Why has feminism has become a vulgar word?

My vow to post about feminism seems to have given me an excuse to procrastinate. We'll see if 2009 energizes my constitution.

I have been contemplating system-wide change lately and how both women and men can revolutionize their culturalized gender roles in order to bring about both greater equality and a more exciting, inviting and livable world.

For example, the very notion of equality doesn't do much good if women simply demand the ability to participate in the world as men do. Men haven't created a very desirable world, have they? I definitely am not asking for the ability to proposition men in hair salons or make men uncomfortable by grabbing their ass in broad daylight on the beach in front of my friends.

To quote from an online discussion I have been having with some friends: "Radical feminists (often anti-capitalist) have criticized liberal feminists for the latter's characterization of feminism as 'women can do anything men can do.' The basic criticism is that such a formulation leaves the door open for things like 'women can now join the military and go kill brown people on the other side of the planet' (to pick one of the most negative) in addition to more obvious positive opportunities. This is a criticism I tend to agree with; I also think it neatly reveals the distinction between progress inside a larger structural framework (again, US capitalism/democracy) and a change made to that structural framework. 'Allowing' a woman to do a job that has a hand in demeaning women seems to indicate a very limited and specific type of progress/change. To wit: the presence of, say, Condoleeza Rice (or Margaret Thatcher) on the world stage doesn't seem to have helped end patriarchy very much, does it?"

To further the point, this from a recent article discussing the same issue that argues inclusion doesn't necessarily equate to empowerment: " In South Africa, she pointed out, women’s political participation was among the highest in the world – but so were levels of violence against women. Sometimes women’s inclusion into institutions doesn’t resolve the deep-seated problems of gender equality." (http://www.thevarsity.ca/article/6462)

So then what I deem as needing to happen is the reconsideration of a man's role, masculine values and the overall structure of a patriarchal society. But how does one go about recreating masculine values when the men are the ones in power?

My project is running in to this problem. We are providing nonformal education classes about human rights and gender equality. Our goal has more to do with changing the way men perceive their place in society than direct empowerment of women. Men are the gatekeepers, afterall. But men are highly uninterested in attending these classes. About 2/3's of the participants are women, all extremely eager to have their quieted voices heard. But it seems in many ways these women are already there. It is the men who need the changing. So how does one create such change?

To further complicate matters, issues such as gender equality in development perpetuate "the idea that brown men often mistreat their women" and development agencies use this "as a reason for northern interventions. At the same time, romanticizing all brown (or white) men as angels is clearly a problem." (http://www.thevarsity.ca/article/6462)

What the author suggests is that such a type of intervention needs to be lead by local women and their allies, "as they are the ones who have the right to say who is impeding their ambitions and desires." While Senaglese women are asking for this project, I must say it isn't exactly locally initiated. And the white (and brown) men in my country haven't exactly created space for local women either. But is it space that I'm asking for or a new, perhaps even unperceived world?

Most definitely a woman's problems are not the same the world over. But women the world over are locked in to the same system, a system created, secured and sustained by men. So as global citizens, let's not create change that allows us to play a man's game, but to literally change the game.