Had a very interesting discussion with a
friend the other day. She is born in Australia but of Asian descent. We
discussed about the whole point of “fitting in” to the society. As a kid grew
up in Hong Kong and received British education, my parents from time to time
would tell me I am not Chinese enough. They would first secretly and then later
not so secretary hoped that I would just be a standard normal Chinese like them.
Similarly this friend of mine had all sorts of expectations cast on her to
behave like the rest of her ethnic group. As a girl her expectations were even
higher and tougher.This led us to discuss about the whole feminism thing. Feminism is something that has been around the block for a while. For me it seems that at different age, it represents different things. But that did not bother me that much as a kid as I always felt that it is some kind of adult related stuff (not knowing that I would become an adult myself). Also studying in a boys’ school means that I did not really need to deal with this ideological stuff.
However, things changed when I left high school and went to university. It is a mix of people and then you eventually got into this whole dating game, where feminism sometimes hit hardest. For me it was a confusing game. At times feminists (as some of my friends subtly called themselves) wanted all the rights in the new age, but then there were still occasions that they believed on top of the new rights they should have all the advantages offered to them by the old order. For example, they will debate to the end about women’s right to be in high position jobs and men should treat women equally both in terms of job opportunities and as a gender in the society. But then when you went on dates with some of them, they would expect chairs to be pulled, doors to be opened and bills to be paid in full. I once discussed with one of them why all those equality crap when they expected all the favours of the old world. She replied that is just social etiquette and any guy who does not conform is just bad form. But I hit back saying if you want old order social etiquette you cannot expect new world equality. Needless to say that one did not go down well.
Fast forward to now, when I was talking about this with this friend of mine she was so happy that I felt the same way. She said she had a hard time understanding why guys have to do that as she is strong enough to pull her own chair and open her own door. She told me that there was once that another guy pulled her chair but she just went for the other one because she was oblivious the chair pulling was for her. For me if feminism is looking for equality, it should not be applied selectively but to all aspects of life.
Then we discussed about how some people said celebrities like Beyonce represents the power of women and modern feminism. That is something that always baffles me because I personally did not see how a woman dressed scantily wriggly her bum singing Naughty Girl represents empowering of women and feminism. Yeah maybe it requires a lot of power to go out tell people what a woman wants but then do you need to dress like a go go girl in a strip club? I personally do not see how exposing your body to next to nothing represents empowerment. This is the same for Miley Cyrus whom I think was weird to think that to show how strong a girl should be is getting naked on a wrecking ball and twerking on stage. Yeah maybe you did not like your Disney years, but do remember it was Disney who made you. If that represents how a next-door girl grew into a strong woman, I am truly worried about the Hunnah Montana generation of girls. The good news is all the designers can sell their clothes to these girls with a fraction of their cost, as minimal textile is required.
Today I read that even Doctor Who is being criticized as becoming more sexist as there is less average dialogue time for female characters in the show. The study was based on dialogue and on screen time of female characters on the show. Despite the show had created some very strong female characters like Amy Pond and River Song under Steven Moffat’s helm, it was still be criticized as not female centric enough. The thing is I wonder whether one can decide the gender balance of the show with this kind of overly simplified mechanism. I can certainly get away with this kind of measurement by putting in a female character that finishes every single line of her dialogue with meaningless expression like “Kupopo”. This would no doubt increase her dialogue and screen time in the show, thus pleasing this kind of study. For me it matters more about the quality of the dialogue over the number of lines. Quantifying things that cannot be quantified within reasonable margin of error is just a flawed study in itself and this, in my opinion, does not reflect any wisdom of feminism.
I have been going on and on without finding an answer to what is feminism. Maybe there is no absolute answer. But personally I think if it is not improving female as a gender from all angles any feminist talk is just out of context talks of little consequence to the overall improvement of the situation. Maybe I am a bit idealistic on this but didn’t feminism start with an ideology too?
