For now, I’ll consider myself a feminist. But I hope in a few years’ time, I won’t have to settle for being just that. In fact, I hope to disassociate myself with feminism altogether.
But don’t worry, fellow feminists, I’m not succumbing to the patriarchy.* I’m trying join a more progressive and inclusive movement that critics of feminism have been asking for. Everything’s pending at the moment but I’ll just call it Xism for now (it’s hard finding one term to embody the complexity that is femininity!). Its goal is to be everything feminism mostly isn’t and what it should be. In other words, it’s a more inclusive approach for equality.
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Xism will consider the woes of every person that is susceptible to anti-feminine mistreatment, regardless of where they’re plotted on the gender spectrum. Here’s the definition of feminism, per Google:
Notice that it regards feminism only as a woman’s struggle. We know that since feminism in the western world started as early as the 19th century that it’s fairly cisgender-centered. However, we’ve got a pretty broad variety of definitions for womanhood now. And sometimes people oppressed by anti-femininity aren’t women. Hence, by being non-binary, Xism will be a movement to uplift anyone and everyone mistreated for showing feminine traits.
Another issue that feminist critics have with modern feminism is that it’s been fairly bleached. Have you noticed that the newly anointed faces of feminism are predominantly white women (Emma Watson, Taylor Swift, Lena Dunham, etc.)? We definitely need a more representative head council for Xism, which will be intersectional. The idea that race has no effect on how anti-femininity is unleashed is absolutely absurd.
Being colorblind is actually one of the most self-destructive aspects of the bleached form of feminism that exists today. How are people supposed to defend their culturally-based femininity if people deny specifically racist, anti-feminine attacks (e.g. fetishization of colored people's femininity based on toxic stereotypes)?
Having some sort of “head council” of women unreflective of those who need their representation the most doesn’t stop at race, either. These women are pretty privileged in their own way, able-bodied, and some of them are idealized for their physique. We need a more accurate representation of the feminine population for the sake of destroying all forms of ableism, fatphobia, and other prejudices that might intertwine with femininity stigmas.
And Xism won’t be just some ostentatious platform like one of Gatsby’s books: it’ll be active in advising people to be tactful allies. After all, as Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij says, “People who describe others as ‘too sensitive’ are usually just unaware of the extent to which they themselves are insensitive.” We need to school these kinds of fools on how the struggle is actually extremely real.
While I’m not a perfect person, I can tell you that I have a perfect vision for a future with Xism. Now, all we have to do is make Xism a reality.
* “The Patriarchy” is another term we should stop using. Men are not the only people capable of being anti-feminine. We need to come up with a new, inclusive term that more accurately reflects the diversity within the anti-feminine community parallels and rivals the diversity within the Xism community. Absolutely in no way am I seeking the erasure of men’s involvement in the inception and evolution of anti-femininity.
