PLAGUE

Words by Jessica Grasser

Mahsa Amini was reportedly killed by Iranian morality police after she was seen ‘improperly’ wearing her hijab last week. Following Mahsa’s death women and men of Iran have taken to the streets in protest Iranian women taking the streets and burning their hijabs turned into a global image. When Mahsa Amini’s death called to light the patriarchy that exists everywhere in the world, I expected outrage. I prepared myself for hundreds of sparkly infographics shared to stories with petition links and gofundme attachments. I believed Facebook events would be full of rallies and marches held all over the world to show ‘international support’ for the women of Iran. After days passed, and media coverage was wide enough to be accessible for all, I quickly realised Mahsa Amini’s death wasn’t an issue the TikTok feminists cared about. There weren’t going to be the same numbers at rallies or protests held all over the world like when Roe v Wade was overturned. Because this wasn’t an issue for western feminism. This westernisation of feminism is a plague, infecting our activism and staining the capacity for social reform all over the world. Until western feminists begin to care about issues that aren’t glorified on TikTok or can’t be expressed easily in an infographic, the entire movement is stagnant. When all of the energy of feminism as a movement is centred on progressing western women’s privilege rather than securing basic human rights for women everywhere, it is not about all women. It’s about white women.

Fourth-wave feminists must focus on intersectionality, the connections between different forms of oppression and how that makes women of colour and queer women more disposed to discrimination. Fourth-wave feminists must stop being lazy and thinking their job is done once they have reposted something to their instagram stories. We become complacent in oppression and discrimination if we pick and chose when we will be feminists based on how many times a hashtag has been used. When we do this we are no longer feminists. We become performers who jump from issue to issue through the repost button on our phones and we never truly stand for anything.

Take a look at Afghanistan, one of the most dangerous place to be a woman right now, where did the outrage feminists had when it was first taken over by the Taliban go? It was lost in irrelevancy created by sporadic activism rather than meaningful reform. Western feminism can only care about an issue for as long as their stories stay posted and it has made the movement redundant. Iranian women, Afghanistan women, Saudi Arabian women, Ugandan women have all been forgotten by main stream feminism that prioritises reactionary American politics over global attrocities.

Often when I raise my issue with main stream feminism i hear criticism that ‘we cant stand for every issue’ or ‘how are we supposed to know about these things’, but the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody was published in our own ABC. Even if it wasn’t in the ABC it takes privilege to remain negligent of these issues and if you truly stand for the liberation of women you would search for oppression to make way for reformation. Remaining ignorant perpetuates the privilege you have and it only further disadvantages non-western women. There is no excuse for sheltering yourself in today’s day and age where Mahsa Amini’s story is on every major media platform. Western feminists choose to stay ignorant, they say they care about bodily autonomy but only on an individual basis and only depending on how popular the issue is. I saw hundreds of people at the 2022 Roe v Wade South Australia rally held recently but I can confidently say no one I saw at the Roe V Wade protest was at our rally only last year to decriminalise and debarricate abortion access in SA. Most of the people I spoke to who attended this rally didn’t even know abortion wasn’t officially decriminalised in SA until mid this year. So it begs the question, do they actually care about these issues or do they just want to look like they do? How does western feminism encourage this performative and half masted activism? the radicalism that feminism is built upon? We have begun to say “oh I’m not one of those crazy blue haired feminists who hate men, dont worry” so that we can make our feminism consumable for men. This makes feminism, like everything, built around men. Perhaps we do this because a woman who just posts infographics doesn’t bend outside of male fantasies, she can still be liked and desired. She gets to have both the liberation and the adoration, but it doesn’t work that way. Emmeline Pankhurst didn’t compartmentalise her activism to be desirable and fourth wave feminists shouldn’t do it either. Whether it is out of a fear of pushing away possible breeding mates or we still feel the presence of an overbearing mother on our shoulders judging our presentation of feminine attributes, young feminists are distancing themselves from radicals when it has always been the way in which reform was achieved. Instead, we should listen to the angry blue haired feminists. Those who are brave enough to keep asking for better, for a world that isn’t just sufficient but is ethical and fair. Perhaps those who are angry are those who know more, who have greater expectations, who see the failure of our system first hand. We must make our feminism international, intersectional and intentional for it to be meaningful and that begins with the liberation of, ALL WOMEN. This isn’t even the radical part of feminism. This is ground level expectations which we have disgracefully lost to western feminism, and to which we can reclaim with intentionality, intersectionality and internationality.