Taking Back the F Word

Kira Cochrane's got an interesting piece in the Grauniad today, about how the campaign for gender equality is regressing. Women's bodies, she says, are being picked apart today as never before. Every wrinkle, every 'extra' pound on a celebrity's body is up for scrutiny by the public. Go look at ANY issue of any tabloid, and behold the criticism on what Equality in the employment field is a distant dream, with women recieving up to 17% less pay for full-time jobs than men on average. And that's just in Britain. I'd be frightened to hear the figures for that in India. Of course, that's not even taking into account the fact that women tend to go into fields of employment that are traditionally associated with care-giving (nursing, old age support), or appearance-related, which tend to be lower paid, and don't have as much labour representation. It's still accepted for women to be passed over for jobs because, you know, we have this annoying habit of giving birth to children and allowing the maternal instinct to turn our brains to mush.(Alan Sugar on this lovely trend: we're not allowed to ask, so it's easy. Just don't hire them. Thanks, Mr. Sugar. Now we know why all of your apprentices seem to come with penises as a prerequisite.)
Rape convictions in the UK are dropping, rates of single motherhood the world over increasing exponentially. Pro-choice is still a bad word, because you know, what a woman does with an unwanted conception is still apparently everyone's business but her own.
I heard today about a case over the New Year where two women were assaulted and molested in front of the Gateway of India (symbolic, what?) by a mob of forty men, and a Google search for 'women molested New Years' turned up not just this one story, but ELEVEN others.
The Times of India says there's a rape every hour in Delhi, the vast majority unreported.
We all know that bunch of guys, whether at a club, a pub, in class, at work, who 'rate' the women in the room. One of the gems I once heard, from a group of guys I know, looking at pics of a mutual acquaintance, 'What are you talking about? She's not fat!' In a different situation, about a different woman, by different men: 'Yaar, she's a bit of an enthu-cutlet, but killer boobs'.
Then there's Zoe Cruz, senior executive at Morgan Stanley, who had contributed billions to the organisation, slated to be the next CEO, who was the first to be turfed out when the subprime crisis hit. She was nicknamed 'the witch', 'the czarina', and 'the cruz missile', because a woman that reaches the top has to be, you know, a ball-crusher. Morgan Stanley also settled a massive sex discrimination case out of court recently, brought by dozens of female employees who argued that women were not given the same opportunities for advancement.
I can't count the number of times a woman has said to me, 'oh, but I'm not a feminist. I love men.' When did feminist become a bad word? When did it become the new F Word? When it did become about man-hating, flag-waving, bra-burning (and for the fortieth time, that NEVER happened) lesbian viragos? Well, hell, I'm a feminist. I'm not a victim. I'm no survivor, either. I'm just a person who won't be told that her uterus will dictate her life choices, and who wants what anyone else wants. The right to live her life on her own terms. Those choices might include marriage, children, and a home. Or a career. Or having a BMI of 45, or getting cellulite on my face, if I choose. Or walking home at 3 AM by myself. Or wearing a short skirt on a summer's day. Or, you know, AND, or any combination of the above. But I don't believe there's anyone that can tell me which of those choices is the right one, because of which gender I choose to identify with. So there. I'm a feminist. I'm taking the F word back.
Oh, and I'd just got to this point of righteous rage, when I found this little gem. Hee hee hee. All is well with the world. You've got to love the delicious buffoonery of comparing MEN to the Jews in 1940s Europe. Chortle chortle. Who's an angry little mannie then? Who is? Chuckle.