How Life Would Differ In Feminist Utopia

Call yourself a feminist in the UK and, unless you’re chatting to Jeremy Corbyn (moment to appreciate 72% youth voting turnout!!) and the Spice Girls, you’re going to be met with at least some hostility. The most common criticism is that there’s legally nothing a man can do that a woman can’t, proving how we have gender equality aka you can shut up now love and get back in the kitchen instead. The key word of the opposition is legally. This argument reminds me of how when the Civil Rights Act was passed in America this was a de jure change, which meant segregation was illegal; however this couldn’t cause de facto change as socially people had become so accustomed to racism that no law could translate into their realities. In the UK, feminism isn’t needed to overcome sweeping legislative inequalities (from what I’m aware, but hit me up if I’m wrong) we need to focus on All The Small Things, Blink-182 style.

Often we view social changes as insignificant. Catcalling bothers you? Stop whining. You don’t like it when guys approach you in bars? Then start dressing like a homeless barrel. Want a career? Keep your legs closed. But humans are sociable creatures and so if our everyday lives are riddled with, put bluntly, people being shits, then it’s going to have a pretty big impact. I’ve compiled a list to show some of the ways my life would be different in a de facto feminist society.

I wouldn’t dumb myself down: I don’t even know how this happens. I just finished my International Baccalaureate exams, my IQ qualified me for Mensa and I’m 50,000 words into a novel- I’m a smart cookie. Why then do I feel compelled to let men mansplain words I already know or say stuff like *sharp intake of breath* *clutches cheeks* *Disney princess voice* ‘What book was Titanic based on?’ to make them laugh? Is masculinity so fragile that I round off the corners of my brain to make sure it doesn’t damage them? In feminist utopia, I’m shamelessly smart, full stop.

The Dumbest Shit I’ve Read on Twitter

I’ve been on Twitter a long time. And in that time I’ve seen a lot of ‘DS’ (dumb shit- not to be confused with the Nintendo DS because I genuinely couldn’t bring myself to say a bad word about Animal Crossing). I thought, in homage to me being away from blogging for so long, I would reminisce over the worst bits that I’ve seen in the meantime on social media, in hope that these would set the bar really low for my future posts.

‘Men cannot do domestic tasks because they are too busy building civilisation’ This was said by a meninist who believed men didn’t have time to participate in childcare, housework, cooking, etc. What he hasn’t realised is that, yeah men might’ve built the modern world, but women invented beer, monopoly and the folding cabinet bed, therefore we’ve built the perfect Friday night.

‘Women can’t be SAS trained. They’ll distract men. It’s biological’ Did you see SAS: Who Dares Wins? Did you watch a woman and a man come joint first without sleeping together? And when they were being interrogated in, like, Morocco, did you see her dramatically undo her ponytail, unveiling luscious Herbal Essence-d locks and apply Mac Velvet Teddy, causing all the spies to stop their highly classified, significant jobs and have a wank over her beauty instead? No. Because not every guy was straight. Not every woman is beautiful. And most importantly, these people are so skilled at doing their jobs so if a human with two lumps of fat on their upper torso and no dick can distract them that easily then I really don’t think they’re qualified to protect the country.

Sexual Harassment at Work

I’ve just finished my final shift at my first paid job, working part time reducing out of date food for a supermarket. My general experience was faultless– I just want to establish that before I begin (so that this doesn’t affect me reapplying in the future) (and also so that, if you do know who I worked for, you don’t judge them). Blady loved my job. I quit because I had to study, not because of what I’m about to discuss.

Because I was both the youngest and fresh out the employment oven I suddenly became exposed to this world of sexual harassment. I was already familiar with catcalling (often when I was in my school uniform- not weird at all), everyday sexism and the occasional I’m-just-going-to-fall-asleep-in-your-lap-don’t-mind-me on the subway, but I had no idea what kind of timber ft Pitbull was going down in the workplace.

