In December 2014, I finally decided to start a feminist club at McGill. I was asked, again and again, but isn’t there a feminist club here already? The answer was, no, but it never occurred to me to question the underlying perception. Part of my desire for starting a brand-new club was my disappointment with the social justice movements within McGill. I found them to be attracting the same group of people and in all my naivety I had this grandeur goal of attracting people who wouldn’t be normally present at every event and would never take a women studies course. While I would say that we have been immensely successful in reaching a winder audience, my politics have radically evolved since then but that is irrelevant to this article for now.
At McGill, we have the Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE), a group with collective members that are very dear friends of mine. The UGE does an amazing job fighting the gender binary and supporting people people who fall outside this rigid structure. At McGill, there seems to be a lot of dispersed feminist action taking place, but there was no one club to put on educational events and be a central hub for feminism on campus.
When I applied for status within the student union, I was told that our club’s application has been rejected on the basis of overlap with the UGE. I was told that there are “so many feminist clubs” on campus that our club will not be improving student life, yet when I asked, I wasn’t told which club exactly was being referred. We appealed this decision, this time with a letter of support from UGE as suggested by the committee, with an extensive list of all clubs and groups on campus with an anti-oppressive mandate, their approach, audience, and how we differ. We were rejected again; we were told that our list of clubs “made the overlap with other groups even clearer" and we won't be able to reapply "without substantial changes" to our application. Our meeting requests with the Interest Group Committee, the group overseeing new clubs, and VP Clubs & Services were denied.
I have tried to forget how demoralizing this is to the wonderful and dedicated team of feminists I have been working with and with our collective effort organized 7 events in a span of 3 months. This made me think: is there a limit on how much feminism is allowed in patriarchy? I came to McGill and choose Montreal because of its reputation of being an activist city. Yes, McGill and Montreal are both packed with social justice events and movements. At McGill with have the UGE, a sexual assault centre, a harm reduction officer, a PIRG (Public Interest Research Group). These groups may have a feminist mandate, but having a feminist mandate does not translate to the lack of room for another feminist space. We have Sexual Assault Society of Mcgill University and we have McGill Women in Leadership, two groups that to my knowledge and as apparent from their names have a different approach than a explicitly feminist club. But regardless, in a patriarchy, there shouldn’t be a quota on the number of feminist spaces allowed in society. Not all feminisms are the same and not all feminists have the same approach to different issues. There is room for many more feminist groups to flourish at McGill, such as a specifically pro-choice group, an interfaith feminist group, a WoC group, a feminist book club. Otherwise, it should be okay to merge NDP and Liberal and Conservative McGill into one, and salsa and tango and ballroom dancing and swing clubs into another, because politics is politics and dance is dance, am I right? There are 11 music clubs, 7 dance clubs and more charity clubs than I can count, but a feminist club? Now that's something McGill doesn't need that much.
The idea that there is too much feminism is incredibly flawed and oppressive to begin with. It’s more along the lines of “reverse sexism” and “reverse racism”. There can’t be too much feminism, ever, in a patriarchy. There can’t be too much anti-racism in a white supremacy, there can’t be too much awareness about queer issues in a heteronormative society. How feminist is our campus when the modest request of a few hours of women-only gym hours faces backlash leading to the deputy provost of the university unilaterally shutting down all negotiations between students and the administration? How feminist is our campus if the Ian Sherriff, Brenden Carriere and Guillaume Tremblay were let free after the mismanagement of the legal case of their sexual assault against a Concordia student? If Conservative McGill’s letterhead addresses their members as “fellow preservers of the patriarchy”? How feminist is our campus if student politicians who are trained in anti-oppression think that there can ever be too much feminism?
Having talked to fellow feminists in other universities, I’ve realized that the “too much feminism” discourse is a common storyline at other student unions as well. At UBC, students had to fight to get UBC Feminist Club student union sanctioned because there was already a women’s centre and a sexual assault centre operating on campus (along with 7 Christian clubs, but that's not feminism, so it's okay). At McMaster, students had to fight for decades to open a women's centre on campus and they finally succeeded due to a PR crisis for the administration and student union following multiple high-profile articles about sexual assault published in the past two years. Also at Mac, the student union denied status for the group United in Colour, aimed at empowering people of colour, stating their service unnecessary because there was already a black students union on campus. The idea that there can ever be “too much feminism” is not limited to McGill’s student union. It is an attitude reflected in the society that systemically marginalizes women and silences their voices. It’s the same attitude that says feminism has gone too far, that women can now vote and work outside the home and therefore “the feminist project” is accomplished. Attitudes are not formed in a vacuum. The same culture that suggests “feminist” should be a term to ban, same culture that deny transwomen their hormone therapy, same culture that allows sexual assault perpetrators to walk free.
And what’s worse, I’m sure all the committee members ID as “feminist”. In fact, I have many many "feminist" friends that believe in reverse racism, that men's rights activism is not that unnecessary, that no's opinion can be garbage, that being a loudmouthed feminist makes me "part of the problem". To my dismay, half of the IGC consists of women, and one of the men is the founder of Women for Women International chapter at McGill. I say to my dismay, because I expect more from women. . So let me tell you this, my beloved student union, that calling yourself feminists is irrelevant at best, and disrespectful at worst, if you refuse to see the value in having feminist spaces on our campus. To be a feminist, you don’t need to join us at every march and every talk and every conference, but you do need to be aware of your power, your privilege and the value of feminism on our campus.
