Sir, - John Waters, in his attack on the feminist movement (Opinion, May 4th) is missing some fundamental issues and contributing to the already pervasive difficulties facing women in their everyday lives.
Feminism - as I presume John knows - is not a conventional political movement. It has a diversity unknown in any of these. In its many facets it constitutes primarily a growth in self-awareness on the part of one half of the human race. This self-awareness ranges from an exploration of the methods of gender repression to simply helping women to acquire reading skills in countries where this would not be their privilege.
Men have had very effective systems of organisation and association; women have begun only in this century, and with great difficulty, either to become part of these systems or to establish their own.
As it stands, I must at least agree with John Waters in this: that the capitalist system is in itself a kind of body voracious and both men and women allow themselves to become fodder for it. However, I find his appraisal of feminism as the backbone of the system to be extraordinarily shortsighted. Does he not know that there are feminists in every political party, in every educational institution, in all social positions in all areas of the world?
There are many arguments concerning childcare, and personally, I would like the status of the homeworker, be it man or woman, to be elevated to its rightful place. This lack of status is the principal reason, I feel, why most people don't want to do the job. In many ways, the feminist movement has been subverted by the economic system, in that we now feel we must be earners in the `workforce' in order to justify our existence. This has led many women to undertake multiple jobs and risk early heart attacks - apeing their male counterparts - in pursuit, not only of the independence that money brings, but also of personal fulfilment. This is not necessarily liberation, but it beats the enclosure of a purely domestic existence.
Women in the West have not achieved the simple right to choice of work (and remember this is still not a right in many parts of the east) by complaining alone. They have risked imprisonment, isolation, in some cases death, and certainly early death and exhaustion, in the struggle. Today, in Ireland, we are reaping the benefits of the Trojan work of women in earlier decades. The legacy could not be perfect, it never is. Having reached a certain level of freedom, we find that images have not changed radically, that instead of having more leisure we have less, and power-sharing is still not a reality.
If feminists opposed John Waters in his fight for paternity rights, I suspect it is because of his marked misogynist tone and his sweeping inputations of a united pernicious feminist intent.
The "proper course for anyone seeking to promote truly progressive ideas" is never to "attack. . . without qualification" but to argue and to look for common ground. Uncorroborated remarks such as the allegation that "leading women's groups" have demanded repressive action "invariably against men" amount to incitements to hatred, which may, in the end, be directed towards all women - including those who remain ignorant of feminism and are still oppressed by the remains of monolithic patriarchy. - Yours, etc.,
Maighread Medbh, Forest Walk, Swords, Co Dublin.