In a local newspaper, an article was published that detailed Anna Anka’s beliefs about women and men. Originally from Sweden, Anka moved to the US after she married a US citizen. In comparison to the US, Sweden has seen huge changes in regards to gender equality but these changes are not all together positive according to Anka. She beliefs that fathers who change their baby’s nappy are “tragic” and that “American dads do not prepare dinner and do not iron, they work and provide for their families. In America, men are men and women are women.” The seemingly huge difference in gender equality is made out to be problematic due to the assumption that in Sweden, men are not really men and women are not really women. So what does it mean to be a man and a woman? The answers to this are endless. It is obvious that from Anka’s comments, a man does not engage in what is traditionally seen as ‘woman’s work’; that is they do not cook and do not care for children.
Anna Anka’s beliefs are synonymous with some anti-feminists, particularly those from fathers’ rights groups. The irony with these groups is that while they profess to want more involvement in the lives of their children, when an opportunity offers this possibility through equality they often revert to more traditional notions of masculinity and femininity similar to Anka. At the same time, some fathers groups are highly critical of notions that women nurture and fathers do not. While some revert to traditional notions of femininity and masculinity, they are also critical of courts and other established bodies that believe women are more caring. Their argument with feminism is two fold. On the one hand they believe it has given women too many rights through infiltration of the legal system which supposedly discriminates against fathers and on the other they believe that feminism works with unnatural notions of what it means to be woman and a man. Yet it is feminism which can assist in breaking down understandings that suggest women should be the ones to look after the children and that men are only capable of providing.
Notions of what constitutes a woman and a man have been contested between feminism and anti-feminism for many years. Anti-feminists have typically associated masculinised women as feminists yet feminists are a diverse group of people. Even with this diversity of people and diversity of opinions, anti-feminists still label feminists and the consequences of feminism in very limiting ways. Anka typifies these beliefs with her suggestions that men are now nappy-changing sissies and women are frumps who fail to take care of their husbands. These limited views of feminism inhibited the possible benefits feminism can bring to all.
I think, feminism exists in two worlds. The world of what is and world of what is believed. In politics only the second matters. But believe, in the face of evidence, is hard to maintain. When I was a Christian, the christo-conservative little world I lived in spoke of the evils of feminism much more passionately and frequently then the secular world I live in now speaks of it positively.