Why I'm not a feminist (A very roughly written article)

Random article I wrote for no other reason than the thoughts were going through my head. It's not the best written argument in the world and not really intended to be, its simply expressing some opinions and views.....1

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I’m not a feminist. I don’t like to narrow my views down by giving it a name and instantly linking them with large chunks of philosophical or political ideas from other people’s heads. But the other reason why I don’t call myself a feminist is because it implies that believing women equal to men is something other than a basic rational and logical thought pattern, something not in fact self evident but a set of theories which must be characterised as an ‘ism’ like idealism or utilitarianism, things which can be argued. Gender issues these days are terribly confusing, one word one way or another and you end up as either a raving bra burning feminist or a complete traitor to your sex. I get a little perplexed by the things which are called ‘empowering’ these days. Apparently getting naked in front of people is empowering, interesting really since in the past this is exactly the sort of thing that would be considered exactly the opposite. It’s empowering, apparently, to dress up in minute clothing and get completely trollied in bars. I suppose if that’s what you want to do with evening I can’t say you shouldn’t be doing it but I’m not certain it really conveys the message that you might hope. No doubt its intended to show that you’re a fun loving independent girl who’s prepared to live her life to the best of her ability and free to show what she’s got because it celebrates the female form. On the other hand I can’t help thinking that from many peoples perspectives what we get is a undignified, half naked drunk idiot sprawling in gutters, babbling inanely and giving herself to the nearest man who amazingly at this point doesn’t feel overwhelmed with so much respect that he feels she is a special woman he might spend his life with. I can’t imagine it being particularly conducive to high self esteem knowing that many of the men you’ve slept with have only been there because you were both sloshed. A better start to the evening might be to dress in an attractive outfit which accentuates the figure but keeps it mysterious and to engage in conversation rather than excessive drinking in an environment in which everyone seems rather similar. In a club where you can’t hear anyone speak there’s no real way of distinguishing anyone apart from by the way they look and perhaps whether they need to lean against the wall to stay standing. But as a terrible prude who hates clubs with a passion I might not be the best judge of such things.
It probably makes me a bad person that I sit and cringe every time I hear some girl talking about the beautiful shoes she bought on the weekend or how she can’t go out without her makeup or when I see that women’s magazines contain almost entirely articles concerning make-up clothes and sex advice (oh I almost forgot celebrities). But I can’t help feeling not much effort these days goes into actually changing stereotypes, in fact in many ways they seem to be encouraged. I suppose society has accepted a figure of a woman who cares about shoes, make-up, celebrity gossip, lunching with her girl chums and eating chocolate related confections in the same way as its accepted the stereotype man who likes a beer with his mates, watching the football and eating steak and chips. I can accept that there’s something to these stereotypes and they don’t really mean any harm but its when that stereotype gets taken a bit too seriously and people really believe that this is all there is to either gender that causes difficulties. It removes that sense of individuality in the same way that the bizarre battle of the sexes does, it creates a divide between genders and ignores the fact that surely someone should be an individual over and above being male or female. I personally don’t wear make-up except for special occasions and I don’t get giddy over shoes (I’m much more interested in dresses and corsets) and I really don’t know anything about celebrities and I shouldn’t judge people who are different but I do find it infuriating that people assume I’m the same. For one thing these stereotypes put up a big wall between what is male and female which can be very well policed by some people and suddenly we’re two different species and what happens then is alienation. Once that sets in the only way to communicate between the two seems to be sex. I don’t want to see any one reduced to a sex object or diminished to an ‘aw aren’t they adorable’ spectacle but it seems to be the way in which the two genders must meet if there is a giant barrier set up between them. This second one is worse with women. I hate to hear a woman acting as if men couldn’t get by and sort their lives out properly if women weren’t around it’s almost as cringeworthy as a man undressing a woman with his eyes because he doesn’t really think of her as anything other than a walking body. Then there’s women of course who think all men are complete bastards because they go after the wrong ones. Most of the men I know are perfectly lovely and respectful and don’t deserve to be tarred with the same brush as sex obsessed idiots. Basically as soon as one starts thinking of ‘men’ and ‘women’ like two sides of a battle you open the way to generalisations and more sexism than is imaginable. The sexism goes both ways. I know some very radical feminist idea plainly indicate that the people holding them believe that they are not only equal to men but in fact better which seems to defeat the entire point of feminism because it seems blatantly hypocritical. This isn’t true of all of it of course. A female politician commented recently that if more women worked in banking then the financial crisis would not have occurred. I personally found this an unnecessary and offensive comment to men because it places the blame for the crisis solely on the fact they were male rather than their own individual mistakes. This seems very misleading.
Basically my summary would be that setting up a male and female divide and drawing attention to it by making so many things distinctly male or female and generalising with stereotypes has a negative effect. It makes gender more important than individuality.