How we talk about feminism matters because when we have a discussion about fighting gender inequality on market terms, all we do is curtail our own potential to create change. Earlier this month Women’s Agenda acting editor Georgina Dent argued that many young women see feminism as ‘vicious, elitist, angry and exclusive’. Unfortunately, this is the lot of any movement that successfully challenges the status quo, and it is a stereotype created by the opponents of gender equality precisely to demonise it.
To talk about this problem as a question of bad ‘branding’ effectively erases a long history of important feminist thought, theory and action that has seen the market as one of those institutions that has played a critical role in the oppression of women.
Feminist history is the history of social movements focused on questioning structures. The feminists who challenged marriage did so not because they hated men but because they saw the institution as oppressive. This was in part because of its history as an institution of property in which women were a commodity to be owned, controlled and traded. When feminists fought for legal and safe abortion — which they continue to do in many parts of the world including here in Australia — they were tackling structural obstacles in government and the medical institution that prevented female bodily autonomy. Similarly, when contemporary feminists talk about freedom from objectification, we’re talking about being liberated from being reduced to market terms.
Women are people with the right to agency; we are not objects to be bought and sold. Yet to talk about ‘branding’ feminism effectively continues to reduce us to these market terms. It’s an inherently conservative position that takes us backwards, not forwards, in our struggles against sexism.
Nancy Fraser argues that feminism, instead of bringing about ‘a world in which gender emancipation went hand in hand with participatory democracy and social solidarity’, has instead helped to entrench the inequalities brought about by the free market, by promoting individualism and breaking down social connections.
Indeed, it’s common these days to argue that feminism is about choice, not politics. Choice is certainly important; all democratic movements, by definition, require choice on the part of its participants. But choice is only paramount if you see feminism as located solely in the sphere of the individual, confronted with ready-made products they can use to enrich their personal life.
I would like to believe, however, that there is still potential for the feminist movement to go beyond this.
Questioning or challenging the way the world is organised, from our home life to our workplace to federal parliament, is inherently political. And in order to create change, social movements need multitudes. They need groups, organisations, and collectives. They don’t need rebranding; they need their own structures — democratic, feminist structures — to challenge the monoliths that run society.
Most importantly, feminism needs communities. Communities are not created through advertising. They are created when people talk to each other, share joys and concerns, and above all, share their own ideas about how to change the world.