This post is written by Simran Bhaskar, a 3rd year BA LLB specialization in Energy Law Student from UPES, Dehradun.
The more famous and powerful I get, the more power I have to hurt men. ~Sharon Stone
As feminism has wedged itself between the standard and counterculture, we see another brand emerging; it wears ‘The Future is Female’ tee-shirts and says it distinguishes as women’s activist, yet makes assault jokes and takes part in locker-room talk. It’ll utilize all the privilege hashtags, share all your Tumblr posts yet by the day’s end, it’ll strip, and relinquishing the feminism it has folded over it. I’m discussing ‘counterfeit feminism’, and we’ve all experienced it – regardless of whether in the media, a gathering, or your Instagram DMs as a ‘decent person’. The word ‘feminism’ implies battling for equal rights yet the idea of this equivalent right is steadily blurring and in this day and age it implies rebuffing men for being male sex.
Counterfeit feminism makes false equivalences which likewise incorporate conversation about assault and misuse; you’ll hear it shout out, “However shouldn’t something be said about false allegations?” The issue is that the conversation about dishonest incriminations overshadows the one about the assault, overlooking the fake rape cases and the sheer bounty of reports about the assault.[1] Besides, it’s irritating when we consider what’s delegated a misleading indictment could be a genuine occasion that is never loaned conviction to. What we never hear said by the individuals who talk about deceitful incriminations is that men have a higher likelihood of getting explicitly ambushed than being dishonestly denounced, however, we never appear to discuss men getting assaulted.
Fake feminism isn’t intersectional, and it brings other ladies down to maintain the status quo. Feminism that is intended for the decision class can’t and shouldn’t be called feminism, and even though it’s predominantly practiced by white women, those with significant power and clout wield it too. Beyonce lectures, singing, “Who run the world? Girls,” yet manhandles her female laborers for Ivy Park, her attire line that amusingly adjusts itself to ladies strengthening. As she rambles women’s activist verses, a large portion of a world away, she pays her laborers 54 pennies an hour and keeps them from unionizing.
Counterfeit feminism rehearses irony, a lot. It makes dishwasher jokes and humor that calls women the inferior sex. Natalie Wynn or Contrapoints on YouTube says, ” Sometimes irony can be a safe way to explore ideas you’re not quite ready to own.” It’s safe to make these jokes since when somebody gets down on you about it, you can flip it on them and state they’re not in on the joke, or that they simply don’t ‘get it’. It isn’t so much that every individual who makes these jokes despise ladies, however when you take part in humor with chauvinist undercurrents, it may be that sexism has gotten to you as well. It is an obvious fact that misogynist jokes standardize sexism, and they come at the expense of degrading ladies and approving chauvinist mindsets. Discussing humor, great satire punches up. Your jokes shouldn’t need to downgrade ladies to be interesting.
Fake feminism is continually explaining that you’re not ‘that kind of women’s activist.’ It separates itself from third-wave feminism, saying it remains consistent with the first and second waves, yet the third is excessively outrageous.[2] It carefully chooses and picks certain furthest points of the third wave and uses it as a substitute – bra-consuming and coloring armpit hair. It even refers to organized occasions to disclose to itself why the third wave is malignant growth (like the viral, arranged video of the woman pouring blanch on manspreaders). As the third wave doesn’t have a characterizing bit of enactment, it very well may be anything but difficult to misshape it, however, to constrain to its couple of irrelevant occasions disregards the overwhelmingly positive change it has presented to us: the battle against working environment lewd behavior, placing ladies in places of intensity, the idea of intersectionality, overcoming generalizations and the #MeToo development.
In an age of information, it’s an act of ignorance to remain a fake feminist. Let’s take a moment and rethink, and spoil yourself with the universe of women’s activist media open to you. To women’s activists, root out the fakes from inside; while it’s not your business to teach them, help them out and give them where they’ve turned out badly.[3] This world needs better feminists than we already have who does not just talk about being a feminist but discriminated among men and women herself, reporting fake accusations to men just to disregard them initiating a body-shaming conversation of other women with boys.
[1] https://www.shethepeople.tv/top-stories/boys-locker-room-snapchat-young-girls-internalizing-misogyny
[2] https://www.firstpost.com/tag/fake-feminism
[3]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/how-deal-fake-feminism-pour-cold-water-lap-russia