As you may know, on March 8th, people all over the world will celebrate International Women’s Day. In Paris, a lot of things have already been organized for the event such as exhibitions, parties etc. And also, which is probably the most important initiative of the day, a grand demonstration through the city. As usual, women and men will march to voice their disagreement towards sexism and misogyny.
However, this year, men have decided to clearly show their support to women, to feminism in general, by wearing red lipstick on during the march.
This project created a quite big debate between feminists, for example on Twitter. I’m one of the people who are not thrilled at all by this idea. Why is such an action controversial ? Let me explain why this decision made some feminists, including myself, cringe.
Men exceptionally putting red lipstick on to support women is like considering red lipstick and make-up in general are only for women. It’s as if this was the symbol of women, their representation but it is not. Make-up has no genders. Their idea, instead of helping women, straightens the force of gender roles in our society. This is, in opinion, the complete opposite of feminist values.
Now, let’s talk about the debate among french feminists. They’re divided in two groups : the one who rejects this “support” because of what I’ve just explained and the group who thinks we should not exclude men of this movement. They also think we should thank and praise those men for being interested in feminism and for fighting for the cause.
First of all, should we really congratulate them for trying to not be bigots ? Yes, they have understood that society had to fight against sexism, so what ? Should we give them a medal ? No. I’ve noticed that this often happens : people receive compliments just because they have supported a cause that technically doesn’t concern them. White people for standing up for people of color. Straight people for helping and supporting LGBT+ people. I’m a cisgender girl and I fully support trans people, do I need to be rewarded for being a decent human being ? Absolutely not. Trans people don’t need to be validated through my help nor my voice. I’m not the person who should get the attention. They are. It’s the same case with men and women on March 8th. There are plenty of ways for them to show their support without appropriating themselves the movement.
From 2017 onwards, we should stop praising privileged people for acting on social issues and start praising the minorities currently fighting for their lives, start praising women rebelling against what the patriarchal society thinks they should be/do.
Then, we don’t need support from people who are hurtful towards others and oppressive without even being aware of it. We can’t include them if their actions are problematic. Imagine a white person trying to support the Black Lives Matter movement by using the N-word, which is a racist action. It would not be helpful to the movement, on the contrary it would offend its members.
So what should we do now ? Never forget the main protagonists of the battle against hatred. Recognize them – they’re that incredible.
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