Monday, June 15, 2009

The Feminism Movement at Skidmore: An Exercise in Futility

While I was attending Skidmore, I was made very aware (forcibly, I might add) of the feminist movement on campus. Though I had long been conscious of the national movement, our local version was exceedingly confusing to me. The women would annually adorn themselves with bright colorful buttons that read, “This is what a feminist looks like” (which I later discovered cost 500 dollars of the students’ money to manufacture). I still don’t know what this button hoped to accomplish by existing, but I’ve heard the word “awareness” thrown around by strong, sinewy fingers tipped with a lavender nail polish.

First of all, I’m irked that a good deal of the opposite sex that has an affinity for wearing unfashionable buttons assumes that I don’t know how to visually discriminate between feminists and normal women. A normal woman moves through life like her male counterparts. A feminist is a woman who has a Nazi-like drive to document the fact that she is, indeed, a woman. In fact, by calling themselves feminists they reduce themselves to the label itself at the expense of more equalizing terms. For many Americans, Feminism carries with it a negative connotation, one that implies radicalism, ultra-idealism, almost to the point of fem-supremacy and sexual segregation. It’s almost like having a foot fetish and calling yourself a pedophile; besides the term being used in an etymologically unsound manner, it just carries a great deal of baggage that you don’t want when declaring your love for feet at the community pool.

Secondly, openly declaring feminism can be considered hostile from a male point of view, akin to singing “Dixie Land” at a black Louisiana Baptist Church. I understand that feminism ultimately fights for equality, but considering that we’re at a liberal-arts college where the female-to-male ratio is 60/40, wearing a feminist button is superfluous; I’ll just err on the side of caution and assume that you don’t reminisce about the 1950s, when barking “Make me a sandwich!” was an even more popular way for a man to consummate the marriage than intercourse.

A prime example of this hostility came in the form of a table that was set up in the campus’s student center during “feminist week” (or something akin to it). The table turned out to be the source of the campus-wide plague whose symptoms included a black “X” inscribed on the back of the right hand, along with an incessant compulsion to pester people into getting the same ugly tattoo. Curiously though, the X’s only appeared on the hands of fellow males. Intrigued, I ventured over to the booth only to be confronted by a large Mao-red poster splattered with crudely-painted black lettering: “I promise to not assault a woman with this hand today”. I couldn’t believe the audacity of this statement. Apparently men were signing over their right to strike their fellow female students. Madness!

First of all, if I had any intention of assaulting someone I certainly wouldn’t give up so easily just because I had a black mark on my hand. “Officer, some guy just punched me in the back of the neck!”

“Well, what did he look like? Did he have any identifying characteristics?”

“He had a black “X” on the back of his hand.”

“A black ‘X’? But every guy who had that drawn on his hand promised to not assault women. You’re a liar. Get out of here, you lying liar. Leave now, before I arrest you for slander. God, you’re such a liar. And I thought I’ve seen everything.”

Secondly, what about the men who suffer abuse at the hands of women? Why can’t we have women promise to not subject men to mindless chatter or those giant ugly bug sunglasses? To insinuate that men have an inherent desire to beat women is insulting and confrontational, and to assume that a little black “X” is going to stop them is just stupid. This is the type of crap that gives feminism a bad name. I’ve never assaulted a woman before, but now I wouldn’t mind socking whoever came up with this. Unless, of course, she’s bigger than I am.

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