The problem with the world today is...
The problem with the world today is...
The freedom to choose not to discriminate and the importance of free expression.
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My son officially became a teenager recently. He is growing up and trying to figure out what it means to be a man in today's society. The main thing that he's learning at the moment is that it means to be discriminated against. To be labelled the bad guy before he's even fully grown, let alone decided what actions he wants to take in life. This both saddens and angers me.
I will fully admit that I am not particularly well educated around the history and detailed tenets of feminism. However, the dictionary definition of a feminist is an advocate of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. As such, I have always considered myself a feminist as these are principles I heartily agree with and will stand up for where necessary. I watched and applauded as women around the world who were victims of atrocious actions by particular men sought and obtained justice. The Me Too movement that exploded in 2017 in response to the exposure of sexual abuse by the American film producer, Harvey Weinstein, raised awareness around the ongoing sexual harassment and abuse of women in some workplaces. It sparked a cathartic throwing off of the blanket of silence that had lain over the suffering of many women at the hands of some men. It also lifted the lid on how sexism is still alive and kicking in modern society, despite the huge progress we have made since the early 1900’s, when suffragettes fought to get at least some women over the age of 30 the right to vote in the UK.
But, since then I have watched, appalled, as the momentum gathered by the Me Too movement has been squandered on simply tarring all men with the same brush. As modern ‘feminists' replaced the word sexism (discrimination on grounds of sex) with misogyny (discrimination against women) and seemed to forget about the quest for equality in the process. As they took on the role of angry victims railing at being offended by the opinions of some backwards-thinking men, instead of being empowered and determined change-makers fighting for real progress. As they loudly spew toxic rhetoric aimed at persuading people that every single man is a misogynist and a potential rapist by dint of their genetics, and that any woman that disagrees with that opinion is suffering from internalised mysogyny. As they ridicule and dismiss any man brave enough to speak out about the damaging impact these attitudes are having on men's mental health.
The constant narrative we hear now, that everything wrong with the lives of women is the fault of men, is incredibly toxic and damaging. There is no doubt that sexism was built into many societies right from the start. There is also no doubt that it is hard and slow work to remove that sexism and that this work is by no means finished. But, if women had been in charge at the founding of our societies, can we honestly say with certainty that they would not have shaped those societies to suit women better than men? Blaming people alive today for the mistakes and attitudes of their forbears is unfair and not constructive. And it utterly discounts the very real progress that has already been made in shifting the attitudes of men towards women. During my Mum’s lifetime and my own, it has become legal and widely accepted for women to wear trousers, to have a bank account in their own name, to obtain a mortgage, to enter into a pub without an accompanying man, to be paid at the same hourly rate as a man for the same job - things that modern women can quite rightly take for granted. Yet, instead of building on that progress through rational debate, the rhetoric from these new ‘feminists’ sounds to me, and to my growing son, like sour grapes and a determination to make the perceived oppressor the oppressed. This vindictive approach to modern ‘feminism’ is in danger of making further progress grind to a halt while everyone considers themselves a victim and lashes out at each other.
My son and I have fairly frequent debates about these issues. He inhales videos by angry women declaring themselves as feminists and by equally angry men defending their gender against their attacks, trying to work out who is telling ‘the truth'. I try to explain that feminism is not about hating men, it is about equality, and that we still need feminists as there are injustices remaining that need to be resolved. Like the fact that looking after children and running a household are only considered valid jobs worth paying for if you are looking after someone else’s children, or someone else’s house. And that it is still mainly women doing these unpaid jobs for their own families. Which means that although women now get paid the same rate as men in a paid job, they may still never earn as much as a man, or indeed progress as far in their chosen career as a man - unless they pay someone else to look after their children and run their household. And how this disparity then impacts on the size of women’s pensions and their quality of life in retirement. Or, like the fact that, somehow, the US Government was allowed to remove a woman’s longstanding right to have an abortion before a specified point in her pregnancy. Despite it being the 21st century, with women voters, and reams of scientific evidence on why, medically, this was a really bad idea.
Resolving issues like these is where we really need to be focusing feminist efforts in western societies. Simply getting women’s rights in other parts of the world up to the standards we in the west are lucky to live with is a huge and ongoing task. Yet these vocal modern ‘feminists', according to the video evidence my son and I have seen, appear more concerned with making sweeping generalisations about the character and intent of men, with levelling constant accusations that men inflict widespread violence and microaggressions against women, and with being generally offended by anything manly. There is no indication that these women even understand the progress that has been made already in women’s rights, let alone how they intend to build on that progress.
