When I was in school, they used to teach us in history classes about topics like civil rights and social activism in the context of early America, and how important these events were in shaping the society we live in and take for granted today. We were only ever taught the surface level though, as I recall. Looking back at it, I imagine the goal was to familiarize us with the people and events, or at minimum, explain to us why days like Martin Luther King Jr. Day was important to our country’s social fabric. When it comes to women’s rights and feminism, I don’t recall there ever being much on the subject taught back then beyond a panning of some notable figures or social advances made. Rather, almost all of the reading and research I’ve done on feminism took place in news print and the internet between 2000 and today. When I took a college English class in community college in 2004, I had a very feminist and progressive professor who tasked us with writing a paper on Nature versus Nurture, in an attempt to draw out opinions on what affects children more, their genetics, or their environment. The topic I wrote about revolved around the sort of toys boys and girls played with, and how they defined traditional gender roles. In my final paragraph, I wrote:

Given all of the knowledge science and psychology has gathered over the years about the human mind, it is no easy task to unlock the secret of how we communicate and interact with one another. It is not unreasonable to allow children to explore whatever they desire and decide on their own what to take out of it. Children learn through trial and error, like all human beings.

I have always been of the opinion that a child is free to engage in whatever activity they want so long that it doesn’t infringe upon other childrens’ fun or creativity. I played with my sister’s toys as much as she played with mine, and although the types of toys bought for us as children typically divided down gender lines, we were not discouraged from playing with something that wasn’t appropriate for our gender by societal dictation. My worldview of feminism has always been shared among those who also believe that the sexes should be afforded the same rights, privileges, and opportunities within common sense and earthly constraints. I’ve never once felt that anyone should be discriminated against because they’re different from me, and I’ve never practiced anything differently from that view, actively, or passively. My mother wasn’t a stay-at-home mom, she went to school and then worked day and night shifts at several city hospitals. So I drew a lot of environmental variables from the many babysitters and family friends I grew up with.

However, I still have been fairly critical of what some call separatist or radical feminism, this idea that there is this deep-seeded patriarchy that seeks to oppress all women and drive them out of societal norms. They argue that the vast majority of men spend most of their time actively or passively oppressing them through different mediums, often mass-media or entertainment, or out in the open by something as simple and innocuous as holding the door open for them in a public space. To me, it seems counterintuitive of the overall goals of third-wave feminism, as I understand it, which seek to solidify equality for not only women, but minority-women, homosexuals, transsexuals, and others. Where the accomplishments of second-wave feminism were felt on a more macro-level within political and social structures, their goals tried to focus on more of the micro-level within communities and groups. Why would so many people feel like that after decades of advancement and achievement to gain so much ground, they would want to step back and rewrite that to fit a different narrative or viewpoint? Maybe I do not know enough to answer that.

It seems that it is something far more complex than any one person can really define, because many different people, men and women, define it differently according to what they believe. It does not make it any stronger or weaker as a social concept, but rather it introduces many different talking points and conversations many different people can engage, in an attempt to understand more about what it means to live in a society where men and women work, play, and contribute equally to a functional and civil society. Many see this along political ideologies, but I look at it through a more human ideology, because it is too easy to polarize it along party lines. We view pro-women issues as being liberal, and anti-women issues as being conservative, when in fact they’re fairly interchangeable depending on different regional and social values. It’s misguided to believe that a married couple who sees positive value in life would embrace abortion, just as it would be misguided to believe that a victim of rape and impregnation would embrace the constant reminder of her ordeal. We’re empowered by our unique ability within the living ecosystem with higher cognitive function and independent thinking to be able to make our own decisions about what we want and what we do not want. While we make issues like pro-choice and anti-abortion political ones, they are rooted in individual choices and regional-centric groupthink that vary from region to region. Yet our largest political and sociopolitical movements believe that everything should adhere to the same ideals and values for the sake of their movement, regardless of what individuals or groups think. That is what makes legal decisions like that of birth control and Hobby Lobby difficult, because while many might side with the federal mandate, others do not, and making a judiciary decision will ultimately disenfranchise one party over another and lead to further social strife where a more balanced solution might have been viable. If the need to heavily politicize feminism is what drove second-wave feminism in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, I would say the objective of millennial-heavy third-wave feminism today is to socialize feminism using social networking and entertainment mediums, two of the strongest tools of that generation. Rather than fight along political lines, which they view as weaker and more easily capitulating to fairer minds, they fight in mostly-online venues that support “hit-and-run” style tactics that leave few openings for logical or reasonable rebuttal by detractors and opponents. These people grew up with and were taught by the ideas and values emboldened by the previous generation, but found their venues and efforts ineffective against more effective means of information gathering and dissemination. Because they focus on micro-level groups and communities, they’re effective in establishing footholds in what they consider to be bastions of male-driven mediums. Here, they dissect and analyze the medium and determine what they consider to be oppressive or detrimental to women’s rights or equality, and publicize it in order to draw support for their cause.

