The Capitalization of Victimization

I am the victim of our patriarchal society. I have the misfortune of being born into the lower caste of modern society, born a woman at the close of the twentieth century. I am crushed under the weight of the abuse and oppression that has been heaped upon my foremothers since the beginning of time. I have been oppressed and the great white male owes me everything.

And so goes the foundation of modern feminism. As I researched and crammed feminist theory and essays for this issue, I began to sense an undercurrent in these writings that made me uneasy. The older writings were full of empowerment and encouragement, the dawn of a new era and hope for the future. More modern, popular feminist writings seem to have lost this optimistic demeanor and replaced it with one of self pity.

I spent an entire afternoon with one of these offending volumes, unfortunately titled "Listen UP: The Voices of A New Feminist Generation", edited by Barbara Findlen. It seems that the voices of the new feminist generation are those of helpless whining victims.

The book contains twenty-five or so offerings from young women discussing their horrifying experiences with victimization. While I agree that catharsis in writing and sharing feelings is an important first step healing trauma, the next step shouldn't be to place blame on others (the great white males of our society.) The prevailing tone of these writings was "pity me, the life of a young woman is so wrought with hardship." I do not agree that because I am a woman, I have the right to complain more loudly about injustice that the other half of the human race. As a feminist, I recognize that my struggles are just a part of the whole struggle of humanity. I am a feminist because I am strong and I stand up for my rights as a human being. After reading these essays, I felt that my "feminism" was invalidated because I had not been gang-raped, molested, hospitalized because of an eating disorder, discriminated against because of my sexual orientation or otherwise abused because of my gender. I even momentarily believed that my own experience with an unwanted pregnancy and subsequent abortion was abnormal because I had "survived" it with a healthy and positive attitude.

One of the essays in the book is actually entitled "I Am Not A Survivor." If that doesn't make me proud to be a feminist, I don't know what does.

To place the blame for our misfortunes as women upon the "patriarchal society" or "white males" is actually an act of dis-empowerment. This belief encourages us to give up responsibility, for what can we do to further ourselves individually if womankind en masse is being prosecuted? It's the easy way out.

Feminism is usually defined as the belief in that which empowers women. From the mission statement of National Organization of Woman (1967), feminism is "the proposition that woman, first and foremost, are human beings, who, like all other people in our society, must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential. We believe that women can achieve equality only by accepting to the full the challenges and responsibilities they share with all other people in our society,"

The last part of that quotation contains the sentiment that seems to have gotten lost in the translation over the past twenty years. Somewhere along the way it has become fashionable in the world of feminism to portray ourselves as victims. Rather than accepting the responsibility ourselves, to act, we take the passive position, waiting for our "oppressors" to make amends. Maybe the logic to this approach lies in the fact that the feminist movement has gotten us practically nothing in the past twenty years except for a lot of press. Nearly 75 percent of working women earn less than 20,000 dollars a year, the average female college graduate earns less than the average male with only a high school education, woman's reproductive rights are more in jeopardy than they were even five years ago. (These facts are from Susan Fauldi's book entitled "Backlash.") Perhaps this capitalization of victimization is Plan B for the woman's revolution, formulated in case Plan Assertiveness didn't work out.