At a recently held women’s conference, organisers requested that attendees stop clapping and do ‘feminist jazz hands’ instead...because the applause was triggering some people’s anxiety.

In slightly less absurd feminist news, the ‘#BanBossy’ campaign seeks to ban the word ‘bossy’ on the basis that it deters young women from pursuing leadership roles. While the campaign was founded with good-intentions, it risks side-lining more pressing gender-equality concerns. The Atlantic this week published a harrowing essay on the treatment of women in Turkey, a country suffering from alarming rates of gender-based violence, struggling to change the oppressive patriarchy that severely restricts the freedoms of its women.

Unfortunately, such brutalities against women are not confined to Turkey.

The Iraqi parliament is considering legalising marital rape and child marriage. Saudi Arabia is looking to charge two women with terrorism for defying the country’s ban on female drivers. Human trafficking and forced prostitution are major issues in parts of South America and Eastern Europe. And honour killings are rife in the Middle East and West Asia, with about 5,000 committed around the world every year. But few celebrity-riddled media blitzes are devoted to bringing global attention to these human rights abuses.

Yet, volumes of media space are given to the arguably more inane ‘feminist’ causes. Consider the campaign seeking to ‘ban manspreading’ on public transport. Some feminists have endorsed the hashtag #killallmen, because promoting violence seems the most appropriate way to promote equality of the sexes. How about feminists of the free world fighting for the right to post bare-chested photos on social media sites. Because less (clothing) is more empowering right?

When did feminism start devoting itself to these sorts of absurdist causes? Advocating for changes in Instagram etiquette is the definition of first world problems. Social media hazing of women who choose to be stay-at-home mothers contradicts the very ‘freedom of choice’ that feminism espouses. 

Many of these campaigns reveal a frustrating lack of appreciation for just how far the Western world has come in advancing the political, economic, and social rights for women. They also ridicule and undermine more critical concerns restricting the freedoms of women globally, whether living within the confines of oppressive regimes in non-Western societies, or issues of unequal pay and sexual violence still prevalent in Western countries.

The media has been markedly silent on Margot Wallström, the Swedish foreign minister who denounced the subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia. There is no hashtag devoted to her cause, no Beyoncé voicing support.

But this is where the focus should be. Because crusades like #killallmen are not laudable; they are regressive and outrageous. They threaten to destabilise and trivialise the feminist movement, not attract sympathisers.