Mystified by Popular Culture: Feminism Defined

Jane Caputi discusses the ritual sacrifice of women and uses the example of Marc Lépine who on December 6, 1989, “entered the college of engineering at the University of Montreal, separated out the women from the men, and then fired on the women, killing fourteen of them, because, as he averred, they were ‘all fucking feminists’ (175).[i]

Animosity towards women and feminists in general is not new. While many people would argue that things are better today than they were in the past, the truth is that society does not take women and women’s issues, as much as they are popularized and glamorized by media, as seriously as they should be.

Authors like Mary Daly, Nancy Tuana, and Gerda Lerner all criticize the male authoritarian role in forming our consciousness of history. History pushes the female out of our collective notion of history and leaves it buried. Daly criticizes contemporary historians of attempting to “re-cover” (24)[ii] the feminine, but instead literally only cover her again.[iii] While many of these female writers (feminists) are using their authority to write books, clarify, and untangle a long tradition of doublespeak in Western history, society has yet to consider these efforts worthwhile, serious, or important.

In this clip from a man’s vlog (video blog), which I found browsing YouTube.com, he discusses feminism and why he believes that feminists are children of the devil. To make his point he uses biblical rhetoric, which does absolutely nothing to support his claim. However, this kind of doubletalk is exactly what has clouded the pages of history. Only now, because of technology more and more people have the opportunity to voice their opinions about varying issues. This is wonderful, however, just as Daly and Gloria Anzaldúa suggest, women must empower themselves and their voices in order to be heard and begin to be taken seriously.

He says at the beginning of his vlog: “feminism is sin.” He explains that many of his viewers were shocked at that statement and that he would “like to correct that.” However, he never “corrects” this statement. He continues to perpetuate it. Obviously, his use of the word “correct” implies that what he had said originally, “feminism is sin,” is a false statement. Perhaps unconsciously he knows that what he is saying is baseless.

In this speaker’s clear logic, he proceeds to discuss religious issues mainly claiming that the “children of God” are few and the “children of the Devil” are the majority, what God calls the whole “world.” He emphasizes that the two are “entirely separate entities.” So far, so good, however what this has to do with feminism is not clear. He never makes a clear connection between all of the animalistic and degrading labels that God supposedly uses to describe “the wicked,” or how feminism fits into this discussion. His connection, a very flimsy one, appears later.

In order to illustrate the complete lack of objectivity and common sense this speaker posses, two statements he says are analyzed.

The first is his commentary and definition of feminists. He says they are “right to shave, concrete prune-hearted women who have sought after a man’s role, position, and function in society and have paid for it with their femininity. They are co-blokes.”

His second statement provides his listeners with an example of these feminists in action. “Some famous woman violinist speaking contemptuously (he repeatedly emphasizes this word) of the term mannered-wife on the radio and contemptuously of what they call the patriarchal society.”

First, he himself “contemptuously” describes feminists. How can he be offended that a woman questions the term, which could eventually be applied to her? The term will never be applied to him because he is a man. I have never heard of the term mannered-husband. Nor does it exist in the dictionary. However, mannered-wife does. She has the right to question this term, to speak out against it if she so wishes. However, her speaking out is a contemptuous attack against god. His speaking, his words, are truth because they are in essence the words of god. So he has the power to call women devils, or anyone else who speaks out against the system that gives men power.

After these two statements he begins to make connections between feminists and “devils.” He explains that feminists speak out against patriarchy because the “pseudo-matriarchal model of feminism you see in society today is satanic and of course they hate god’s way. God’s way is the patriarchal model that they contemptuously speak of.” If are against patriarchy, you are against god. He never tries to define “what they call the patriarchal society” or why anyone would want to speak out against it, or even what that speaking out consists of. The example he provides above is unfair and baseless.

When he says that feminists are “prune-hearted women,” he is suggesting that women make themselves sexually unavailable to men and this is not a good thing. I am concluding that based on his use of the term “mannered-wife” he considers a woman’s place to be in the home, as an object for men to fuck. Really, what else is left for us to do if we stop trying to seek out “a man’s role, position, and function in society?” Housewife...

Therefore, taking his argument one more step, any woman who is not a housewife (because being anything else would mean encroaching on men’s place in society) is a follower of the devil, dare I say: witch. Watching these videos of which there exist many, from him as well as others on the internet, makes me feel that we live in a society about to embark on a modern-day witch-hunt. Or have we already begun to do so?

This is just one example of how feminists, women, or any similar issues can be twisted and completely transformed through rhetoric. It is important to use the same technology/blogs/television/advertisements/popular culture and have women’s voices be heard in a serious way.

Feminism is a term that not many women understand or even agree upon; however, that should not make it open season for men to bash it. We have not yet fully shaped what feminism is or what it could eventually be, but if has already begun to slip away from us, then we are left with even less potentiality for the word than before.

Here are two more examples and I am sure there are many more.