Paniz Khosroshahy is a third year student at McGill involved with McGill Students for Feminisms. She loves to hang out in closed QTPOC spaces, is allergic to liberal feminism and the unfortunate hijacking of the word "choice", and can't give two shits about accusations of being "part of the problem", misandrist or "reverse-racist".
At McGill, we have the Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE), a group with collective members that are very dear friends of mine. The UGE does an amazing job fighting the gender binary and supporting people people who fall outside this rigid structure. At McGill, there seems to be a lot of dispersed feminist action taking place, but there was no one club to put on educational events and be a central hub for feminism on campus.
When I applied for status within the student union, I was told that our club’s application has been rejected on the basis of overlap with the UGE. I was told that there are “so many feminist clubs” on campus that our club will not be improving student life, yet when I asked, I wasn’t told which club exactly was being referred. We appealed this decision, this time with a letter of support from UGE as suggested by the committee, with an extensive list of all clubs and groups on campus with an anti-oppressive mandate, their approach, audience, and how we differ. We were rejected again; we were told that our list of clubs “made the overlap with other groups even clearer" and we won't be able to reapply "without substantial changes" to our application. Our meeting requests with the Interest Group Committee, the group overseeing new clubs, and VP Clubs & Services were denied.
I have tried to forget how demoralizing this is to the wonderful and dedicated team of feminists I have been working with and with our collective effort organized 7 events in a span of 3 months. This made me think: is there a limit on how much feminism is allowed in patriarchy? I came to McGill and choose Montreal because of its reputation of being an activist city. Yes, McGill and Montreal are both packed with social justice events and movements. At McGill with have the UGE, a sexual assault centre, a harm reduction officer, a PIRG (Public Interest Research Group). These groups may have a feminist mandate, but having a feminist mandate does not translate to the lack of room for another feminist space. We have Sexual Assault Society of Mcgill University and we have McGill Women in Leadership, two groups that to my knowledge and as apparent from their names have a different approach than a explicitly feminist club. But regardless, in a patriarchy, there shouldn’t be a quota on the number of feminist spaces allowed in society. Not all feminisms are the same and not all feminists have the same approach to different issues. There is room for many more feminist groups to flourish at McGill, such as a specifically pro-choice group, an interfaith feminist group, a WoC group, a feminist book club. Otherwise, it should be okay to merge NDP and Liberal and Conservative McGill into one, and salsa and tango and ballroom dancing and swing clubs into another, because politics is politics and dance is dance, am I right? There are 11 music clubs, 7 dance clubs and more charity clubs than I can count, but a feminist club? Now that's something McGill doesn't need that much.
The idea that there is too much feminism is incredibly flawed and oppressive to begin with. It’s more along the lines of “reverse sexism” and “reverse racism”. There can’t be too much feminism, ever, in a patriarchy. There can’t be too much anti-racism in a white supremacy, there can’t be too much awareness about queer issues in a heteronormative society. How feminist is our campus when the modest request of a few hours of women-only gym hours faces backlash leading to the deputy provost of the university unilaterally shutting down all negotiations between students and the administration? How feminist is our campus if the Ian Sherriff, Brenden Carriere and Guillaume Tremblay were let free after the mismanagement of the legal case of their sexual assault against a Concordia student? If Conservative McGill’s letterhead addresses their members as “fellow preservers of the patriarchy”? How feminist is our campus if student politicians who are trained in anti-oppression think that there can ever be too much feminism?
Having talked to fellow feminists in other universities, I’ve realized that the “too much feminism” discourse is a common storyline at other student unions as well. At UBC, students had to fight to get UBC Feminist Club student union sanctioned because there was already a women’s centre and a sexual assault centre operating on campus (along with 7 Christian clubs, but that's not feminism, so it's okay). At McMaster, students had to fight for decades to open a women's centre on campus and they finally succeeded due to a PR crisis for the administration and student union following multiple high-profile articles about sexual assault published in the past two years. Also at Mac, the student union denied status for the group United in Colour, aimed at empowering people of colour, stating their service unnecessary because there was already a black students union on campus. The idea that there can ever be “too much feminism” is not limited to McGill’s student union. It is an attitude reflected in the society that systemically marginalizes women and silences their voices. It’s the same attitude that says feminism has gone too far, that women can now vote and work outside the home and therefore “the feminist project” is accomplished. Attitudes are not formed in a vacuum. The same culture that suggests “feminist” should be a term to ban, same culture that deny transwomen their hormone therapy, same culture that allows sexual assault perpetrators to walk free.
And what’s worse, I’m sure all the committee members ID as “feminist”. In fact, I have many many "feminist" friends that believe in reverse racism, that men's rights activism is not that unnecessary, that no's opinion can be garbage, that being a loudmouthed feminist makes me "part of the problem". To my dismay, half of the IGC consists of women, and one of the men is the founder of Women for Women International chapter at McGill. I say to my dismay, because I expect more from women. . So let me tell you this, my beloved student union, that calling yourself feminists is irrelevant at best, and disrespectful at worst, if you refuse to see the value in having feminist spaces on our campus. To be a feminist, you don’t need to join us at every march and every talk and every conference, but you do need to be aware of your power, your privilege and the value of feminism on our campus.
Paniz Khosroshahy is a third year student at McGill involved with McGill Students for Feminisms. She loves to hang out in closed QTPOC spaces, is allergic to liberal feminism and the unfortunate hijacking of the word "choice", and can't give two shits about accusations of being "part of the problem", misandrist or "reverse-racist".