disclaimer: i am not a feminist. nor am i going to discuss feminism at length. i am not a femin-not, either, mind you. humanity needs equality, as a whole, as a species. with no limitations of race, ethnicity, sexuality or creed. none of those matter or are even apparent at a biological level, on a cellular level, on a genetic level, on the level that separates our DNA from the rest of the animal kingdom. human = human. (my math is simple)
that said, there are clear reasons why i am not a hardcore feminist despite actually being a woman and thus subject to discrimination and hardship by sole virtue of my gender. i will not pretend to be blinded by the inequalities around me, however; i am fully aware that to get anywhere in this world, to have a virtually hassle-free existence you must meet the following prerequisites. you must be middle-/upper-class, caucasian, male…at the very least these are the basics. you will do better if you are of a christian faith than any other, though jewish is somewhat acceptable. but i digress…
i do not want to be anything more or less than what i am. and so, instead of championing the cause of one gender, one belief, one race, etc. i prefer to support equality. this is one reason i am not a feminist.
backstory: the LA SWAT team has just accepted it’s first female member. it is april 2008, the LA SWAT team has been around for 40 years. it’s been around for 40 years. what people didn’t realize — or conveniently decided as a whole to overlook — is that the LA SWAT team (and every other SWAT team in the nation) is 100% exclusively male dominated. predominately white male dominated, and very very resistant to change. it is april 2008.
this is the world we live in. this is the world.
on the one hand, score one for women everywhere for one more equal opportunity, right? for being given a chance that was previously denied. let the celebration begin, right?
but it’s just the first step, and it’s not even full-on equality. getting what you wish for is not always all it’s cracked up to be, after all.
That has prompted criticism that SWAT, which stands for Special Weapons and Tactics, is scaling back its admission standards to be politically correct. (via NPR)
surely the only way a woman would be competent enough, would be strong enough, would be good enough…is if they scaled back the standards. cut corners. lowered expectations. this is the world we live in. this is women = weaker. (this math is flawed)
but it’s a first step and that’s admirable. just ask nina acosta (see NPR), it’s a first step long overdue.
however, anytime you take a step forward, there’s always someone there to drag you two steps back. it’s not enough that a woman faces discrimination from the men surrounding her, she also has to square off against her most vicious critic just to prove her worth: other women.
other women cannot see this as a victory or progress or even the slightest bit of good. other women protest almost more than the men. and that is such a letdown. such a disappointment. in women-kind as a gender, in humanity as a species, in the world we live in. i’m not naive enough to believe that men and women are 100% equal; there are things men can do that women cannot, and things women can do that men cannot. but the middle ground is so wide, so varied, and vastly increasing that when you stop and think of the amount of actual progress there is…
it is widely depressing.
there is an argument out there how could any woman in the world today not be a feminist. it is valid and structured. and i agree with many points of it. but i am not here to discuss feminism.
why fight for equality if you can’t even muster up all the support of ‘your own kind’? why work for the betterment of a group that is so self-hating, so depreciating? saying that a female officer, a female solider, a female warrior couldn’t possibly be anything more than a distraction or a liability is disheartening. when you are a woman, when you are constantly at odds with other women.
this is why i am not a feminist.
i sincerely hope that jennifer grasso makes it through training, and changes history. i hope she changes it for all of humankind.
