A Feminist Wife had a Genuine Concern.

Recently, I came across this question in an online portal that really tickled my pickle. A feminist wife had a concern over how pathetically ridiculous her sexist, misogynist husband’s views were. Luckily, the internet came to her rescue and told her exactly what to do. Read along to find out

Question:

“Hi, I have multiple questions. So my husband still isn’t on team feminist. He asked me the other day ‘why not just be an Equalist?’ and I didn’t know how to answer.

Another conversation we just had was about how colors define gender. I was saying it was made up by the patriarchy and then today while he was making dinner he put my apron on and he said I need to buy one for him a ‘manly’ one (because mine just happened to be pink). And I was trying to tell my daughter that colors don’t define gender and he disagreed. Help.”

Here’s what everyone on the Internet advised her.

• First I would ask him why he’s trying to perpetuate and enhance the patriarchy by dimming your voice and views. What does he accomplish by doing that?
• The true meaning of feminism is to be equal, but the patriarchy is so established that we need to call it feminism. The gender color thing is actually relatively new in society though. Purple used to be worn by royals. But no, colors have no gender. Colors are inanimate and we assign meaning to them by associating them with social constructs- mostly built by the patriarchy, but slowly being transitioned thanks to the LGBTQ community and their amazing colored flags.
• These kinds of men will acknowledge the power imbalance men, mostly, have had on women and POC for decades, while also crying “that’s unfair” when the balances shift at all against them. It’s literally the patriarchy deciding for us what they will “allow”, again. THEY want to decide what’s fair. Men have benefited from the patriarchy since the dawn of time and won’t “allow” a power imbalance unless they’re the ones benefiting from it. I could not deal with that behavior…
• That’s correct, colors don’t define gender. Women don’t need to wear makeup, dresses, or heels. Shoot we can even have a boyish haircut and we are still women. I’ve always had an issue with the color thing and other expectations of our gender. Since I was a little girl. Tell him that the color thing is going to turn your daughter against “Equalism”. With that being said. It’s true that men would ALSO like to be freed of their societal gender expectations. So maybe your man feels bound up by some of those still. It might help to look up the Socrates method and slyly try it with him to see what’s going on beneath the surface.
• Feminism is the movement advocating equality for decades! Using a different term like equalist takes away from that movement. Tell your husband to read up about feminism and social justice. It’s a shame people argue based on hearsay rather than actual facts. To start with, ask him to look up the definition of feminism on google.
• About colors – Again, historically pink was a “boy” color. This has changed over the years to what it is today. So, clearly, it’s all socially constructed. There’s no “masculine” genetic code for colors in a man’s body. Boys traditionally wore pink and girls wore blue until around World War II. Pink was considered the masculine color of the two. All children including little boys traditionally wore dresses until they were around 6 or 7 with long hair. We need to stop letting society dictate these ridiculous gender definitions. (Read about it here)

Learn about privilege by reading this article.