The World’s Largest Minority: Why Modern "Progressivism" is Failing Women

Opinion by Zaine Ahmed (Grade 10)

Women are the most oppressed class in history, which is all the more surprising given they are an equal majority in the world. Women have been historically oppressed and beaten down, forced to marry for the right price. Marital rape was legal until 1994, meaning that you could watch Forrest Gump before you could say no to your husband’s advances.

This is just one of the incredibly disgusting things that happen to women, and honestly, most of the discrimination we see today is based on the male gaze. Unfortunately, this even extends to so-called “leftists” where modern-day progressivism for some reason just doesn’t extend to women; the ideology meant to be a lifeline to women and other discriminated-against groups is betraying them in the worst way possible.

However, it’s important to note that leftists and liberals are extremely different, and this ideology is undeniably liberal. As a cis man writing this, I’m aware that I’m not exactly the most experienced member when being faced with misogyny, but often I’ve seen it on the sidelines: locker room talk, drawings passed between classmates, and whispers are all things I can notice, but women generally can’t. Of course, it’s much more important to listen to women in this instance, but I am just throwing my two cents in here.

The first thing that I’ll do is define the three terms, as liberalism and leftism are often confused for the same thing, and misogyny for being a broader action rather than a specific instance. Liberalism is specifically more right-wing leftism, if that makes sense.

In the American and British political scene, liberals are what you would call Democrats and the Labour Party. It is center-right or centrist policies and government underneath the disguise of leftism. Leftism refers to the broader political beliefs, specifically ideas of freedom of expression, democracy, freedom of being, and more often than not, Marxism.

This is often represented in ideas of pro-freedom, such as the freedom of LGBTQIA+ people, abortion, and anti-establishment views such as anti-government. It is important to remember that Liberalism and Leftism are fundamentally different things. Leftism is, aptly named, more left-wing, while Liberalism is center or center-right. Misogyny is, in this scenario, any action that degrades and harms women or is anti-feminist in any way.

Across the board, especially on social media, I’ve noticed a rise in misogynistic behavior. As a generally radical person, it’s almost impossible for me not to notice all of the subtle and overt misogynistic takes about or concerning women that seem to only serve the purpose of putting them down. The rise in conglomeration has definitely aided in this radicalization and polarization, where in the modern-day news cycle, rage sells better than happiness.

Following this trend, social media algorithms follow this path of least resistance and promote rage-inducing content. This leads to women, queer people, and other minorities being targeted across the board, but it is noticeable how it is almost always women or fem-presenting people who continue being targeted. You can think of “gold digger exposure” videos, or people making disgusting comments about trans women in bathrooms, as well as even things like street food videos in India; going even further, fatphobic comments and ideals that push the narrative that everybody needs to lose weight to be happy in their body, but only towards women.

All of these things target specifically women and fem-coded people much more than men, with the comments and videos being made by hetero and gay men alike. Even other women weigh in on this, such as Erica Kirk, Nancy Mace, or female looksmaxxers, and exploit women to the male gaze for their own gain in the phenomenon known as Palinism.

This happens due to two more reasons: a sub-reason in social media and the people currently in power. The social media aspect goes even further, where women's status as the biggest minority is, in my opinion, the reason why they are chosen so much. In this case, both sides of the spectrum, victims and perpetrators, can and will weigh in on the discourse, meaning that algorithms notice that content like this generates more engagement and spread it further, creating a chain reaction.

To put it simply, both sides are sharing, not just one, and that leads to double the exposure that would otherwise happen if the discriminatory content was directed to “illegal” immigrants, for example. Secondly, it is impossible to talk about this product without mentioning the people in power. The Epstein files and Israelis raping Palestinians and other women need a defense, and are finding that in the degradation of women. This means that the ones in power are trying to reduce the impact of women's opinions and words, and the easiest way to do that is to disparage women as a whole. Unfortunately, this means that women are the perfect target for the survival-of-the-fittest landscape that is the algorithm, and it shows in the fact that more and more people are targeting women for the ultimate payback: exposure.

This has been about the rise in misogyny in general so far; however, now I’d like to narrow it down to left-wing spaces. Leftism has always been about acceptance and benefit for the proletariat majority, whether they are women, men, or something else. I would like to preface this by saying that I’ve never actually read the Communist Manifesto, just come into contact with left-wing individuals, so what I’m attributing to radical leftism or even just normal leftism may be incorrect, but I digress.

It seems like what the young people see as leftism, or at least the edgy teenagers, is fundamentally flawed. Personally, I’ve seen that many people who claim to be left-wing or communist want to practice a sort of pseudo-communism, where women and fem-presenting queer people are still fundamentally experiencing misogyny and discrimination. As well as that, “leftist” people seem to constantly deny the suffering of women.

Constantly, I come into contact with jokes about the Epstein files and exploitation of women, people claiming that “women lie about being raped because they regret having sex with someone,” and that Arab and Muslim women need saving by the USA because they’re being oppressed. These form a cohesive but fundamentally incorrect opinion that women are somehow simultaneously lesser beings who need a man, though they are simultaneously cunning and will take advantage of men if not “broken in.”

Honestly, this is reminiscent of the relationship between enslaved people and their captors in slavery-age America. It’s really unfortunate and honestly disgusting how people in more liberal worldviews that would put themselves into a left-leaning demographic are actively supporting American imperialism in Iran.

This leads to a bleak-sounding future and perversion of what leftism really is about: up versus down, not man versus woman. It seems like the larger political and working-class systems are being fragmented and pitted against each other; whether that is by accident or by intent is up for debate. Either way, it does point to a future where leftism is equally as oppressive to a large demographic of the population as the current world is.

Overall, leftism was and still is for the working class. It was created to empower the people, and that’s what it’s been used for for at least a hundred years. It will continue to be used for that, and it should absolutely apply to women, the largest oppressed demographic there is in this world.

Since almost the start of civilization, between the Sumerians and the Greeks, something changed. The Sumerians originally thought of women as better than men, the same way that hunter-gatherers viewed it, but that changed when it came to the age of the Greeks.

Since then, women have been constantly oppressed, by both men and other women. Seen as unholy, or worse, weaker, women have been constantly mistreated, and that hasn’t changed even today. Sure, there have been some improvements, but most of the discrimination of today is based on the view of the male gaze.

Transphobia, female fatphobia, and the dislike and discrimination against Black women and alternative culture always centers, at least for men in my opinion, on women’s beauty. We need to use the institutions and worldviews created to free everyone from oppression for everyone, and that’s the most important aspect of leftism. Anybody who doesn’t respect queer, Black, indigenous, and disabled women is, in no uncertain terms, not a leftist, and in my opinion, less of a human.