F-word

CONTENTS (sample follows)

Chapter 1 Women Are People. What!?

Chapter 2 The P Word, More Precisely

THE POWER TO DEFINE

Chapter 3 Equivalent to Equality

DOUBLE STANDARDS

FEMINIST DEFINITIONS

SEXISM, PRIVILEGE BLINDNESS, MANSPLAINING, REVERSE SEXISM, DIRECT SEXISM, INDIRECT SEXISM, MICROAGGRESSIONS, BENIGN SEXISM, GENDER/GENDER ROLES

Chapter 4 Job Opening

Woman Needed for Invisible and Unpaid Work 24/7

HOUSEWORK, ORGANISATIONAL WORK, CARE WORK, EMOTIONAL LABOUR, DOUBLE DUTY

Chapter 5 A Real Man

TESTS OF MANHOOD

Chapter 6 What Poisons Boys

TOXIC MASCULINITY

FEMINIST DEFINITIONS

MISOGYNY, MANOSPHERE, INCELS, NICE GUY^TM, BAD BOY, SCHRÖDINGER’S DOUCHEBAG, PICK-UP ARTIST

Chapter 7 Feminine and Masculine Are Always under Construction

FEMININE APPROPRIATION / CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

Chapter 8 But Aren’t There Differences between Men and Women?

UNCONSCIOUS BIAS

Chapter 9 The Historical Damage Wrought by the Patriarchy Hasn’t Gone Away

THE MADONNA/WHORE COMPLEX, SLUT-SHAMING, THE MALE GAZE

FEMINIST DEFINITIONS

ANTI-FEMINISM, WHATABOUTTHEMENZ, STRAW FEMINIST, #NOTALLMEN

Chapter 10 Feminism’s Progress – The Patriarchy’s Setbacks

SUFFRAGETTES, BLUESTOCKINGS, REDSTOCKINGS, BACKLASH

Chapter 11 History without Women

Chapter 12 Science vs Women

ANDROCENTRIC BIAS, EXPERIMENTER BIAS, THE PYGMALION EFFECT, CONFIRMATION BIAS

Chapter 13 Feminists Are Inherently Predisposed to Laugh at Research

Chapter 14 Feminism Finally Says Enough with the Nature-Nurture Debate

FEMINIST DEFINITIONS

GASLIGHTING, CASTING DOUBT / DEMANDING PROOF, SEALIONING

Chapter 15 We’re Stuck with the Patriarchy from Birth

EARLY SEXISM, MALE ENTITLEMENT, THE ENTITLEMENT GAP

Chapter 16 Making Space for Girls and Women

THE BECHDEL TEST, TOKENISM, TOKEN WOMEN

Chapter 17 Feminism Is a Different Fairy Tale

FEMINIST DEFINITIONS

TONE POLICING, THE VICTIM CARD, THE SMURFETTE PRINCIPLE, STICKING YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR EARS AND GOING LALALA

Chapter 18 The Invisible Feminine Body – and Even More Invisible Desire

THE ORGASM GAP

Chapter 19 The Body as Battleground

FEMINIST DEFINITIONS

DARVO, VICTIM BLAMING, THE NOTION OF THE PERFECT VICTIM

Chapter 20 All-Encompassing Violence

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

FEMINIST DEFINITIONS

RAPE CULTURE, TOO UGLY TO RAPE, CORRECTIVE RAPE

Chapter 21 Feminine Rage

Chapter 22 Resistance

Chapter 23 Your Turn, Sis

This is a book about feminism. If you don’t want to read a book about feminism, then you should probably put this aside. Seriously. I’d never try to dictate what you should do, but let me just repeat that this is a book about feminism.

Feminism.

Femiiiii-fantastic-nism.

If that’s a word that tends to stick in your gullet like a free-floating pube, then it’s better for the both of us if you get stuck into that new crime novel instead. You know – the one with the serial killer who rapes and murders women, and the taciturn, divorced policeman with alcohol issues. I think that’s more your sort of book. No hard feelings.

If you’re still reading: welcome!

You are exactly the person this book was written for. Because it’s a book about feminism … I think I mentioned that.

