Advocacy is a One-Way Street

The word “feminism”—just the word alone—establishes a bias inherently. From the outset, this word insinuates an adversarial relationship with men and naturally draws loyalists who would bear witness to such a scenario. Unavoidably it will attract a certain number who feel this “adversity” with especial keenness, often to an extreme.

The speakings and writings of most of the movement’s highest thought leaders have had a strongly and consistently anti-male character. Read that again: I said anti-male, not simply pro-female. I would call none of these people obscure or marginal to the movement; in point of fact they are widely studied and cited.

All feminists inherit the intellectual legacy of the above-mentioned thought leaders, who have authored the principle texts of the movement, its bible if you will.

Feminism undertakes the especial task of advocating on behalf of women, as the word itself makes plain. If feminism were anything other than advocacy for women, it would require a different name. We should note, for example, that feminism does not call itself masculism.

I am not being silly. Feminism advocates expressly on behalf of women, and it does so under an appellative descriptor that has much in common with a flag. Repeat the word slowly and steadily, drawing out the syllables for sake of emphasis:

“FEMM-in-isssm...FEMM-in-isssm...FEMM-in-isssm...”.

Almost any project that the women’s movement undertakes in the realm of political action could just as well sail under its own colors; it need not be branded or co-branded as feminism. Typically it is, however. Feminism straps all the sticks into a bundle, in the grip of a unified theory and praxis.

Yes, it is accurate to assert that feminism “advocates on behalf of women”. That much is indisputable. Feminism occupies itself unstintingly on a ferret-like quest for new forms of “gender inequality”—be they real, imagined or simply defined into existence—and presses these discoveries into the service of the movement.

I cannot stress highly enough that feminism is an advocacy movement. Advocate is another word for lawyer, and remember what a lawyer does: Anything he can to advance his client's cause. An advocate is professionally one-sided; he does not try to paint a balanced picture.

Women constitute half the human race. The phrase “women’s advocacy” spotlights women as a class, which in turn implies (be it even mildly) an adversarial relationship with the other half, namely the male half. A thoroughbred feminist identifies foremost as female, and only secondarily as human. In consequence, all merely human aspects of earthly experience—what I would style the ecumenical human condition—undergo refraction through the lens of the female experience. The terms “feminism” and “women’s advocacy” engender a tension in our language. And since language is a pretty big part of life, that tension . . . spreads into the rest of life also.

The word “feminism” is divisive. One is entitled to wonder how a social movement with a gender-specific title could ever be anything other than sexist.

The very notion of “women's advocacy” packs an implied baggage of aggrievement and entitlement. Overall, it endows women with a conviction of being somehow “special”, as if their particular troubles were of a nature to set them apart from the turmoil of humanity as a whole. Whether such conviction has aught valid or sustainable about it should be a matter for open inquiry by all who might feel the weight of it in their lives. They have a natural right to such inquiry.