Why I Am Not a Feminist
/
I’ve been called a “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) lately, but that’s absurd. Though I share some beliefs similar to “radical feminists,” I don’t identify as one. Some might assume I’ve been turned off by angry man-hating feminists, tainting the true idea that feminism is about equality!
The man-hating (though, I’m not fond of it) has very little to do with it.
To be frank, I don’t think the movement is about equality. How many women’s groups have engaged in meaningful advocacy for men in the family court system? Was “believe all women” a fair and equal philosophy for men in the dawn of the “Me Too” movement? But even if I granted the premise, I’m concerned about the type of “equality” women have been chasing.
Firstly, I want to point out that women can be pillars of the community, entrepreneurs, faithful wives, women her children can find pride in, beautiful, intelligent, etc. These are all attributes of a virtuous woman found in Proverbs 31.
I also want to point out everyone is made in the image of God, deserving of dignity, respect, and our unalienable rights should be protected and applied evenly. Men and women should have an equal right to bear arms, exercise their freedom of speech, etc.
But people don’t literally believe men and women should be equal in all things. For example, we have a draft. Let’s say WWIII pops off and we don’t have enough volunteers. How many feminists would demand women be drafted as well? How many women stomp for abortion but have never said a peep about abolishing child support, so men can have the “choice” to participate in fatherhood just as the mother did?
What happens if a woman punches a man? Let’s put aside the obvious, “No one should hit anyone” position. She has initiated the assault. Do you believe it should be socially acceptable for that man to strike back? Society largely rejects this idea because men are naturally stronger than women. We wouldn’t expect men to treat women like their equals; we would expect men to show restraint for the sake of protecting the literal weaker sex.
Why do we segregate sports? Because we acknowledge men have a tremendous physical advantage over women. If we wanted equality, why not have both sexes compete and see who comes out on top? The reason is they’d lose. Even the dominant U.S. woman’s soccer team was no match for teenage boys. To give women more opportunities mean segregating them.
Why do we separate men and women in prison? It’s not only to protect women from the strength and aggression of the male prison population; it’s because of the complementary nature of male and female anatomy. No one wants a spike in the pregnant prisoner population. For example, transwoman Demi Minor, who was serving a 30-year sentence for manslaughter, impregnated two female inmates. Minor was then transferred.
I can appreciate accomplishments that advanced womanhood. For example, I support woman’s suffrage and my ability to vote. I can appreciate that feminist icon, Betty Friedan, fought against discrimination against pregnant women at work. Today, companies accommodate mothers by having special places to breastfeed, they grant extra breaks to pump, offer paid maternity leave, and moms hope their employers will be understanding when she needs to take time to tend to their child’s needs.
I think it’s good for companies to voluntarily create family-friendly workplaces, but it doesn’t come without certain costs and challenges to the company. Yet we expect—even demand—companies to be especially accommodating to women because they bear children.
As I talked to my sister about why I’m not a feminist, she said: “Women don’t want equality. They just want to be treated better.”
Back during the days of former President Donald Trump’s first presidential run, Trump was asked by a sassy young woman if she would be paid the same as men if he were President. “You’re gonna make the same if you do as good a job.” This answer championed equality, yet Hillary Clinton tweeted his words as if they were abhorrent. Of course, if you buy into the wage gap myth, you may interpret his words as an implication that women don’t do as well as men now, since they are paid “78 cents to every dollar a man makes.” The truth is men and women make different choices regarding careers, hours worked, and so on. If employers truly believed they could pay women less for equal quality, men wouldn’t be hired at all.
