Let’s face it: feminism is dead. Oh sure, there are a few anachronists on the fringes of society who still hold on to their pink banners hoping for a return to the glory days of the movement, but for the most part, we live in a post-feminist world. Feminism as a movement was struggling in the middle of the last decade and, like a building that has outlived its usefulness, it imploded and collapsed under its own weight.
What happened?
Firstly, of course, all of feminism’s goals were achieved. The right to work with equal pay, the right to be treated as equals to men, the right to sexual autonomy – all of these things were enshrined in law or, at the very least, in the public consciousness. Even with all its goals completed, however, feminists felt the world still needed them and, like the building mentioned above, feminism simply outlived its usefulness in modern society.
One of the fatal flaws of recent feminism was the denial of basic, scientifically-proven truths. Feminists insisted that women were being paid only 77% of what men were being paid for doing the exact same job. However, economists quickly pointed out that if this were true, corporations would hire only women. “Gender is a social construct” was another rallying cry of feminism, but the majority of the West understood that gender is not fluid and is not a social construct, but is based in anatomy and biology. These denials of what the majority knew to be true undermined feminism’s credibility in Western society and, in turn, weakened the foundations of the movement.
Feminism took on goals that were too lofty and expected them to be accepted by the public in very short order – something the general public was unwilling to do. Expanding on the “gender is a social construct” idea, feminism forwarded the idea that people who were born as biological men could participate in women’s athletics and win fairly. This did not sit well with the majority of the Western population and the feminist agenda was further diluted.
In fairness, not all feminists were so willing to accept transgenderism as a part of the feminist cause. TERF’s, or Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminists, rallied against the inclusion of transgender individuals in the feminist movement reasoning that a biological man had no real idea of the obstacles women faced. This saw the start of a tremendous amount of infighting within the feminist movement and the trans-exclusive and trans-inclusive crowds turned on each other like rabid wolves ultimately weakening the structure and integrity of feminism.
But perhaps two of feminism’s greatest failings were its embrace of victimhood and its lack of self-awareness.
When feminism began, the movement was about women not being treated as children, but rather being treated as equals who were strong and mature enough to carve their own destinies. Over time, feminism became a sort-of “oppression Olympics” and points were tallied depending on how oppressed an individual was in modern society. Victimhood became the name of the game in feminism and instead of standing strong and maturely against life’s challenges as equal partners would do, feminists began to behave more like children comparing their personal traumas instead of trying to empower themselves. This was the implosion of feminism.
But feminism also lost its sense of self-awareness and began wearing blinders. The movement was supposed to be about gender equality. In the end, it was mostly about misandry and ignoring all injustices that were not committed against females. This huge imbalance and hypocritical stance caused the final collapse of feminism.
I have often wondered if feminists merely seek someone to “put them in their place” as it were – someone to hold them accountable, someone to call them out on their nonsensical behavior. After all, this would explain feminism’s preoccupation with patriarchal systems like Islam that oppress women. The more research I have done into the Men First and Inequality movements, the more I have explored Traditional Gender Roles and Benevolent Sexism, the more I have talked to former feminists who have left the cult of feminism to take their rightful place in the kitchen, the more I realize my hypothesis was most likely correct – most feminists don’t believe that which they espouse. Most of them had absent or permissive fathers and simply want to be held accountable for the first time in their lives. For many young women, feminism was little more than a facade that echoed their anger toward their own fathers.
Ultimately, that is probably what caused the collapse of feminism — for most feminists, the entirety of feminist theory is a good way to explain their own anger toward the men in their own lives and to express their hope of finding someone who will hold them accountable in their day to day actions. The facade was bound to fall eventually and while infighting and hypocrisy ripped feminism apart from within, public opinion turned against the movement until it could stand no longer.
-VIS
