The term feminism often referred to as women’s rights has ambiguous definitions that are still being contested until now. Some writers used to refer to feminism as a historically feminist movement in the United States and in Europe that was solicitous about women’s rights specifically in their right to vote, while other writers might refer to feminism as the belief that there are unfair treatments against women. Most people of today mistake feminism for man-hating, making women the dominant gender and mainly focusing on the strength of women per se, which is definitely wrong because the absolute goal of feminism is gender equality to create a society wherein the individuals’ gender should not restrict them from an equitable shot at success and happiness. For this paper not to be biased, I searched the perspectives of both genders regarding this topic. From a man’s perspective, O’leary (2017), stated that feminism is equality. Feminism is empowerment, creating a voice for a group that was traditionally silenced, and creating change. While on a woman’s perspective Fuller (2018), stated that feminism is about changing the way the world perceives the strength of women. Both sides share commonalities but what does feminism really mean? According to McAfee (2018), feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks justice for women and the end of sexism in all forms, other than that, it also tackles abortion, prostitution, catcalling, unfair treatment to women in the workplace, house or schools etc. According to Freedman (2001), a British-French sociologist and international relations scholar, feminism is a term that came into view after women started scrutinizing their inferior status and thus requesting an improvement or upgrade in their social position. Feminism is grounded on the belief that women are oppressed or disadvantaged by comparison with men and that their oppression is in some way illegitimate or unjustified. Obviously, feminism is fighting for women’s rights but why are there women who are against it? Based on research conducted by Scharff (2019), the majority of her respondents said they did not want to call themselves feminist because they feared they would be associated with the traits of man-hating, lesbianism, or lack of femininity. Given these definitions, I will try to relate feminism with other concepts such as egoism, skepticism, and evil.
The theory of one’s self is, or should be, the motivation and the goal of one’s own action is referred to as egoism. According to Molesey (ND), egoism has two variants, it is either descriptive or normative. A descriptive variant is considered a factual description of human affairs, wherein people are motivated by their advantages and wants, and they cannot be described otherwise, while the normative variant says that people should be so motivated, regardless of what presently motivates their behavior. The general theory of normative egoism asserts how people ought to behave. Although feminism and egoism are oxymoronic in nature, I found a small relationship between the two. In the issue of abortion, especially teenagers, decide to have an abortion because of the fear of judgment by the people around them, by the society. But have they ever thought of the life of that unborn baby? No, because they only thought of their self-interest and their own benefit that they would be free from people’s judgment if they did that. Another is that of the feminists, they have the freedom to fight for their rights and self-liberation, to stand on their own feet and separate as any man. The feminist in her truest potential becomes a secluded individual, a solitary egoist, all by herself but that does not make her selfish or petty or that she only cares about herself. Secluded individual meaning she is engaged with social crowds and friendships but maintains her own solitude/individuality. She can advocate feminism or other “ism” for the sake of supporting the actualization of others, but the absolute core here is that she is her own person. Maybe one of the main reasons why feminism arose is because of men’s ego and women just counteracted that.
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The concept of skepticism covers a wide range of topics. Skepticism was derived from the root word “skeptic” or “skeptic” which means an act of doubt pertaining to a specific subject or topic. Skepticism exists not just to oppose and doubt the subject, but to discover and investigate the fact and the best approximation of the truth about it. I have a lot to be skeptical about feminism but I will just cite the most intriguing questions for me. Growing up, attending masses every Sunday always made me skeptical about Catholicism and the absence of female priests. My teachers would always answer “Because it is a tradition”. Other than that, I am also skeptical about the patriarchal nature of our society. Why did we settle on the mindset, that men are superior and women are inferior? Imagine if people in the past did something about this then all genders would be treated equally and fairly. It is feminism that originally opened my eyes and made me appreciate the essence of asking why, that it is not enough to ask who, where, when, and what but to always ask ‘why’, for us to have a better insight on things that matter. However, we must not settle on answers like “that’s just how we do it”, “just because”, “because it is a tradition” etc. because these do not specifically answer the questions.
There are a lot of arguments about whether God exists or not because of the existence of evil. According to Sherry (2015), evil is understood to tackle both moral evil, which is caused by free human actions, and natural evil caused by phenomena such as disease, earthquakes, and floods. According to Swinburne (1998), God is a being who is essentially eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, creator and sustainer of the Universe and is perfectly good. Omnipotent being means the one who can do anything logically possible, omniscient meaning he knows everything logically possible for him to know, be it in the past, present, or future. A perfectly good being will never allow any morally bad state to occur. So if God exists why would He let injustice exist? Why are they suffering? Growing up as a Roman Catholic who believes in God, I also sometimes question His existence but that doesn’t mean I do not believe in Him. There is only one thing where I see evil in feminism and that is in the issue of abortion. Killing someone is a mortal sin and it is never right to kill someone, especially, if that person is innocent. Aside from that, I do not see much evil in feminism, but in how society treats women. Women until now are still suffering from unequal treatment. Why would God let that happen? Is it because He is man Himself? One argument known as free will defenses claims that evil is caused by human beings and not by God, which I more likely believed in. Because of the women’s urge to fight back and rise above injustice, they resort to other ways to show their “strength”. Maybe God let evil exist for us to appreciate the good, for us to differentiate a good from a bad act.
The concept of feminism, egoism, skepticism, and evil was elucidated here and a correlation among them was formulated. Firstly, that evil is connected to skepticism as shown by the doubt about the existence of God. Secondly, skepticism and egoism are related through abortion whether it is an egoistic or an evil act. Lastly, egoism, skepticism, and evil are related to feminism, that the role of women is controlled by the said concepts whichever way they choose to do things for their own good.
References
- Freedman, J. “Feminism.” Concepts in the Social Science (2001). https://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup/chapters/0335204155.pdf.
- McAfee, N. “Feminist Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2018). https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=feminist-philosophy.
- O’Leary, P. “A Male Perspective on Feminism” (2017) https://www.hercampus.com/school/kenyon/male-perspective-feminism
- Fuller, K. “Feminism: Changing the Way Our Society Views Women (2018) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-is-state-mind/201805/feminism-changing-the-way-our-society-views-women
- Scharff, C. “Why so many young women don’t call themselves feminist” (2019) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47006912
- https://www.iep.utm.edu/egoism/?fbclid=IwAR3OGzvzyx9Jd3QxeuPNx_7dYIg71zMruoH5RBhrcagJkyEEMkVRd7WoqqA#H2
- Abisson, I. “The Intersection between Feminism and Stirner Egoism.” The Intersection between Feminism and Stirner Egoism (2016). https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/abissonichilista-the-intersection-between-feminism-and-stirner-egoism?fbclid=IwAR3YxWCxbsS7yxD10pCiC5tTvfCgPGhBQf34ZTayHknh9BEH_jx_vdyEzi0
- Swinburne R. “Providence and The Problem of Evil” (1998)
- Sherry, P. “Problem of Evil.” Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (November 17, 2017). https://www.britannica.com/topic/problem-of-evil.
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