joss whedon hates the word ‘feminist’
Joss Whedon, noted creator of great television classics Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and other fairly forgettable ones – 2009’s cancelled Dollhouse, has declared the word ‘feminist’ is in need of a makeover.
In his speech at a benefit dinner for non-government organisation Equality Now, Whedon took the opportunity to make the argument that the word feminist should be rebranded as ‘genderist’, because feminist sounds harsh, Germanic and not unlike a cat hissing. Feminisssst.
His reasoning? ‘Genderist’ can take a leaf from the term ‘racist’, with comparable references to acknowledge the atrocities and misgivings of the past to inform and improve the present. A word like ‘genderist’ would reinforce the negative connotations of discriminating against an individual on the basis of their sex – like racism, genderism isn’t something sane people would want to be associated with.
You don’t need to have a background in academia to be a feminist, even if it is sometimes seen as something to acquire – something learned. Whedon is right, nobody is born a feminist, but that’s only because recognising patriarchy in our institutions, economic structures and our own everyday lives takes time, thought and consideration.
‘You can’t be born a baptist; you have to be baptized. You can’t be born an atheist or a communist or a horticulturalist. You have to have these things brought to you. So, feminist includes the idea that believing men and women to be equal, believing all people to be people, is not a natural state. That we don’t emerge assuming that everybody in the human race is a human, that the idea of equality is just an idea that’s imposed on us. That we are indoctrinated with it, that it’s an agenda,’ Whedon said in his benefit speech.
Equality, it seems, is the order of the day. But, as Clem Bastow writes in Daily Life, equality hasn’t been part of the natural order of things in the women’s liberation movement. It’s something that’s been fought for by tooth, tongue and nail. Joss Whedon might be the poster boy for pop culture feminism, but let’s not kid ourselves that he knows a thing or two about the oppression.
In an eloquent summary of Whedon’s rant, Noah Berlatsky of The Atlantic exposes gaping holes in the Buffy creator’s argument – namely, why the haphazard research?
‘Whedon delivers a speech on the term “feminist” without any reference to feminist history, without any apparent awareness of feminist theory, and without even any demonstrated knowledge of the most important objections or conflicts around the term “feminist,” the use of which he is purportedly discussing. Instead, from his position as celebrity and writer, and, one fears, from his position as white man, he takes it upon himself to simply define feminism himself so that he can discard it. The result is what Tania Modleski acidly referred to as “feminism without women”—equality as erasure.’
A video and transcript of Whedon’s speech is available on jezebel.com