The company I worked for treated men and women almost perfectly equally- the ratio of female:male managers was pretty even and their wages were the same. The only difference was that the women’s shirts had waaay less buttons which left our necks more exposed and exemplified the huge colour difference between my orange foundation and chalk white neck. Oh and we didn’t get ties. As someone who blady loves a tie, this sucked. But, as much as I don’t want to justify their tailoring, these differences are so engrained in society that the company probably doesn’t even realise there’s anything wrong with them. So I’ll let that one lie. 

Go Burn Your Bridge

A post titled so perfectly that in a single pun it can summarise how I’m about to simultaneously talk about feminism and never get a job at any newspaper. Ever. In fact tbh I might as well forget a career in journalism because I seem to have slagged off everything that’s ever been printed- apart from Elizabeth Wurtzel- and soon I’ll have no other option but to apply for work at Poundland where I can give all my friends a staff discount on the Fruitella and then confuse everyone when I say “that’s 50p please” because darling decimals don’t belong in Poundland. I mean, that’s just like, the rules of feminism.

This past month I’ve been trying to write a 2,000 word essay about the F-word for Newnham College which sounded really easy until I realised Newnham is in Cambridge, as in the Cambridge. Cambridge Cambridge. Upon this realisation I had to cross out all the inappropriate vagina jokes and Fetty Wap references, so now all I’m left with are a few ideas being pushed around my plate like broccoli stems (because realistically no one eats the stems) (except the vegans), however it’s not all bad. In the absence of words, I’ve done lots of research, read plenty of articles and painfully scrolled through thousands of comments, until I realised: newspapers hate feminists. I wrote a post similar to this before about the general public but I didn’t realise the people bringing up factual news would fall the same way.

Happy Nudes Year

Just when I thought we’d made it through 2015 without too much interruption from the meninists of the world, I am introduced to someone expecting me to wish him a happy nudes year. It got me thinking about how, despite most of us seeing similar screenshots on Buzzfeed and Tumblr, you never expect the sassy feminist replies to be coming from you. So a rather unplanned addition to the blog this week: The Many Stages of Social Media Misogyny

The preparation: Meninists could appear at any time and, although it feels weird essentially bulling people you’ve never met in order to defend yourself, sometimes you’ve just got to grab yourself a glass of soya milk, readjust your bra straps and woman up. (If that fails to empower you, maybe do some Sudoku puzzles to warm up your brain or something.)

The bit where you check they’re not a troll: This is the part where you manically scroll through their Twitter feed to make sure they’re at least vaguely sane; in this case he’d retweeted some we-would-rather-gauge-our-eyes-out-than-have-Trump-as-President campaign so I thought he was a safe zone, especially because it started with him asking me about feminism. Even if you come to wrong conclusion (which, spoiler alert, you probably will) it always feels better to check.

The bit where it suddenly gets weird:

That’s a Rap: Part 2

A few months ago- never thought I’d say that, it’s probably a sign that I should quit while my dedication’s still intact- I posted a post about the subliminal misogyny in the music industry, or more specifically, in rap music. You can find that post HERE. I don’t listen to a lot of rap, probably because when I see the names Tyga and Pitbull I think I’m on the RSPCA website not the iTunes charts and exit in a blind panic to go and find Adele’s new album aka real music elsewhere, so last time when I forced myself to listen to and analyse 10 rap tracks for my blog my ears genuinely bled a little bit. But what changed? Well Teamales, it’s rather simple: Fetty Wap. Now I really can’t explain why I feel like every ‘yeahhhh baby’ is addressed to me personally, but I do and this has left my internal struggle at an all-time high because, as those of you familiar with his music will recognise, he’s not the most respectful to the part of the population without penii. Every time one of his songs comes on my emotional confliction is triggered, half of me is all ‘Fetty don’t treat women like that!’ but then the bit that shuts up and dances is like Fetty PLEASE can I be your trap queen. And so because of this, I am motivated enough to write about rap again. But bear with all the stupid rapper names- I can’t pronounce them either.

679 Fetty Wap ft. Monty