Letter To The Editor | Mariángela Alejandro

I would like to address some of the main faults I found in the set of articles titled “Why We Hate Fourth Wave Feminism.” I would like to thank the authors for offering thought-provoking contributions, and for not being afraid to speak out. However, I would like to continue this discussion by explaining why I don’t believe you should hate ‘Fourth Wave Feminism’.

First, the “feminazis” and the “cult of misandry” the article references are by no means leftist nor feminist. Unfortunately, while the openness of social media has allowed the movement to flourish, it has also allowed for it to be claimed by users who don’t completely understand it. I cannot help but get angry when I see someone tweet #AllMenAreTrash in the name of feminism, or when someone is #cancelled for a joke they made 10 years ago. Most feminist scholars do not embrace this social justice rhetoric; however, because this new ‘call-out culture’ is so new, we have not yet come up with a solution. Not to mention that we also owe a lot of our progress in terms of bringing justice for sexual assault victims to online movements like #MeToo.

Finally, in regards to Mr. Aguilar’s article, while I definitely agree that men and women are not equal in terms of our genetic makeup, I don’t think this should justify the way “social norms” or “unconscious biases” define our place in society. The post-industrial world in which we live in no longer requires the primitive hunter/gatherer division of labor structure that defined earlier civilizations, so why do we still abide by this female=weak, male=strong rhetoric? If we are evolving as a species, should not our culture do the same? The fight for gender equality goes beyond institutions; it is not institutions which define society, but society which defines institutions.