Feminism is like a brand nowadays. It only makes sense as feminism has become a product in our competitive economy. It’s a product that has to be consumed. And everyone does that in their own unique way. So feminism is a brand.
Moreso, feminism has a brand, or brands – several of them too. These exist within feminism and kind of promote (or degrade) the idea of it. White feminist, cult feminist, neo-liberal feminist, Marxist feminist, etc. These are not labels. They’re more like subcategories within feminism that serve as a framework to define feminism in modern, contemporary, and relevant terms. It’s like, a person starts identifying as a feminist, and then they adopt it as their own, interpret it to suit their needs and ‘voila! they’re a feminist. wow.’ Unfortunately, that’s not how it should work. At all.
See, what is happening now is that with all the access and freedom we have to and with social media, it’s becoming really hard to monitor what goes and what does not. This monitoring is significant because firstly, it is not profiling. It just keeps a tab. And that is important because feminism is a serious movement. It’s not a tv show you can interpret in your own terms and then let it go. It’s a proper thing, affecting real people, in brutal ways, every, single, day. So it HAS to be taken seriously. With social media and lots of misinformation, people are getting swayed by ‘alternative facts’. They’re twisting feminism to be something that it is not. And this is not fair to anyone. Not to us, as feminists. Or to the general public.
Feminism is an ideology and I get that those are the easiest to twist. But can we please not? It’s getting pretty damn annoying. And I don’t see the point of this. Feminism has no meaning if it loses its foundation as a socio-political movement. Where are we headed if not in the direction of equality in the truest sense?
I’m not saying you shouldn’t support your ideology the way you wish to. Do that. Just don’t change the basic idea behind that. Because that makes it a bit redundant. Which in turn makes it, I don’t know, useless? Yeah.
Let’s be logical here. If feminism became all about the needs of white women, it will not be feminism anymore. It’ll be white women-ism I guess. Not everyone has to be neo-liberal or Marxist. Adopt an ideology. Just don’t be so rigid about sticking to it. Because when you do that, you leave absolutely no space for any progress or growth. And without progress, we’re not going to get anywhere. So, it’s your call. You can help or hinder the process. You decide.
Be whoever the fuck you want. That’s the utter beauty of being a proper feminist. But don’t, for God’s sake, do not misinterpret and ruin it for all of us? We need feminism, we all do. But we don’t need a fucked up distorted version of it that won’t make things good for us. Get it? I hope you do.
