Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement Review
Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement By Catherine Redfern & Kirsten Aune
Review by Jen Gardner
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All you feminists do is sit and slag off good entertainment and cry about how gingerbread men should be called gingerbread women. To those of you who have no idea the price your First and Second Wave Sisters paid so you could enjoy the benefits of saying you’re not a feminist. Or, they’re ball breaking, white, middle-class women who just want power and get it by making men’s lives a misery.
Yes but.. no, but..
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When I first picked up this book I didn’t know what to expect; I had little views on the matter and my thoughts were like the majority, being very stereotypical.
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And for men and boys, the difficulties they suffer in modern life are frequently exacerbated by sexist stereotypes about what men are and should be like. Let boys wear pink. What’s the worse that could happen? All this is god for men too. ‘boys crisis’, bring in measures to ‘correct girls’ success. Gender myths are not harmless, but have practical consequenes. Why weren’t boys learning to knit and sew? Why don’t men object about being called emotional morons?
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Whilst beginning the book I couldn’t help but think of how males would be viewing these ideas. I wondered whether it really would be an anti- men book. However occasionally issues relating males do pop up to make sides a little more fair- showing that it’s not only women who have problems.
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A girl can’t win. So I can’t help but feel a bit like a caged hen. We don’t want to be house slaves, but neither do we want to be wage slaves. So whilst men and women are concerned about the same basic issues, woman tend to prioritise them differently. Feminists must keep up the pressure.
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I was aware the book may give off some strong messages about how women are extremely hard done by, In a way the book does, but only because some women suffer more than others, until people are aware of this from both parties, things cannot be done.
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Women are reportedly paying good money to have their little toes amputated to fit better into their Jimmy Choos. An estimated half of all Korean schoolgirls are having procedures to Westernise their eyes. In up to half the world’s nations, marital rape is not a crime. Female employment has risen by a fifth since the early Seventies; male employment has fallen by the same amount.
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He only used to punch and kick me Have you wanted to stop being violent to her? – No she’s my wife. The group started trying to differentiate between “just a bit of pressure” and “proper rape”. They would like to ask the question, “Are you planning to get married and to have any children?” When I told people that I studied [physics at university they asked me, “is that because you want to be a teacher?” .. I told my father when I was 11 that I wanted to be an astrophysicist, he laughed.
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On the Conservative benches, the medias focus on Theresa May was generally not her policies, but her high heels. The real sexism about Palin has been the flip side of the sexism again Clinton. You’re either a scary, old, ugly mannish hippy, or a ditzy, perky, fuckable bimbo. Westminster has traditionally not been a female-friendly place. Notoriously lades toilets have been sparse until recently. Media- It tells us what it’s meant to be a woman or a man, and it has real, practical consequences in our lives. Review learning materials.
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But when the facts came out about the real sexism and the effects if it, you can’t help but sympathise. Some people go through daily abuse because of this. This is where the real help and awareness is needed. Certainly in Britain, the work place seems to be the biggest part taker.
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For women’s lives to improve, not only laws, but also men’s and women’s thoughts and behaviour, have to change. It is up to each person to fix their own body as though it were in need of a redesign. Embrace diversity. Both genders lack the ability to balance work and home in a way which would bring maximum benefit for them and any children they might have. We have forgotten that men and women are supposed to be different. Reject lazy stereotypes about men and women that you hear in everyday life. When you hear a woman called a ‘slut’ or claim men are uncontrollably ruled by their penis, point out the double standard.
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The book has managed to make some issues equal, explaining how both male and females are effected. Along with defending feminists; showing that they arent an angry bunch of women marching down streets to get their own way, but this view is very dated. The new feminist movement is different, and that’s what this book is all about.
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Everyone is born a feminist. It takes a lot of social conditioning to make people otherwise. They had always been a feminist but just couldn’t recall when they ‘found’ feminism. Men often talk about having their eyes opened by a loved one. I had my first ‘light bulb’ moment when I received my first bank statement and I was addressed to ‘Miss’. Feminism is seen as a dirty word, embracing feminism can have negative consequences. A lot of ideas moving in the same direction. Feminists- Highest level of education – 48.7% university.
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It was interested that as soon as I told people I was reading this book they assumed I was a feminist. I think it takes a little more than reading the book to have your ‘light bulb’ moment. I believe you need a personal experience that has really affected yourself or someone close. This book has just made me a lot more aware of what feminists stand for and how they want to help.
I appreciate how the main message is equality.