Why I want feminism and not equality (and why they are not the same thing)

Unlike equalists, feminists do not want men to share their oppression

 

How many feminists believe they are working towards equality? How many men self-define as equalists over feminists? Equality is almost universally accepted as the definition of feminism. But the term equality has never been questioned.

I am a feminist and I do not strive for equality. I support liberation. The defenders of equality espouse moderate feminist principles: equal pay for equal work, equal opportunity with no special considerations i.e. positive discrimination, failure is down to the individual, and above all, women must embrace hierarchal work structures where the job always comes first. Equality takes the male status quo as the standard to which women aspire.

To be equal, women have to show they are strong enough to live up to men’s standards in a man’s world. Backers of equality cheer as women enlist in institutionally discriminatory police forces, join the military in invading other countries and committing war crimes, train for the roughest of men’s sports whether its dangerous and cruel horse racing, or life-threatening cage fighting.

Once women have joined male dominated areas of work, nobody asks why anybody regardless of gender would work in these repressive institutions. The crux of the matter is that men live and work in a brutal society, which is maintained through stratified social order based on ritual humiliation, gentleman’s clubs, fights, rites of passage, sexism, and banter.

When women enter the male realm whether law, politics, or a construction site, they find themselves in a repugnant world in which their only means of survival is by undergoing a fundamental transformation leaving them with little opportunity to make any change. We see this manifested in descriptions of women professionals as harsher than men. Assertive women are seen as aggressive bitches.

It is impossible to alter male spheres, which are resistant to outside interference, because women are a minority that could be cut out at anytime, and men have vested interests in preserving the status quo.

The Equality Act 2010, which replaced the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, was designed to give the false impression that women’s subjugation had been legally acknowledged. Political support was gathered because politicians knew no great changes would ensue. Equality legislation exists throughout Europe but nowhere is there equality.

The attitude of the legal profession to equality is best shown by the number of women Attorney Generals over the years: one women in contrast to 202 men. The Act is barely enforceable due to extortionate legal costs and severe costs to time. Of 89 per cent of women health care workers who experience sexual harassment, barely 1 per cent initiate legal actions because they know that regardless of whether they win or lose they will be branded a troublemaker and all hopes of a promotion will be dashed.

The Act is a handmaiden to equality as it strikes down attempts at positive discrimination. Equalists refuse to support positive discrimination; instead they believe in equal treatment and equal outcomes. Here, a contradiction emerges, equalists support 50: 50 men and women in institutions but women will not be recruited in large numbers because ‘equality’ laws have made quotas illegal.

Other unequal situations arise from the equalist debate. A right to maternity leave or an abortion is not an equal right, women are requesting discrimination because of their gendered differences. A woman will never be equal to a man because she can never be the same, and gendered distinctiveness is not valued by equalists.

Arguing about equality or difference results in a debate that drains the life out of the feminist movement. Men plead both equality and difference when it is to their benefit. They argue equality when they want paternity leave, and difference when they want to be paid more prize money for sports.

The equality and difference argument is banal. Equality would be cruel to men if they were treated equal to women: men’s genitals would be sliced up, annual rape of men would increase from 9,000 to 69,000, male prostitution would soar, men’s penises would be sprawled across page 3, men would stroll down the catwalk with their penises hanging out, and the Labour Party would roll out pink vans to attract women voters and blue vans to entice male voters.

Unlike equalists, feminists do not want men to share their oppression.

The equalist debate is one way of preserving patriarchy, whereas feminism seeks to give power to women on their own terms – not mens. This is why I am a feminist, not an equalist. Equality is harmful to women and most men, as they are required to replicate behaviours that are degrading and dehumanising. Once women buy into the masculine terms of society, our civilization will become crueler than ever expected.

Men hold the balance of power. Power is granted in the wrong ways, and used for the wrong ends. Change can come about by redefining and redistributing power, breaking down hierarchal structures, and reevaluating the criteria designed by men.

*This piece was inspired by two of the greatest feminist thinkers of our time, Germaine Greer and Catherine MacKinnon

Charlotte Rachael Proudman is a barrister in human rights law and a PhD candidate in law and sociology researching FGM at the University of Cambridge

243 Responses to “Why I want feminism and not equality (and why they are not the same thing)”

  1. Bob Roberts

    Seriously, someone who attends Cambridge could come up with this rubbish? I expected to scroll to the bottom and find some angry Gender Studies undergraduate at a second-rate ex-polytechnic, but this is ridiculous.

    “Equalists” do not support quotas because they believe in equality before the law, not equality of outcome. Businesses are not social services, and as a result, they hire the people whom are likely to make them the most money (“the best candidate for the job” – at least as the boss sees it). If the woman would make the business more money (through being more productive than the other candidates), would she seriously be disregarded in the name of petty sexism? Besides, quotas ensure that even if males would be the most productive candidates, they would be disregarded if the pre-existing workers were all male. It is for the same reason that the gender pay gap is bollocks; assuming that men and women are equally productive, their market rate of pay will be the same. If you pay less than the market rate, nobody will work for you. So if there is to be a gender pay gap, it has to be that men receive a “penis bonus”. And why on earth would any profit-motivated business bother wasting their resources paying more than the market rate? And the good news is, they don’t. The fact that the average women takes home 80% or thereabouts of what the average man takes home does not mean that women are being discriminated against. There are no stats to show that “equal pay for equal work” is not the case, and anyway, what is equal work?

    Men and women have equality before the law. There’s no point beating about the bush, if you support any further equality, you are a socialist (or moving towards it). Now I’m aware that this is a socialist website, but perhaps now people will at least acknowledge why opposing feminism does not make you a sexist. Especially when the assertions about how cruel and evil society is have nothing to back them up in this article. Yes, men and women make different choices. Yes, outcomes in life sometimes depend on things over which you have no control. But the examples of equality (of outcome), reductio ad absurdum, were matters of personal choice, other than rape and genital mutilation. But the former is a criminal issue (not one of the imaginary “patriarchy”), and the latter happens to men too. But somehow male circumcision is just another religious custom, whilst FGM is now a crime (for the avoidance of doubt, I think that both should be a crime, unless medically necessary).

  2. Bob Roberts

    That’s because unlike feminists, most normal people don’t see the genders as being groups of people who only share one of two brains in the world. We see people as individuals, and the individuals in power (thankfully, no longer in the UK), saw fit to conscript men. Other men don’t share responsibility. I am not responsible for every action of every male. So I reserve the right to complain about the behaviour of other men. Their gender is immaterial.

    The only reason conscription is wheeled out during feminist debates is to prove for once and for all that the patriarchy is the same as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. There is no such cabal of men plotting to oppress women simply for the fun of it. And other than a minority of S&M practitioners, there wouldn’t be much fun in doing so anyway.

    And I’m not an MRA. MRAs and Feminists are equally contemptible, whiny, irritating anti-individualists. I believe in equality before the law and in treating everyone according to the content of their character. And that is that.

  3. Bob Roberts

    The saddest thing of all is that most other feminst logic is that excruciatingly poor too.

  4. Rocky

    There is no genitalia on page 3, just breasts, why do you insist on equating penises and breasts?Not the same.

  5. kms

    Actually, they are the same, feminism fights for equality. You are simple minded and ignorant.

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