I can agree with radical feminists and their attitudes toward pornography being exploitative of women. I abhor Only Fans and the movement of “sex work is real work.” But I also despise the depravity of the sexual revolution in general. I think it’s sad that women go on Tiktok Live every night trying to convince the world that body count doesn’t matter. Instead of demanding men hold themselves to a higher standard, women have decided to be like men. Women resented being “sluts,” so they became “players.” Well, decoupling sex with meaningful relationships and dislodging it from family-building has not made our world better. Men and women are very unhappy today, fatherless homes have a profoundly bad impact on communities, and 86% of abortions come from unwed women according to the CDC. (I recommend reading Bridget Phetasy’s article “Why I Regret Being a Slut.” It’s fantastic.)
One of my greatest gripes is how the feminist movement sold out for abortion. The two male founders of NARAL lied through their teeth about the harm of “back alley abortions,” and were desperate to get feminists like Friedan on board. Fast-forward to today, abortion has utterly crippled the minds of young women. Rich women like Jennifer Lawrence believe if you don’t support abortion rights, then you don’t believe women deserve equality. The ability to be pregnant is inherent to women. If women need abortion to be equal to men, then you believe women are inherently inferior.
If you believe fighting for the privilege to kill your son or daughter in the womb is a good representation of feminism, I want no part of it. And before stating you support a woman’s “choice,” you cannot support her agency and then infantilize the mother by ignoring all of the choices that led up to pregnancy. And when I press women and their “choices,” I’m often rebutted with, “Well, what about the man?”
No accountability.
I’ve been told feminism is about advocating for respect, dignity, and opportunity for women among our male peers. You can be a Christian complementarian and advocate for all those things. The question is what is your perception of “respect, dignity, and opportunity,” and how would you achieve them? If your idea of opportunity in the workforce is access to abortion-on-demand, that’s a very hard pass for me. If we have to lower military standards for the sake of inclusion, I’m not a fan. If employers purposely choose to not promote men because they need more women in leadership roles (cartoonist Scott Adams ran into this problem, while in the corporate world), that’s discrimination.
Google once wanted to know why they didn’t have more women in the workforce. When a male engineer drafted a 10-page memo pointing to biology and that the sexes have different desires that disproportionately drive them to different career pathways, it was met with hysteria.
Some feminists, such as the ones recently on Vice’s panel, insist transwomen are women. They even invited two transwomen to participate and represent womanhood. Of course, this infuriates TERFs. The idea that womanhood can be appropriated is bad enough, but our institutions seem dead-set on uplifting men like Dylan Mulvaney and Lia Thomas above biological women, and you’re bullied into swearing fealty to their gender identity. Macy Gray was bullied into reducing women into a “vibe.”
But if “vibe” is too modern, we can go back to second-wave feminist Simone de Beauvoir: “One is not born a woman, one becomes one.”
She said, “Being a woman is not a natural fact. It’s the result of a certain history. There is no biological or psychological destiny that defines a woman as such.” Though Simone de Beauvoir believes in biological differences, the implication is womanhood is socially constructed since “baby girls are manufactured to become women.”
So why wouldn’t Dylan Mulvaney believe surgery and a following of 10 million can’t manufacture him into a woman? After all, I’ve been repeatedly told by his minions that Dylan is “more woman” than me, as if that were even possible.
I could complain about how annoying I find most feminists’ outrage online. I could rant about how easily they’re triggered by the microaggressions of “manspreading” and being asked to smile. I’ve seen too many deranged theatrics ranging from women displaying their menstrual blood to tying themselves up outside with a sign requesting to be sexually assaulted. I could talk about particular narratives like “rape culture” in the U.S., pay discrepancies, and how the access media and shills jump to sexism for bad films instead of bad writing and insufferable characters. But the truth is, I just don’t, overall, buy into the premise.
Men and women have equal value, but some gender roles go deeper than societal constructs. I’m grateful to live in 2023 with my rights and privileges. I’m glad for the women and men who worked to achieve better for women, but not all feminist contributions have been good. I don’t owe feminism my allegiance. Feminists might think I do, but I don’t see them making the same argument for Christianity after benefiting from living in a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values.
But if we’re allied on certain values, let’s appreciate that and work one issue at a time.
