Utopian thinking: how to build a truly feminist society
Last edited Thu Feb 9, 2017, 12:46 PM - Edit history (1)
Utopian thinking: how to build a truly feminist society
I want to live in a world that allows its women and men to be vulnerable and tough, intrepid and nurturing, with no part of the rich human experience denied
Illustration by Thomas Pullin
Sometimes over the past few decades it’s seemed as if we’re slowly, inch by inch, getting closer to a gender-equal utopia. And sometimes, as for instance with the election of a “pussy-grabbing” women’s-hotness-rating misogynist as “the leader of the free world”, it does feel as if we’re getting further away from living in a feminist paradise. The worldwide women’s marches against Trump were a way of saying how much of a step back his inauguration feels.
So it might be good to think about where we’re hoping to get to. Here’s what a feminist utopia is for me: a world where your genitals, hormonal arrangements or gender identification matter not a whit. Where no emotions are gendered: everyone gets to be both vulnerable and tough, aggressive and nurturing, effortlessly confident and inclusively consensus-building, compassionate and dominant. Each by turn, just as it exists in us: no part of our rich, human selves cut off or excised because “boys don’t cry” or “girls aren’t funny”. It’s a world where there are no “boys’ toys” and “girls’ toys”. No women’s jobs and men’s jobs. No insistent drumbeat of culture keeping us in order. No one kicking us if we step out of our assigned lines. It’s a world where – among many many other things – there are no specific men’s clothes or women’s clothes, but everyone gets to play in the dressing-up box exactly as they like. If all you want is to wear overalls: fair enough. If you want to wear a suit one day and a floaty dress another, what’s the problem?
What I want is a world where neither gender nor sex are destiny. Where no child is ever told there’s anything they can’t do, or must do, “because you’re a boy” or “because you’re a girl”. It’s not a world where anything is “taken” from anyone – it’s one where everyone’s possibilities are enlarged. We are very far from that world today. So how do we get from here to there? A million steps, large and small. But here are a few ideas. We urgently need to address the assumption bound up in our employment laws and custody arrangements that women are the “natural child carers” and men don’t really want much to do with their children. In the UK, it’s possible to share parental leave, but the way the law is framed means that if a heterosexual couple chooses to, the man’s time at home with his baby is deducted from the woman’s. If we take the need for fathers in children’s lives seriously – and I do – we must ringfence time for both parents to spend with their children: at least three months for each parent. Of course the father might choose not to use it, but then it’d be lost, not just shunted over to the mother.
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Let’s teach boys at school the personally and economically valuable skills of self-expression and emotional intelligence, of mediation and problem-solving. It would introduce the expectation that disputes are to be solved with words, thinking and kindness, not a half-brick to the head. Men are more often the victims of male violence; sorting this out would benefit more men than women. Which is not to say it wouldn’t benefit women too. Three women a week are killed by men in England and Wales. Women are given a litany of supposedly “preventive” measures, the effect of which is just that some other woman, not them, is the victim of the wandering sadist on the street: don’t walk on the streets after dark; don’t wear tight clothing. How about this? Teach every girl self-defence at school, from the age of five to 16. It’s infinitely more important than netball. Give these lessons at least some of the time in the curriculum devoted to team sports. The skills of hurting a larger opponent enough to buy you time to get away should be second nature to all women by the time they leave school.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/06/utopian-thinking-build-truly-feminist-society