The F Word is for you if you want to know what feminism is and what you’re supposed to do with it.

I’ve written The F Word because I’m so FUCKING TIRED OF

‘Why does it have to be called feminism?’

‘I’m all for equality but I’m no feminist, oh good Lord no.’

‘Feminists are a bunch of ugly, shrill, angry *insert your prejudice here* man-haters.’

‘Why can’t it be called humanism or egalitarianism?’

‘If it’s about equality for everybody, then why does the word start with femi?’

‘Feminism just isn’t that inclusive of me as a man.’

‘Femi sounds like it’s only about women?’

‘Feminists don’t want equality, they want to promote women to the disadvantage of men …’

‘… why else is it called feminism, eh? Eh?’

THE SHORT ANSWER

IT’S CALLED FEMINISM BECAUSE IT’S THE FEMININE THAT IS OPPRESSED

Kind of like how it’s called hand gel because it’s gel you put on your hands, and it’s called earwax because it’s wax that grows inside your ears.

If it was called hand wax or ear gel, that would be something else entirely. This is how language works. (And if you want gel to stuff down your ears or wax to smear over your hands, then you’ve got problems beyond the scope of this book.)

THE LONG ANSWER

Obviously there’s a slightly longer answer to why it’s called feminism, and that’s why this book doesn’t stop here but continues for another 319 pages about what feminism is – and isn’t –, what feminists want to achieve, and of course a little bit about what it will take.

But before I launch into the long answer, I need to say that what really drives me up the wall is the supposedly well-intentioned ‘oh, let’s just call it egalitarianism instead of feminism, so everybody can get on board’ *spoken in a didactic fancy-pants voice*.

Do these people approach other things that way too? Do they open the medicine cabinet, look at the Paracetamol and aspirin and go, ‘But why does painkiller have the word “pain” in it? It’s a tablet everybody can take, so why don’t we just call it the Everybody Tablet. Why does it have to have “pain” in the word – it sounds like it’s only about pain.’

Because when you’re in pain, you don’t take diarrhoea tablets or dishwasher tablets or a tablet computer. You take painkillers. Just as you take a course of feminist therapy when you want to fix the social disease caused by the excessive lionisation of masculinity.

This is why feminism couldn’t ‘just as well’ be called humanism or Bob or earthworm or egalitarianism – particularly because the latter is a hopeless word that only a few people can pronounce, and we need a word everybody can say if we’re going to overthrow habits that are thousands of years old.

The goal of feminism is to stop everything considered feminine being underpaid, oppressed, invisible and de-normalised. So we’re not exactly off to a great start if we erase the femi bit from the movement that’s working to make it more visible!

If people are against the word femi(nism), it’s simply because they haven’t grasped that making ‘the feminine’ visible is what feminism is about.

Or maybe they’ve grasped it all too well …

FEMINISM IS CRITIQUE, NOT IDEOLOGY

The F Word is my attempt to say something comprehensive about feminism. Although there are many good books on the topic, they typically only address certain elements of the feminist struggle – beauty ideals, sexism, the roles of mothers or husbands – and not the core problem itself: that ‘the feminine’ is oppressed.

In other words, we’re trying to put forward solutions to a problem we’re not talking about.

The core problem is basically that because ‘the feminine’ has lower status than ‘the masculine’, everything women contribute to the economy, art, history, science, the family and relationships is considered less significant than that which men contribute. (Hence why there is no need to make sure women are properly represented.)

At the same time, men distance themselves from doing ‘feminine’ work and expressing ‘feminine’ feelings. In fact, many women do too. Because there is more status – and therefore more privilege – involved in doing and expressing ‘the masculine’.

The consequences of this inequality can be found everywhere in society: from how workloads are organised to orgasms in double beds. In human terms, the consequences are insecurity, feelings of inadequacy and unfulfilled needs, to say nothing of shame and self-loathing. On an interpersonal level, the consequences are a lack of empathy and stunted emotional skills – and violence, rape, conflict and war.

Feminism is about removing this inequality by giving ‘the feminine’ a boost – and, at certain points, doing the opposite for ‘the masculine’ – so that people can achieve genuine equality.

