I don’t use those words lightly. And it’s not really a good idea to fight fire with fire, or aggression with aggression. But Dan Hodges’ recent article in The Telegraph, openly mocking the recent actions of feminist campaign groups, deserves whatever strong reaction it gets.
The thing that shocks me about feminism is that people find it so hard to understand. It’s not. Individuals’ complex systems of views and beliefs are, and should be, complex and sometimes hard to compute. Specific campaign groups may require a bit of brain-work to get to grips with.
But feminism? It’s not complicated at all. It’s a name for one of several enormous, worldwide groups of people who just believe in equality. Not equality in a loopy, abstract, hippy form. Equality in that opportunities, options available, should be ‘the same’ for everyone. That, with enough time and work, most people should be able to achieve most things – and if there is anything holding them back, it absolutely should not be based on race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ‘class’, or anything else beyond a person’s control. This sounds textbook, easy, done. But it’s not. People, though they will tell you til the cows come home hat they believe equality to be important and correct, will go out of their way to obstruct it in their daily lives. And often, they don’t even realise it.
This is why campaigners exist: to highlight instances in which they believe inequality is spread, and to tackle it.
Dan Hodges’ first mistake is to believe that ‘feminism’ is a single, commonly-fought cause. It isn’t – it would be impossible, there are far too many of us. Instead, it’s the name of a set of ideas related specifically to equality for women. Priorities regarding how this can be achieved differ hugely among feminists, and while one group may believe Lad Mags are the best target for this week’s campaign, others may disagree. In this sense, Hodges has every right to disagree with the priorities of certain feminist groups. What he doesn’t have a right to do is tell them that what they’re doing isn’t important. If he believes that there are other battles that should be fought today, tomorrow, this week, he should be fighting them himself.
His article is dangerous because it implies that this is a war between feminists and everyone else, and his mockery of the tactics of feminists is akin to fight-talk: belittling their aims so they’ll give up, walk away. And you have to ask, why is this what he wants? What does he gain from belittling people who are fighting for what they believe in?
Asking these questions makes his (supposedly) highly satirical tone sound less satirical and more forceful, earnest. When he says “We are perfectly happy to hand out sweeties like new bank notes to you, so long as you leave us to do the serious stuff like running the banks and the rest of the country” he is exempting himself from any responsibility. Sitting there comfortably, in the ‘men’s camp’ (who made him General?) he argues that until feminists ask for the right things, they won’t get equality. The idea that the structure itself, or indeed men themselves, may need to change too, doesn’t seem to cross his mind.
This is going to sound obvious, but he has outed himself as a misogynist. Not to be too George Bush about this but you’re with us or against us, Dan – you can ignore feminist campaigns, you can get involved or start your own (even on the most personal of levels) – but if you are ‘laughing’ at feminists, if you are telling them that feminists are the real ones who are ‘scared’ of feminism, scared of change, then you are not a feminist. You’re someone that hates them and wants them to fail, because it’s easier for you. You are saying that, as some representative of ‘men’ in general, you don’t have to offer real change because it’s someone else’s job to set it up for you, to put the right proposal to you to be accepted or rejected. In this case, passivity – watching the child drown; waiting for equality to just happen; watching (and indeed perpetuating) in-built misogyny – is as much a problem as more ‘active’ woman-hatred.
In history books, Dan Hodges going to look like a bigoted idiot. He’s going to look like a columnist who told Martin Luther King he wasn’t trying hard enough, that blacks were too lazy to ever live the lives of white men. He will look like those people who start their points with ‘I’m not homophobic, but…’ ‘I’m not racist, but…’, ‘I’m a feminist, but…’ before trying to counter an equality-based movement with any number of ‘technical’ objections that cloak the prejudice beneath. Good luck explaining that to your granddaughters, DH.
Also published on Femusings (http://femusings.org/why-dan-hodges-attempt-to-advise-feminists-is-ignorant-and-prejudiced/)
See also:
- Babe, You’re Doing Feminism Wrong (thoughtcatalog.com)
- A Step to the Left: Western society is post-Feminist. You know the war is lost when you think you’ve won the battle. (richardbromhall.wordpress.com)
girls gone riled 