The Shame Culture of Feminism

Before I begin, I should mention that the article mentioned here comes from "The F Bomb" which is a website that - IMHO - by no means sets the standard for most feminist sites. However, they did manage to nicely demonstrate the one aspect of feminist culture that I find to be abhorrent - shame culture.

Most feminists protest against the shame culture of their youth. They rebell against the shameing, sexual and otherwise, of the previous generation. Most adult feminists I know want nothing more than to prevent themselves from passing down that ingrained notion to another generatin of girls - AND boys.

And yet. I can walk into almost any feminist website on the internet and find a gem like this, which I think sums up the issue nicely:

"Also worth noting: the girl whose parents were open about sex remained a virgin, where I think most people would assume the opposite result. In fact, not fealing shame about something like sex definitely makes people feel more confident in their ability to make decisions about it and stay true to themselves." (Source: http://thefbomb.org/2010/09/easy-a-and-teenage-sexuality/)

Yes, her parents talking to her about sex enabled her to stay a virgin. Did you hear that? It is a grand thing, is it not? The height and glory of parental involvement in sex is not producing a teenager and eventual adult who is capable of relating to sex and sexuality in a healthy and normal way, it is producing a child who is able to, against all odds, remain a virgin - and in doing so "stay true to herself".

What if she had decided to have sex? What if she had said to herself, "I feel emotionally ready to have sex, I have a partner I feel safe and comfortable with, I know how to keep myself and my partner physically safe, and I want to have sex."? We are to assume, it seems, that this version would not be "true to herself". Because, after all, girls selves are inherantly and unshakeable virginal, are they not?

This disturbs me. It disturbs me as teenager reading feminist blogs and articles, and it disturbed me more a a very young girl reading feminist publications. It was where I was left, after my first kiss, after my first make out, after my very early sexual experiences. Had I wanted them? Had I felt ready? Had I felt safe?

Yes.

And yet I could not shake this notion that I had not been "true to myself". I could not shake this idea that I had betrayed some great confidence - not the confidence of my parents, family, or community, who were all just fine with it all - but the confidence in myself. The confidence to say "no", because after all, isn't that what "Strong girls" were supposed to do? Say no?

This seems like a virgin/whore shame culture espoused by the mainstream media and internalized by a child. And yet, I watched no TV. I read no magazines; I did not follow the trends. Every drop of shame that fell from me came from one source, the one I had immersed myself in - feminism.

The point here is not my personal experience - I got over it. Yet this is an experience that I have shared with many of my friends who were also exposed to feminism at an early age, always to nodding heads and perfect relating. And so it seems to be that feminism, somehow, has managed to enforce the exact same beliefs that it claims to despise. There are generations of girls and boys who will continue to suffer this until somebody has the sense to think about what they are saying, and take the step back to weed out the cliches, the catch phrases, the ingrained beliefs.

It's time to say what needs to be aasaid, not spew back phrases taught in gradeschool that do no more to dispell shame culture or this idea of virgin/whore than they did ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Really, all I'm asking for is that adults think before they speak. Is that so much to ask?