The term feminazi was suggested in one video that my son and I watched together, by a reasonable man who considered himself a feminist. I thought that this was very apt. In my mind, where feminists advocate for increasing women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes, feminazis advocate for the destruction of mens rights, including the right for all individual men to be considered on their own merit as a human being, and the right for some of them to express offensive opinions if they so wish. I choose to believe that ‘true’ feminists still exist. Unfortunately our more sane and reasonable voices seem to be being successfully shouted over, if not entirely muted by the ‘internalised mysogyny’ card constantly played by the feminazis.
Alongside and intertwining with this increasingly sour battle of the sexes are disturbing developments where free speech is being conflated with hate speech. Modern ‘feminists’ and some other movements, particularly around racism and gender, appear to be ignoring the fact that changing a whole society's attitudes needs time and open debate as well as action. There is an increasingly loud clamouring of demands for ‘moderation’ (censoring) of the expression of ‘wrong’ opinions and ‘cancelling' (boycotting) of anyone holding a ‘wrong’ opinion that appals and frankly terrifies me.
Free speech is about having the right to express an opinion, whatever it might be. We have the right to say what we think, to share information, and to demand (what we think is) a better world. We also have the right to agree or disagree with those in power, and to express these opinions in peaceful protests. Exercising these rights – without fear or unlawful interference – is central to living in an open and fair society; one in which people can access justice and enjoy their human rights (Amnesty International).
Hate speech advocates, incites, promotes or justifies hatred, violence and discrimination against a person or group of persons for a variety of reasons (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance). It is speech, writing or behaviour that attacks or uses pejorative (expressing contempt or disapproval) or discriminatory language about a person or a group on the basis of their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity (UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech).
Exactly where we draw the line between free speech and hate speech has not yet been defined. It may never be legally defined in whole. But slowly, as we put in place laws criminalising specific acts of discrimination against specific categories of people, parts of that line are made clearer. Individual men expressing their own opinion that women can't drive, or should always be the one to stay at home to raise the kids (obviously ‘wrong’ in my opinion) break no laws and, in my opinion, are not undertaking hate speech. Neither, in my opinion, are people expressing their views that trans women are not ‘real’ women, or that someone with autism needs to be cured, or that black people are more likely to be criminals, or that Muslims are more likely to be terrorists. These are simply people expressing opinions in accordance with our human right to free expression, as enshrined in Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The fact that I, and many others, consider these opinions ‘wrong’ does not mean that we have the right to prevent them from being expressed.
Expression, in whatever format, indicates thought. Removing people's ability to express what they think does not stop them thinking it. It does, however, remove any chance of changing their minds through rational debate.
Editing previous works of expression, be they books, statues or films, to white-wash history by tippexing out attitudes that have been outgrown does not change the fact that we once held those attitudes. It does not undo the mistakes we made in the past or the damage inflicted by them. Making past attitudes and mistakes invisible does, however, make them easy to forget. It removes our ability to learn from our mistakes. It edits out the very thought processes and experiences that our society went through in order to come to our more enlightened position. And when fight for real change seems at it’s hardest, it removes our ability to look back and be encouraged by how far we have come.
Allowing free speech inherently means that we allow people to express opinions that many of us fundamentally disagree with. Our goal, at least in a modern, open minded and forward thinking democracy, should be to change outdated opinions through education, evidence and debate. Not to silence them. Silencing opinions simply pushes them underground, where they ferment and grow in strange and potentially dangerous directions without any outside influence. I suspect that it is no coincidence that the growth of the incel movement has occurred alongside the growth of a modern ‘feminist’ movement that paints all men as irredeemable misogynists and attempts to silence any opinions to the contrary. We need to pursue long lasting change through understanding, compassion, patience and debate. Not through simply becoming a different version of what we dislike.
How, as a society, we address the balance of allowing free speech while guarding against hate speech is hugely important. More so even than resolving any issues we have around sexism, racism, transphobia, homophobia, or any other -ism or -phobia that we may develop in the future. Those calling for ever increasing censorship simply because they find the opinions of some people offensive are actually calling for us to voluntarily erode the very base on which a democratic society sits. Censorship replaces reality with a false narrative that is decided on by the people in charge of the censorship. It fundamentally affects the information available to us on which we form our opinions, and on which we base our debates. And it therefore fundamentally impacts on how we move forward as a society. This is precisely why those in charge of non-democratic regimes strictly control the flow of information to their populations, and what opinions it is permitted to express. If we give in to these calls for censorship, who gets to decide what the false narrative should be? And how much of reality and of our past should they be allowed to whitewash in order to manipulate the future direction of our society? This way madness lies…
Addressing hate speech does not mean limiting or prohibiting freedom of speech. It means keeping hate speech from escalating into something more dangerous, particularly incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence, which is prohibited under international law.”
— United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, May 2019
