Photo by Flickr user Sugar Crisp. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Courtney Martin, writing in The New Statesman articulates why I think almost everybody who’s sure they know what feminism is needs to take another look:

My vision of feminism is defined by three major components: educated choice, genuine equality, and radical authenticity. Ask my friend Jessica or my pal Daniel and you will get slightly different answers, but you can bet that we’ll all be talking in the same general language and in the same philosophical country.

Educated choice: Both men and women need to have access to choices and, even more, they need to have the tools necessary to make good choices. It is not enough to just say that women should have access to abortions, for example. They also need to know all of their options and feel like they have a full understanding of the health risks and quality of life issues that each entails; they also need to have the economic provisions to make whichever choice fits their lives and values best.

Genuine Equality: We all deserve the same opportunities, the same access. This is a pretty straight forward concept in theory, but in practice, it is hellishly complicated. Take something like U.S. college admissions. Sure anyone can apply to Harvard, but not everyone comes from a family that can pay for an SAT tutor or has the cultural capital to encourage college. Until the U.S., and other western industrialized countries, recognize the way that networks and subtle class/race/gender dynamics influence supposedly non-discriminatory institutions, our work will not be done.

Radical authenticity: This facet of feminism gets talked about far too little in my opinion. A visionary twenty-first century feminism should aim to support both men and women to be their most authentic selves in the world, shedding prescribed gender roles and really getting in touch with their authentic desires, passions, and ethics. Feminist workplaces, for example, would nurture both men and women having present relationships with their children and fulfilling work lives. Men should be empowered to express a complex range of emotions, just as women must learn how to handle conflict healthily and assertively and take care of themselves, not just everyone else.

The most exciting thing about feminism, is that it is ultimately about leading more fulfilling, ethical, joyful lives, characterized by more healthy and genuine relationships. Who could argue with that?

She lays it out beautifully here.

To imagine feminism is still just a bunch of “bra burners” from the 1960s (an era when women were not allowed to buy a car or house or credit card without a custodial man’s signature) would be to imagine that “kids today” are all smoking banana peels and saying “groovy” without irony. In other words that was a very long time ago in a world that, culturally, is very far away.

Similarly, to imagine feminism is still just a bunch of stay-angry shaved-headed, hairy-armpitted “feminazi” separatists from the 1970s (an era when the the legal defense for a husband raping and beating his wife was still “it’s ok, Officer, she’s just my wife” and a prominent black-power leader said the only place for women in his organization was “on their backs”) would be to imagine that a five-megabyte computer hard drive was the size of a washing machine and cost eleven million dollars and nobody thought “Six Million Dollar Man” Steve Austin’s double-wide sideburns and shirt collars looked hokey. In other words that was a very long time ago in a world that, culturally, is very far away.

So take another look at Martin’s three pillars of feminism: educated choice for men and women; genuine equality and not just lowest-common-denominator-accounting unisex-bathroom parity; radical authenticity and not some kind of made-up crap about how women are just life-support systems for pussies and men are just wallets with feet. For instance.

Anything in there about hating sex? Um, no, that would be an artifact of the anti-feminist “no-sex” class paradigm. Anything in there about women hating men? Nope. I mean sure, a lot of women hate men and some of those women are even feminists, but far, far, far more anti-feminists female and male hate men. (At worst, as Amanda Marcotte puts it, if feminists have higher expectations of men it’s because they have more faith and love for them than anti-feminist culture grants us.) Anything in there about hating other women who like porn, who give “Teh Blowjob,” wear lipstick, or party hearty? Nope. I mean, sure, some feminists hate that stuff, especially in cases where it’s pretty clear that practitioners don’t recognize they have a choice in the matter, but far, far more non-feminists, men and women, hate that stuff every bit as much.

Seriously! Take a look at that list. There’s nothing there that threatens men. There’s nothing there that “defeminizes” women. There’s nothing there about unisex bathrooms (not essential to genuine equality anyway) Burning bras (not radical authenticity anyway.) Shaving or not shaving armpits or legs (not educated choice anyway.)

Anyway, next time you find yourself starting a sentence with “I’m not a feminist but…” or “except Teh Feminists hate it when you…” or any sentence containing the word “feminazis” then stop for a minute and ask yourself… is that still true? Has it ever been true? Is that belief held only by feminists or do equal or greater numbers of non-feminists believe that as well?

The bottom line, though, is that yeah, women will be infinitely better off with feminists than non-feminists but so will men.

(Via Hugo Schwyzer.)