Some feminists would like to skip that step and immediately do away with all distinctions between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’.

They say, ‘Who says boys can’t wear nail polish? Of course they can.’

My claim, however, is that because we still haven’t confronted the core problem, the inequality between ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ keeps rearing its ugly head in new ways. Even if girls and boys both use nail polish.

Because then nail polish will either become something that’s only cool if boys wear it – while girls will be called conceited sluts if they do wear it and lazy if they don’t, or they will be completely ignored, even if their nail art is much better than the boys’.

Or nail polish for boys will be marketed as Thunder Blood Blue Violent NOT GIRLY Nail Polish.

This is how our current system ensures that ‘the feminine’ remains low status. And that’s why feminism is first and foremost about dealing with this issue.

The F Word is a book about the problem that ‘the feminine’ is low status. Unfortunately, I don’t have a simple shake-and-bake solution to this. If there was one easy solution, we wouldn’t be here discussing gender again and again and again.

And to pile on a bit of extra frustration, I can’t even offer you a tidy Marie Kondo-esque list of what feminists today think should be prioritised first. Because feminism is a very fragmented movement.

If you’ve been paying attention for the last ten or … hundred and fifty years, you’re bound to have seen feminists clashing over various interpretations of what ‘real’ feminism is. It’s become commonplace to say that there are many feminisms. I disagree.

There is one feminism. But there are many feminists.

All feminists bring their own ideologies and idiosyncrasies with them to feminism, just as all feminists offer everything from solid solutions to overreactions triggered by trauma. Feminists are people, fallible and shaped by the age in which we each live.

But feminism is critique, not ideology!

Even though feminists have suggestions – often very different ones – about what a good society might look like, feminism is not an end goal. The end goal of feminism is to remove the need for itself.

The day there is full equality between ‘the feminine’ and ‘the masculine’, between all genders and all sexualities, feminism will shut up shop and take a permanent holiday to Crete.

I don’t expect this will be in my lifetime. Maybe it will be in my great-great-step-grandchildren’s lifetimes. It’s not an unrealistic goal, but we are – as you will see – up against habits that reproduce sexism because sexism is the first thing we learn in this world.

Feminism is the belief that it is possible to learn something else: to create another world. One that is equal.

Opponents of feminism often say it’s an impossible project, because ‘there just are differences between men and women’, and ‘gender isn’t fluid’.

Which would be a very entertaining interpretation of sexism if it wasn’t so bloody tragic: there are differences between men and women because we create differences!

And gender is fluid, but feminism didn’t invent that. Nor did transactivism, Harry Styles, or people who don’t bother colour-coordinating their baby’s clothes with its genitals. Gender has been fluid for as long as people have walked on two legs.

Historically and culturally, ‘the masculine’ and ‘the feminine’ have constantly been defined and redefined according to whatever those in power assign high and low status.

When feminists come on the scene and say we want to do away with that difference in status, it’s taken as though we want to make gender fluid or make men and women identical or whatever.

But really, we only want to do away with the fact that ‘feminine’ continues to be viewed as a contaminating slur that can ruin virtually anything – from moisturisers to primary schools.

‘The feminine’ and ‘the masculine’ are not – and have never been – fixed values. That is more or less what this book is about. The F Word is a fundamentally critical look at how we value gender – and that we do so in pretty much every aspect of life.

You can read the book from cover to cover, but you can also dip into the chapters in whatever order you like. (And from page 327, you can add your own femifantastic notes.)

It all comes back to the same problem: that the ‘truths’ that have existed about gender in everything from science and art, politics and the labour market to relationships and child-rearing are permeated by the reality that ‘the masculine’ has always been valued more highly.

I believe that the only way to change something fundamental is to become aware of what you think, say and do, so The F Word is about dragging what’s been left unsaid into the light and giving it a name.

Along the way I will be adding in a whole boatload of wide-ranging FEMINIST DEFINITIONS, because it’s only once we have a common language for what’s going on that we can talk about it.

And if we’re talking about it, we’re already winning the battle.

Enjoy the book. And fight the good fight!

Sanne Søndergaard

Aarhus, 2021