It’s probably fair to say that there’s been a considerable amount written and said in recent weeks and months, even years, about feminism. At some point the discussion inevitably intersects with victimhood.
What is the difference between being a feminist and playing the victim? Are they mutually exclusive or synonymous?
Reconciling victim status with feminism is something I’ve mulled over at length. Julie Bishop’s comments last week about the F-word and playing the victim card got me thinking about it again, as did her recent comments published in a magazine interview telling women to “stop whinging”.
Writing about gender inequality is often characterised as whinging. I’ve been asked, several times, how I can argue that I’ve ever been disadvantaged by virtue of being a woman.
On an individual level I am reluctant to argue that I have been. But. I am acutely aware that, collectively, there are legitimate, and unfortunately growing, gaps between men and women in Australia and those gaps affect me. In pay. In retirement. In the workplace. In government. That I’m affected by those gaps, directly and indirectly, isn’t the only reason I care but it is one reason I do.
Does that make me a victim? Does recognising those gaps and taking issue with them make me a whinger? Or does it make me someone with a legitimate concern about inequality? The answer to all of those questions is the same; it’s in the eye of the beholder.
If you don’t believe there are any gaps between men and women you will, of course, characterise any person’s attempts to identify them as false. If you don’t believe men and women occupy different footing, you will cast anyone who seeks to explain they do, as a victim. If you dismiss a person’s argument for gender equality as “whinging”, in effect you’re either saying their concerns are unfounded or they don’t matter.
In Australia it is difficult to mount a passable argument that gender inequality doesn’t exist. Having an organisation like the World Economic Forum documenting it so comprehensively makes it a little difficult to deny.
Unless you believe that women are worth substantially less than men or that women are substantially less qualified or suitable as men in senior roles, it’s impossible to argue that gender inequality doesn’t exist.
So if the concerns about inequality are founded but there are still people arguing that talking about them constitutes victim-playing, the more relevant question is this; why do you think it doesn’t matter?
Consider it this way. If one child was given one fifth of an apple and another child sitting at the same table got four fifths of the same apple what response would we expect? Would the first child have to argue for more? Or would they have to accept their share is just considerably smaller? If the first child asked for a more even share would they be called a whinger or a victim? Or simply assertive?
And what about the second child? If they’re being given a larger chunk for nothing why isn’t it up to them – or the powers that be – to at least explain why they need the bigger bit?
Why does wanting an equal bite of the apple make someone a victim? If that is the case though and kids who ask for more are to be characterised as whingers, at the very least, shouldn’t we expect those lucky kids who get four fifths of the apple to explain why they need it? What they can do with it? That’s not an argument or a topic I’ve heard discussed nearly enough.