We Should Probably Stop Teaching Kindergarten Feminism

Once upon a time, in a mythical land of equality, I had hoped that publicly branding myself as an active feminist would lead to intelligent conversation, answering people’s questions, and discussing the interesting complexities of oppressive societies. What a lovely fantasy. In reality, a lot of my time and energy is spent defending the rock bottom basics of gender equality against people - especially men - who continually miss the point of feminism. It’s a real struggle to get the message across sometimes, and almost every feminist has been in a position when they’ve felt the need to water down feminist concepts to try and reach out to especially close-minded people. This over-simplified version has been dubbed “kindergarten feminism”, and popular phrases include:

“feminism is just the same as equalism”

“men are just as important to feminism as women”

“don’t worry, we’re for men’s equality too!”

The problem with kindergarten feminism is that it misrepresents what feminism is truly about. It doesn’t leave room for ideas about the diversity, the complexity, and the uniqueness of women’s rights, and ends up spreading harmful misconceptions about feminism. Often people feel that the way to reach men is to make feminism more geared towards them, by shifting the focus away from specifically women and onto “all people". This kind of message completely undermines the most empowering aspect of feminism: that it is a movement for those who need it, from those who need it. For women, by women. Of course men are important allies; we need and respect men who fight for feminism, but that doesn’t mean men are automatically entitled to lead the movement on our behalf, or that men’s issues are given the same airtime and weight as women’s.

The argument supporting kindergarten feminism is that we need to be prepared to make certain sacrifices in order to get people to listen in the first place, and from there we can properly educate them. This is a very legitimate point as often the hardest step is to get people to simply start to listen, and then it’s easier from there. However this is not without its flaws. The reason this kind of feminism is “effective” is because it’s easy for men to swallow, as opposed to the harsh reality of the truth. People don’t particularly want their privilege to be challenged, and rather than men feeling empowered to learn more past the entry level, they carry their feminist badge whilst spreading incorrect messages. Certainly, these men usually have the best intentions and are truly trying to help, but the fact is we have to be extra vigilant about male feminists, as opposed to females. Why? Our lovely society is built in such a way that men’s voices are heard louder, clearer, and more reliably than women’s. Throughout history we have seen amazing women fight for their rights and make incredibly insightful speeches, yet they are not recognised until a man validates their message. And since society pays more attention to men, the minute a man says something incorrect about feminism, much more harm is inflicted than if a woman was to repeat the same fallacy. So when we have the majority of our male allies supporting watered-down, untruthful versions of feminism, that message spreads faster and more effectively than the more constructive, complex counterpart. Moreover, teaching kindergarten feminism takes the empowerment and triumphant euphoria from the educator. It’s exhausting and deflating to whittle down an ideology that is often the fuel for many women’s optimism, strip it of its true meaning, and present it to a system that bastardises your words. Sometimes it just feels like the ultimate defeat.

And so we come to yet another Ultimate Question: should we teach kindergarten feminism in the hope of a larger male ally base, at the risk of spreading a false, disempowering message?

At the end of the day, feminism in all its complexity and multi-faceted purpose is a difficult concept to understand and accept. It challenges what we are taught to assume, and attacks the toxic structures which some people have grown comfortably into. It’s completely understandable that it is especially difficult for men to don the title of “feminist”, and to help us work against a system that often benefits them. But a policy of appeasement to egg this behaviour on is so easily counter-productive, and very likely not worth the extra manpower (literally, “man-power”).

Well. What d’ya reckon?

Hannah