Feminism and the illusion of empowerment

are women really empowered while living in a system built on injustice?

Encountering the socio-economic movement after being too chronically online and discovering the famous works of Chimamanda Adichie and her amazing essay, We Should All Be Feminists, it has helped shape my politics and how I view the world. As of recent, it has also allowed me to engage in deep social conversations regarding women and the problems we face in the world, all the while drawing a line at the causes (men, and a couple of other things), and striving to shape my mind as well as do everything possible to fight for a future where women have equal rights.

In that sense, if someone were to approach me and ask, “Hey, how would you define feminism?” I would have responded by saying it is a movement that strives for equality between men and women, it is a movement that forces society to change the way it views gender and roles, that fights against inequality and oppression and most importantly, it is a movement that grants women the choice to strive towards economic dependency, and break apart from the patriarchal idea that puts a womans lively-hood—both emotional and financial—on men.

This idea has allowed me to outline a future for myself that is rooted in my own economic independence and plan my life in a way that is free from relying on the opposite gender. To put it simply, I wanted to be a girl boss—I still do because this, to me, defines empowerment.

However, I would come to learn that such is not the case.

I think I had indulged in a more neoliberal approach to my view of feminism. As I have come to read more and delve into the topic, I have learned that my goals and plans to achieve them were based on my individual introspection of the movement, in the sense that what I defined as empowerment was for me and me alone. It equally did not correlate with the fact that I wanted to fight for the rights of each and every woman around me and around the world.

The reason for this simply lies with the idea of me wanting to climb up that economic ladder, and be rich, be affluent, be a girl boss, does nothing other than only lifting me, and trampling on the women, the working-class women, whose labour I might have used to go up that ladder. I was searching for equality in a system that thrives on inequality. I wanted to build myself and possibly other women in an economic and political system that deals with the suppression of the working class. I wanted to empower women in a structure that strives to disempower them.

So, the purpose of this essay is to examine the paradox that lies within the feminist ideal of empowering each and every woman while indulging in a capitalist economic system that denies such a reality.

First, and since I’ve talked about it a lot, is the idea of girl boss. You hear it all around, in movies, on the internet, in social discourse. It’s basically a capitalist re-framing of feminism, whereby it tells women to strive towards economic sustainability that puts them in high positions in any business corporations or free enterprise. Whereby, like I did, it allows one to see empowerment as being a part of the top one per cent, of being a billionaire and being able to afford all they want.

Although there is nothing intricately wrong with that, as it puts women in positions that have been defined over time to be for men, breaking down societal views of gender roles like feminism strives to, it still, like I’ve explained before, does nothing to help women.

It puts women in a competitive, unequal and relatively sexist environments, as well as striving for high positions by profiting off the labour of working-class women who are doing their best to put food on their tables.

Like most capitalists, such an environment would be built on the idea of making profit in whatever endeavor, rather than building better working conditions for these women or any other employee.

So today, although being a woman who is a CEO of some tech startup or a beauty brand or a food chain or whatever they want to indulge in seems easier and empowering now as a result of the feminist movement—but is it really empowering if the women who work underneath them are being oppressed just so the ‘girl-bossess’ can be apart of this 1% of the population?

I think this also correlates with the fact that feminism and the fight for the economic power of women has also helped disempower them due to its relation with capitalism. Before the inception of the feminist movement, women were not really allowed to work jobs that were believed to be only for men. But, as the ideology helped dismantle that, no one would even think that such an achievement would end up being the cause that disempowers women, because how? Women can now work jobs, own businesses and live their best lives. Well, for some.

However, for working-class women trying to juggle two jobs and keep up with the rising prices of basic social amenities, such is not the case. This is not to blame the feminist movement for such an outcome, but rather the social structure and economic system that has allowed for such.

Capitalism and the prosperity of the top one per cent of society are based on one thing only, and that is oppression. Men were mainly at the forefront of such tragedies, but as the feminist movement pushed for women to be in the workforce, it stretched over to women, too. Feminism can not be blamed for this because the only way women could reach economic independence was by being in the work force rather than staying with men who oppressed them, but fueled by these poor working conditions and unequal environment that is synonymous with capitalism, would one then say that women have been truly empowered?

Finally, I want to branch out by discussing how capitalism not only affects women in the work environment but also in the world at large. In a system that is built on cheap labour, this can not be done by politely asking people to give up their labour for pennies, but by creating insurgency and deep political unrest in certain regions where they can get the materials used to produce the commodities they sell on the free market.

As I think about this, I think of the Democratic Republic of Congo and how individuals, men, women, and children are being used so that we are comfortable using our phones and typing away on our laptops. I think of the women who have reported having guns and plastic bottles inserted in their private parts, who have reported having been raped by twenty men consecutively, and so many other forms of violence. Of course, there are many other countries and instances in which individual interest is placed above the lives of so many people across the world.

Furthermore, parts of US politics are shaped by the discourse of immigration and examining this now brings race into the subject. Although the bone of their contention is their annoyance with foreign immigrants coming into their country, and how they are “stealing their jobs”. This rhetoric makes me laugh because instead of focusing on the capitalists who hire these immigrants for cheap labour, they blame the people who just want a chance at a better livelihood, most of whom are again women. African, Hispanic and Asian women who might have to work back-breaking jobs just to be able to provide for their families.

Capitalism has caused this, and although the promise it held for women—a glimpse of economic empowerment by being able to work jobs that were thought to be for men- it has contradicted itself by creating an environment where women, of all parts of the world, are still constantly oppressed.

So, where does this leave us? I think, as a feminist who wants to build a world free from injustice, you can not achieve that in a system that constantly promotes and justifies these injustices. It is also a system that has historically benefited from sexist ideologies, and as I highlighted above, racism and thus, is not compatible with feminism. So, I believe, as a feminist, the dismantling of the inequality that shaped the social movement can not be done under the guise of capitalism.

As feminists, we should push for better work place environment for women, make basic amenities free or either more accessible to women and strive to fight for the women in third world countries whose labor make sure you have a phone to come on the internet, while they are constantly being violated, and that, probably, the dream of an egalitarian society might be closer than we might imagine.