The woman in the West faces a major dilemma: no contemporary political force is advocating for her interests. One side wants to abolish her rights, while the other wants to erase her name. The conservative right wants to strip her of the right to abortion, sexuality, and freedom of movement. The liberal left, on the other hand, argues that there are no women at all, wants to open women’s sports and female prisons to men, and has launched a campaign to remove the word “woman” from public documents, replacing it with terms like “uterus-bearer.” The most recent attempt to remove the word “woman” from the Swedish abortion law—fortunately stopped—is just one example.
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Not only do both sides oppose feminism, they don’t even recognize its existence as an independent ideology. In the eyes of the conservative right, we are “cultural Marxists” responsible for society’s decay. In the eyes of the liberal left, we are “far-right” and “exclusive” if we don’t center men and their needs. Both accuse us of being the other side. No side acknowledges classical feminism as its own autonomous position. This makes it almost impossible to debate women’s issues at all. Just try saying “Women have the right to abortion,” and one side will shout “baby killer!” while the other will shout “not only women have abortions!”
Faced with this two-front war, some feminists have felt compelled to choose sides. Those who choose the liberal left are allowed a certain freedom of movement as long as they don’t organize as women and as long as they prioritize other groups. Their role in the movement becomes nearly maternal—they are to care for and nurture everyone else but without thinking of themselves. “It doesn’t matter,” the progressive woman might think, “What’s in a name, after all?”
The thing is, a name is everything. What would Black Lives Matter have been without the word “Black”? That’s right—a watered-down All Lives Matter. Every oppressed group needs to know what it’s called, because without a name, it’s impossible to organize. Without a name, the oppressed group exists in itself but not for itself, to borrow from Marx. If you remove the word “woman,” you remove the very possibility of fighting back and, consequently, cannot organize against the right-wing attacks on abortion rights.
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The consequence is that women’s issues are subordinated to other political ideologies and cease to be an independent force. This is what is so devastating, because the women’s issue cuts across all political parties, countries, ages, and backgrounds. The women’s issue exists because women exist. We are not a minority, we are half the world’s population. Every human who has ever existed was born of a woman. Gender is the single biggest factor determining what a woman’s life will be like in most countries in the world. This is not a small matter to get caught up on.
Source: Kajsa Ekis Ekman: There is a two-front war against the women
