The Penguin Epiphany

I had an epiphany of sorts today, as I read yet another yadda yadda yadda yawn angry rant against "angry feminists". It wasn’t an epiphany of the eureka variety, but I'll claim it nonetheless. With the proliferation in recent times of analyses of the “fem” word, I’d started to question the feminist movement(s), started to think, hells, maybe we are really a mob of frothing at the mouth man-haters, maybe we do need to rethink our purpose in life and mourn with regret the charred silks of our brassieres. Look, I’ll probably never be a radical feminist—and that’s more to do with my love of relativism than anything to do with the radfem agenda—but after my bathwater circling down the drain moment, I will keep calling myself just a regular Jen-shaped feminist.

What happened is this. After Anine Booysen and Reeva Steenkamp, the powers that be asked South Africa not just to be angry but to be outraged. To be disgusted. To call from the shady slopes of Table Mountain, “ENOUGH!” Fine. Then today I read the angry rant against angry feminists who have, rightly, been outraged at the treatment of the 16 year old woman raped in Steubenville, Ohio. Interestingly, the rant gave no response to the substance of the argument, it was more of the "why do you hate men so much, you probably just can't get laid" variety (I wish I could find it now, but no doubt if you google "angry feminist tirade" and read  the comments on whatever you find, you'll get the general idea). And I thought—as the dots began to sidle up to one another in my mind—huh. Hmm. Ok. So it’s fine to be angry and upset and even to condemn perpetrators of gender-based violence, right. That’s not the problem here. You can be, are expected to be really, an angry parent, schoolteacher, politician, whatever, it only becomes polemical when you’re an angry feminist, even though your anger is directed at exactly the same issue. Now see that’s just cray. So I started replacing the word “feminist” in that delightful diatribe with other labels and what do you know, the ant-feminist rant started sounding a little ridiculous (particularly when I replaced the word “feminist” with “penguin”. That one really made me chuckle.)

Having come to this realization, I thought to myself, fine, so if “angry” and “feminist” are separate concepts, what is their relationship? It seems like a lot of the haters like to think of anger as the main meal and feminism as the sauce, but actually hold the sauce. But I think feminism is less like the dressing on the salad, and more like the bowl in which it’s served. It gives the anger a shape, a purpose. And here’s a revolutionary tidbit; sometimes, just sometimes, it’s not anger.

“No!” you exclaim, “shut the front door!”

Ok, let me check the sarcastic feminist at said front door and describe instead how on Monday morning I was a happy feminist.

I was at an appreciation breakfast. The appreciator was an organization that runs the most fantastic small enterprise development training for women, and they were appreciating all of us in the audience who in some way contribute to their success (my students got a mention for the cultural exchange they do so well, bless them). Anyway, the staff and women of the organization told us all about the successes they’ve had in the last two years. It blew my mind. Collectively, over two years, about two hundred women have generated an income of around R 8.5 million through trading clothing and shoes. Over half of that is profit. They can pay off predatory loan sharks; they can afford better schools for their children. There were so many stories and so many stats and the two that stuck with me were: 64% of women completing the two-year training programme are no longer financially dependent on anyone for their children’s wellbeing and 48% of women report that they have left abusive relationships. Their leaving wasn’t because of financial independence alone, “we are more confident,” the women tell us, “we trust our own decisions now.”

If I were the religious sort I would’ve raised my arms to the fluorescent light above me and started speaking in tongues. As it happened, I just got a little teary and received a pat on the knee from a colleague sitting next to me. The oppression that women around the world suffer everyday, that some of the women at the breakfast suffer, deserves our outrage and our action. Similarly, the victories deserve our celebration. There is much to be angry about, but there is also much to sing and smile about. After the formal ceremony, I went up to some of the women to hear more of their stories; I didn’t probe, I just listened as the women told me about what they had achieved. Should I have asked them about their continued marginalization? Should I have told them of my anger at the injustices that continue to oppress them? It didn’t occur to me then. All I thought as one woman explained her business plan to open an old age home in Langa was: “Yay! Good for you!” I suspect (but won't assume) that like many feminists, sometimes I am angry and sometimes I am not. The ranting feminist haters would do well to remember the many facets of my humanness. They would do well to see the happy feminist, because yes, we do exist.

As a side-note, the organization really put on an excellent breakfast spread, and just try to be anything but happy while munching on a mini-croissant.