About twenty years, I was a participant at a women writers’ conference in Israel. It was certainly one of the most memorable experiences in terms of the wonderful opportunity to visit places such as Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, and to meet some of the world’s most ardent feminist writers, including the late Marilyn French, author of the best-selling ‘The Woman’s Room’.

I remember a humorous incident when, during an interview by a good-looking young journalist with curly brown hair and beard, the interviewees, lusty women deprived of the company of men for a whole week, playfully jumped on him and tried to take off his shirt.

But I also remember an incident during the same conference, that was disconcerting because it showed the very unattractive side of feminism. In a concert hall, just before a performance by a famous pianist, a man in the audience was seen arguing with a woman over a seat. Three of the women writers sitting nearby promptly got up, made straight for him and roughly pushed him aside, without knowing the cause of the argument. He was a man, and therefore must be in the wrong. She was a woman, and therefore must be the victim.

This type of feminism has, ironically, become the very form of gender discrimination that the movement had set out to fight in the first place. Hence it is guilty of the very oppressor-oppressed relationship (now reversed) that it had so despised. As such, it is as unacceptable as the more common forms of discrimination in our society, including those based on race and religion.

Fortunately this virulent form of feminism which goes beyond the merely noisy symbolism of bra-burning and bar-gatecrashing is not widespread and is limited to a few isolated cases of sexual harassment by women in power, such as predatory female bosses, that we sometimes read about. But it continues to be manifested in milder forms, such as taking offence at men who go out of their way to open doors, offer to help with heavy parcels, give up their seats in buses, etc., where male courtesy is actually construed as male patronage. (I once saw a man holding the door for a young woman in a shopping centre, and looking both embarrassed and angry as she swept past him haughtily, nose in the air. I almost wanted to run after her and say sternly, ‘Hey, don’t spoil it for the rest of us!’)

When I am asked if I am a feminist, I dissociate myself, obviously, from this form of gender-based feminism, and readily ally myself with the New Feminism (‘New’, with a capital, being the most readily identifiable label for any philosophical system or political party that has re-invented itself to be in keeping with the times, such as ‘New Labour’).

But I actually prefer its other, less well-known name -’equity feminism’—for the emphasis on the fact that its fight for women’s rights is based on humanitarianism, pure and simple. The humanitarian impulse is an enduring force, whereas the victimization of women is a historical, hence contingent and changeable occurrence. This means that should the situation be reversed in the future, and men become the victims, the same humanitarian passion now directed against them should be re-directed towards their defence and protection.

Once, while I was browsing in a bookshop, a young man approached me and said rather reproachfully, ‘Are you against men? I get this impression from your novels!’ It would have been rather tedious explaining the difference between gender feminism and equity feminism, so I merely smiled and said, ‘No, I’m not against men at all. But I’m against cruelty which I saw a lot of, in the traditional, patriarchal society I grew up in. And so I write about it.

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About Vignettes...

A continuing flow of little, readable pieces that will constitute what I feel is an important 'legacy of values' to leave behind. Read more about Vignettes...