The F-Word

I can usually be caused to jump up and down like a predictable puppet by the mention of anything that offends my feminist sensibilities.

Last week, my friend Simmi sent me a link to a website that made comment on the reduction of VAT on condoms and other 'contraceptive devices'. OK, yes, I'm sure that it was just the price of the things that was making men reluctant to use them, nothing at all to do with the old 'it's like wearing a raincoat during sex,' whinge that we're so tired of hearing. But she made another point to me that has long rankled ...well just about every right-thinking person, VAT continues to be imposed at the full,'luxury' rate on sanitary protection. This has been debated over and over again, but to no avail. Women don't have any choice about using feminine hygiene products and in my opinion they should be zero-rated, but the very least that should be done is to show some willing by lowering the rate on them. But of course, there would be absolutely no change in the quantities bought or used so what is the incentive? Actually, since Gordon Brown's budget was a 'making a point' one, this would have been exactly the right time to make the gesture.
Well, I say that women don't have any choice, but since volunteering at the Nature Park I have discovered that sphagnum moss is a possible alternative but.. well, let's not even go there.

On the women's page in the Guardian, I stumbled across an article where seven women of different ages were asked when they had become feminists. I found the most thought-provoking comment to be that of the youngest woman, Kierra Box, 20, who said she grew up in a feminist environment so there was no particular moment. She then goes on to talk about issues that had concerned her as she was growing up and it struck me that what she was talking about was a mingling of feminist and environmental issues.

Is it possible to be a feminist and not an environmentalist? I suppose, theoretically, I just don't know anyone who is one without caring about the other. I think the real problem is perhaps the labels. We like to pigeonhole people. I like to pigeonhole people. It's easier to think 'my feminist friends' 'my environmentalist friends' and so on.

I think there is a range of what I would call left-wing thinking and most of my friends would embrace some part of it. The F-Word has always been a dirty one, as is mentioned in the article, people will say 'oh, I'm not a feminist but...' and of course how many men would label themselves as feminists?

Is it the '-ist' bit that people object to I wonder? For example, if you asked people if they were environmentalists, they might feel you are talking about more extreme organisations such as Greenpeace, whereas if you ask someone if they are green, they are more likely to say yes. Are you a socialist? Are you red? Hmm..probably in that case people are more likely to agree to the former.
Are you pink? What does that mean, cowardly? Gay? Or someone who is sympathetic towards the problems for Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgender people?

At the end of the day (it gets dark) we don't really need to know our friends' agendas. They are most probably our friends because we have common ideas about the world and its politics. There are slippages we can tolerate and there are ones that we can't. I would have serious problems keeping someone in my own sacred heron watching room who thought that people shouldn't have equal rights or that it's ok to fuck the planet up, but I certainly have friends in there who don't agree with me on some things.

Ultimately, I would hope there would be no need for labels such as 'feminist' because there won't be a disparity, but for the time being there is, so the debate needs to be kept open, labels and all. And whilst we get there, it would be good if men and women alike had no problem using the F-Word about themselves and being proud of it, but the cynic in me thinks 'fat chance'.