It’s a complaint I hear over and over again , that the word ‘feminist’ is sexist and that we’d be better of calling ourselves ‘equalists’.

We wouldn’t.

Yes we are about equal rights for all, but with a particular focus on women’s rights and the way women are oppressed by the patriarchy. To use the term ‘equalist’ is to deny this focus on women, which is not sexist it’s just focusing on one particular aspect of a problem. To remove any association with women and the female is to gloss over the fact that the problems we are dealing with are specific to women.
(disclaimer for the terminally thick who just don’t ‘get it’: Focusing on problems relating to women does not mean we don’t care or are hostile to the problems of men it just means we;re focusing on women. If you still don’t get it go and complain to a donkey sanctuary that it’s not looking after dolphins.)

We’re called feminists, or womanists , or women’s rights activists because we are focusing on problems faced by women as a result of their gender. To take emphasis away from this dilutes these problems and assumes some sort of equal playing field.

So until women are not discriminated against BECAUSE THEY ARE FEMALE the word ‘feminist’ and other terms referring to gender continues to be apt.

‘Feminist’ is not sexist in the way ‘fireman’ is.

Fireman assumes that one must be a man to do the job and uses the male as the default for ALL.

Feminism focuses on the particular way in which women/ the female gender as a group are discriminated against and their place in society.

In short fireman etc. is sexist because it uses the male default to be a default for all regardless of gender, feminism focuses on problems that females face as a result of our gender.

Focusing on one problem does not deny or belittle the existence of others.

This post by Renne caught my eye.

While the issue I am going to address is quite different I feel it has a few similarities, and her post saprked off my little rant.

I am sick of men saying such crap like ‘Ohh I’m all for feminism I LOVE women’ and then go on to say how much they ‘love’ women by basically objectifying us, patronising us and not seeing us as equal. Seeing us as some mythical ‘other’ .

This is sexism. Women are not some fabled species who need to be put in a cage and have their beauty ‘admired’. We are PEOPLE. Interact with us as you would a man, we do not need special treatment, we do not need fetishising, locking up and shoved on a pedestal to be ‘admired’. We are not same rare orchid that needs to be kept in a special locked greenhouse, we’re not some precious work of art hung in a gallery behind security lasers.

Feminism is about demolishing women as being the ‘other’ and treating us a ’special’ and ‘different’ and elevating us to a pedestal, while it may be seen as being ‘nice’,  only exacerbates this sense of ‘otherness’ and as a result exacerbates inequality.