No one should be a feminist

Achieving gender equality is an admirable goal, one worthy of pursuing.  Feminism is not a means to that ends.  Feminism is destructive to that ends.  Feminism is one of two things.  First, feminism can be “anything and everything and all things and nothing and puppy dogs and unicorns”.  Second, feminism can be a complex set of constructs concepts ideas ideals and existing activism that go so far beyond the simple belief in a vaguely defined gender equality as to make it no longer about gender equality.

No one should be a “puppy dogs and unicorns” feminist.  This feminism is mindless platitudes posing as actual solutions.  Any actual solutions proposed needing to conform to and be constructed of mindless meaningless platitudes makes any real solution that will actually solve problems impossible.  “Puppy dogs and Unicorns” feminism is not a means to the ends of gender equality.  It is a meme generator that prevents progress.

No one should be a feminist that accepts the complex set of constructs.  These constructs are so complex they are convolutions within convolutions within convolutions.  They are unfalsifiable shenanigans.  The best way to consider this type of feminism is existing advocacy, not attempting to understand the constructs.  “The Wage Gap” is one piece of existing advocacy.  “Women Make 78 cents for every dollar a man makes for the same work” is a claim so often and harshly debunked that even people spouting this claim usually proceeded to debunk it.  Root did so in “Why everyone should be a Feminist”.  He made the claim of 60 percent for the same work then spent ¾ of his article debunking the claim that it was for the same work.

Making a claim then debunking it as proof of the claim and as solutions to fix the problem are nothing shy of Orwellian double think.  When Orwellian double think is needed to make and support existing activism, no one should be engaging in that activism.  No one should be a feminist that accepts and supports the complex set of constructs concepts ideas ideal and existing activism that is Feminism.

Does this mean that we should do nothing at all to promote gender equality?  No.  We just need to do it with real activism, not mindless platitudes.  We need to do it with constructs and activism not based upon Orwellian double think.  Gender and gender roles are not an axis of oppression with an oppressor/oppressed or actor/object dichotomy.  Gender and gender roles are interconnected interdependent divisions of labor that assign obligations to both men and women and grants the rights nessicary to fulfill these obligations.  Using this framework, not the feminist framework of “The Patriarchy”, will be how we advance gender equality.