Lesson 4: So Feminism did not ever do anything for you?

Seriously? Yes, very seriously? You mean to say you actually believe it. Well, good for you!

You say it is because access to education is no big thing- the women in your family have been educated for generations before feminism and will continue to be so till the ashes of feminism get cold. So really, it does not matter to you that you have the freedom to study what you want to attend any educational institution you like is not such a big deal. I do not know about your foremothers, who I am sure were enterprising women, but my grandmother (who also happened to be highly educated, and yes feminism did a lot of things for me and my mother) needed her brother to champion her cause for higher studies and then needed special dispensation from the University to be allowed to study Mathematics, because it was considered out of the brain capacity of women. And not only her, but also that representative of higher education for women, Marie Curie, the winner of not one but two Nobel prizes, had to leave Poland to move to Paris where she was allowed to study science. But hey, what does it matter travel broadens the mind.

Being an equal inheritor of property and wealth with your brothers does not mean much? Because your family always made provisions for their women. Well, wouldn’t it take only one or two people to change that dynamic in your family too (with all due respect to their sense of justice).  After all what a benevolent family hath given it can as easily take away.

And really having the right to vote does not matter much either, right? And women politicians should really stay at home preferably barefoot and pregnant. Because all this stuff about equal rights is just talk and what actually counts is privilege by accident of birth. You deserve to enjoy the privilege because you were born to it, the other women, tough luck to them.

Access to equal medical care, birth control or the right to manage your own contraception is also no biggie. Of course not. It is so much nicer when your husband or the men in your family have the right to grant you the privileges to call your body your own- after all what are you but a vessel mostly for helping give brith to more masters of the human race.


And you never had any problems ascending the corporate ladder at the workplace despite being a woman. Because you had a really good maid and excellent support in the shape of your mother, mother-in-law to substitute for day care. And it is people's bad luck if they do not have it. And maternity leave is for losers- because men never get medical leave for sickness- medical leave that becomes half pay and then without pay depending on how long they are away from work. After all women must choose between family and work- just like men do- what is that? Men don't, because more often than not they have someone managing their homes for them. I guess there is equality, one gender gets more of it. 

Oh feminism really does nothing for you because you are a man. And it really is not a big deal that you have to conform to rules as rigid as those that govern the other half of the human race. After all it is great to always have the burden of being the provider the hunter the gatherer the decider. And it is even more wonderful to not be allowed to have any kind of weakness. And your spouse is an inferior not a equal- but that is how it is- with you in charge of her, like with any other possession.

What is that? It is not feminism that bothers you, rather that those pesky feminists look for equality even while not giving up their seats on the bus? I agree that is a huge deal. I am sure they would love to give those up as long as they were guaranteed penny for penny the exact same wage for the exact same work, the right to be respected as much as men are, the right to be heard without being viewed through the lens of the weaker sex, the autonomy over their bodies and decisions regarding those, not being objectified as things, being as human. Oh and they are “respected” if they do not cross over the goddess line and continue being nurturing giving and sacrificing? Well, what if they do not want to be objects of worship, rather allowed to be human- you will not allow that.

Anyhow, please pay my respects to everyone else under that rock with you. Privilege is wonderful when you have it. Not so much if you view people who do while you do not.