on my journey of becoming a feminist. During each stage, I will reflect on my internal state of mind. I'll try to outline these stages and explain the insights I gained. I'm writing this series about two years after I started my journey. This means, that the first few parts won't reflect my current beliefs, but the ones I held during that stage of my life
Childhood and Upbringing
When I grew up, my parents taught me that men and women are each other's equals and have the same rights. I learned I should never resort to physical violence and that there is consent required for any interaction between a man and a woman. Caring for a family and doing housework is a task that is shared between both parents. Regarding sex ed, they also did a decent job. I was taught about protection, the male and female anatomy, periods, different ways of having sex, and some of the risks involved therein. Homosexuality was generally accepted and I had no restrictions when choosing my partner. Sex was not a taboo topic and whenever I was unsure of something, they would do their best to be supportive and help me understand. When I moved out of my parents' apartment at 21, I would have described myself as a bit more progressive than my peers. However, I would definitely not have called myself a feminist. I did not know what being a feminist meant and was skeptical of the movement.
Despite my privileged upbringing, I accumulated a big list of beliefs and stereotypes against feminism over the years. Then some years later in 2020, I volunteered at an organisation that helps kids and teenagers engage in social activism. I met a lot of diverse women who challenged the many views I held. I slowly felt that the feminist movement would permanently change things in the world and that scared me. Questions started to pop up in my head and I began to wonder: How will I fit in this new order? Will I still be relevant?
As you can see, all my worries were completely self-centered at the time. These fears followed me for two years until I could no longer ignore them. I felt that I started to hold increasingly hostile views towards feminism. In retrospect, most of this hostility stemmed from me frequenting certain online forums, websites, and YouTube channels. It started with watching edgy comedians make jokes about women. It continued with videos of Ben Shapiro debating feminists and finally with lectures and podcasts from Jordan Peterson. The continuous low-level exposure to misogyny and fearmongering made me normalize this kind of thinking. Ultimately it led to my hostile alignment towards feminism and maybe even women in general. To me, this was a clear sign that something was not right and I must do something about it. Luckily I did not get pulled deeper into the whole Manosphere.
Stepping Up
I am a firm believer that a lot of the time, fear exists as a proxy for the unknown. Therefore my usual action to fight my fears is to learn more about them. This type of exposure therapy is an uncomfortable, but in my opinion very effective and quick, way to defeat fears and break up old beliefs and stereotypes. As a result, I joined a feminist society in late 2022, to try and learn more about the people, their views as well as the movement itself.
Educating myself about my Beliefs
Below is a list of views, opinions, and stereotypes that I held at the start of my journey. The list also contains additional views, opinions, and stereotypes gathered from people in my surroundings. I hope to examine each one of them and find out if it holds true or not.
If you recognize yourself in some of these statements or hold similar views, I recommend you read the rest of this series. My journey has just begun, but I already had to revise most of my beliefs.
TRIGGER WARNING:
I intentionally left the statements as I would have written them at the time. They therefore contain misogyny, objectification, transphobia, heteronormativity, questionable opinions regarding sexual harassment, discrimination against certain groups of people, and probably many more things that I'm not yet aware of. These statements do not reflect my current beliefs.
Gendering
- Gendering is useless and too complex. We have bigger problems like poverty, hunger, and global warming.
- Explicitly mentioning female forms in writing is more work and has no benefits. Using the generic masculine is fine, especially in languages like German that don't have neutral words for professions.
- More diversity in job advertising is useless. Women already know that they can freely choose their profession.
Statements I heard from others:
- Gendering enforces rules upon unwilling people and therefore limits the freedom of speech.
Trans
- Trans women should not be allowed to compete in women sporting events because of their strength advantage.
- Trans people should only be able to decide what they want to be once they are grown up.
- The look of a trans person should correspond with the gender they choose.
Sexual Harassment
- Women are threatened more than men. But overall it's not so bad in the Western world.
- The biggest threats to women are strangers and foreigners.
- Women require protection by men.
Statements I heard from others:
- Sexual harassment is, at least in part, the fault of women. The person I discussed this with was referencing the accusations made against Rammstein lead singer Till Lindemann. His point of view was, that the women who bought these tickets should have anticipated, that there might be expectations regarding sexual contact towards them.
- Catcalling is fine and a normal part of life.
Feminism and Men
- Men must be included in all of the discussions around feminism and cannot be left out, because the changes affect them too.
- FFINTA Safe-Spaces are discriminatory against men.
- Feminists make it seem that men are the root of all problems.
- Because of my education in technology, I can correctly assess and understand the problems feminists address.
Family
Statements I heard from others:
- Children need a father and a mother as role models when growing up.
Work
- Men and women have different biologically determined predispositions. Women are more submissive and better at social skills. Men are more dominant and better at technical skills.
- In most aspects of life, equality between men and women is already achieved.
- The gender pay gap is not as bad as it seems. Once you take into account how often women are sick or are absent because of their periods, and therefore work less, the pay gap makes sense.
- If women wanted to pursue technical professions or leadership positions they already can do it. Nothing is preventing them from doing it.
- Job requirements should not be lowered for female applicants. Every firefighter must fulfill the requirements, no matter the gender.
- Not everything can be adjusted for women, they have to adapt too.
- Male teams in professional settings are more efficient. Female teams do a lot of infighting instead of focusing on the task at hand.
Statements I heard from others:
- When given the option to choose freely, women will tend to pick professions that focus on humans and social aspects while men will pick professions focused on objects (citing Sweden as an example).
Quotas
- Quotas for female leaders in politics and corporations are useless. Equal distribution should be achieved naturally without rules enforced from the outside.
- If all women voted for other women we would have an equal distribution among male and female politicians.
- In technical professions, there are not enough qualified women to fill the vacancies created by a quota. This would result in underqualified women occupying these positions.
Statements I heard from others:
- Quotas for women are discriminatory against men.
Relationships
- It is fine for men to hold certain beauty standards for women like requesting them to shave parts of their body.
- In a relationship with a woman, I am entitled to get care, love, or sexual favors.
- Some jealousy in a relationship is healthy.
- It's not a problem if a woman in a relationship is flirting with another woman. Only other men are a threat to the relationship.
- Women who have, or had, lots of sexual partners are slutty or have low self-esteem.
- It is normal for women to take care of contraceptives in long-term relationships and go on the pill or use an IUD.
Statements I heard from others:
- Women in general, even outside a relationship, owe men attention, care, love, or sexual favors (citing male basic needs).