The thing is, all of this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Drawing attention to the inequalities and injustices among entertainment mediums like movies, books, television, and video games, serves as a way of building upon the fundamentals established by feminism before these mediums became more central to working society today. The voices that work to engage in critical thinking and promote conversation about these alleged bastions allows us to take a closer look at the inner-workings and make changes. It has allowed previously male-dominated spaces and industries to become more gender-equal by revising policy and procedure and promoting a more fair workplace. I would imagine we’re not one-hundred-percent the way there, and there are pockets of resistance left in various places, because like the example above, there are still hold-outs of people who do not share similar values or ideals. But we should be mindful that these people are a minority-share, and instead of vilifying them and marginalizing them, we should be trying to appeal to their moral center and making a case that supports their values and ideals and suggests there is a middle ground that benefits both parties.

However, this is where radical feminism damages positive efforts to promote equality-centric values in society. It seeks to heavily polarize and divide issues into their separate ideologies and pit them against each other in a good versus evil battle. It relies on mainly ego-centric and narcissistic voices, who like the opposite ego-centric and narcissistic voices on the opposing side they vilify, do little to promote an ideology that makes sense, and instead pick apart and attack people’s values and ideals on a micro-level. It has all of the qualities of a political “attack-ad” while appealing to the “undecided” or “neutral” viewer because it does not focus on the larger issues affecting everyone, but rather is focuses on quick-and-dirty specifics affecting certain people. On the internet, this is particularly effective because if you shut out any possibility of an opposing viewpoint, or marginalize any opposing viewpoints as quickly as possible, you can effectively control the narrative and attack for as long as possible, until the other side concedes or gives up.

As a male, all of this is inherently complex, and for as much writing as I’ve done here, it could continue for ages. I cannot possibly do anything more the empathize with them in whatever way I can. But as much as I’ve tried to put myself in that position and see their worldview from their eyes, a lot of it does not make sense to me. I simply do not see the active or passive oppression in everyday-life these people see, and I live in one of the most politically diverse states in the country. I probably hear more negative gender reinforcement from older folks, typically the baby-boomer generation, than I do anyone my age or below. It tells me that the goals of first and second-wave feminism have been largely successful, that we’ve changed the base structure of social society to be more accepting and more compassionate, and not just at face-value, but on a more granular level. Sure, pockets of social resistance still exist, and there are people out there with loud voices who make vitriolic comments and spread hate as far as they can, but they’re often misconstrued as representing a larger base than they truly are. We also assume those who listen to them, or repeat their words, are also of the same worldview, when in fact they’re probably oblivious of any one specific truth, and they’re just following the louder voice. It is what enables there to be “idols” and “heroes” among social and political movements, and lend credence to the idea that a large number of people represent something as a whole where in reality, a fraction represent the extreme, and others are of their own individual opinions, participating only to be a part of the conversation. I strive to be part of a broad conversation when I engage social topics, and avoid being drawn into heavily-politicized movements that break down common sense and critical thinking in favor of “us versus them” mentalities. But humans are also inherently emotional creatures, flying from one tangent to the next often without so much as a word. It would be foolish for me to say I have not been on one side or another in a heavily-political battle over ideologies, because sometimes you have to take a side in order to convince someone to step back and examine something without a myopic lens.

I often feel we do not promote enough independent and critical thinking in today’s quick-and-easy social networking world where ideas come and go and movements spawn in seconds without real reason. If feminism is to continue into the coming generations, and those who fight for true equality are to continue to get their message heard, we’re going to have teach our children that it is acceptable to believe in something worthwhile, but to always ask questions and promote conversation with everyone. Because we’re only equal if we believe ourselves to be.