Feminism is dead (and we have killed her).
More than 130 years have passed since the man behind the moustache shocked the world with God’s death. The idea of God that society had celebrated hitherto had died, symbolising humankind had grown up, fulfilled whatever they made God fulfil before - leaving religion to be a sweet, naïve requiem of a past’s imagination. In the words of Mark Twain “history does not repeat itself, but it does often rhyme’’ and perhaps today’s feminist zeitgeist may make a perfect couplet with Nietzsche’s precocious declaration.
Feminism - the polysemic term that adjusts to the opinion of whoever is using it. Is it educating women? Is it burning bras? wearing a dress? a suit? Can one free the nipple while another frees female refugees? And are we expected to respect both actions equally?
‘We should all be feminists’ Chimamanda Ngozi Achie declares; but what is left of feminists, if we all become such, but mere individuals? While the dream is indeed to make feminism obsolete, it is hard to ignore that with every major achievement for women comes an ever more aggressive wave of feminism with louder yet more trivial demands. Because feminism is only relevant within the context of injustice, a strange phenomenon takes place where the advocates seem to have a deeper attachment to the concept of activism than to the dream of equality itself. In essence: who are we, if not oppressed? A paradox arises: everyone should be a feminist, yet the fact anyone can be is concerning. While meant to galvanise, it can just as well be weaponized, misrepresented, and capitalised. In fact, the result of such capitalisation is a white, middle-class, privileged woman or #girlboss, aggressively shouting that ‘you can have it all!’, as the face of feminism. It is no coincidence that when the Southern Poverty Law Center conducted a poll asking their participants if they thought feminism had done more harm than good, men under 50 voted ‘yes’ significantly more than men over 50. Michelle Goldberg explains in ‘The future isn’t female anymore’ that feminism may be the new victim of backlash, known for making “utopian social projects seem ridiculous.” Thus, it is an unfortunate face for feminism that may cost it its legitimacy regardless of the amount of feminists that are out there working hard for noble causes.
The death of God and the death of feminism only differ in one thing. The acceptance of God’s death comes with the end of long-standing moral and purposeful standards, whereas today it is the end of long-standing moral and purposeful standards that result in the demise of feminism. Note that I am not saying the notion that men and women are equal is obsolete, rather that its loudest promulgators have done it a disservice by choosing more often than not, to expose the most unobservable, if not non-existent injustices for the sake of relevance. There is a place for feminism, but increasingly it seems like that place is no longer in the Western world. Perhaps the point of this article is to invite you to explore what would happen if we ever dare to say: “We did it girls! We won! We can stop fighting now. Feminism is dead, and we have killed her”.
