FEMINISM IS FOR EQUALITY. EQ-UAL-IT-Y. EDUCATE YOURSELF
You know, I always laugh a lot whenever I get the “educate yourself” line, because then I get to say, “I did educate myself. That’s how I became anti-feminist in the first place.”
If you had asked me at sixteen whether I was a feminist or not, I would have answered yes in a heartbeat. And then I found tumblr, and I started engaging with the tumblr social justice brigade. And of course I thought to myself, “Well, these are just a few extremists. They don’t represent feminism as a whole, surely.”
And then I actually started doing research, looking past the pretty flowery words and instead at the actions of feminism, what they’ve actually done as opposed to what they say they’re for, because of course, actions speak louder than words. And I found the ugly truth.
About…eh, I’d say the mid-80s, feminism became less about actual legitimate issues that affect the lives and livelihoods of women and more about “critiquing” (and I use that word lightly) things that they saw as “oppression.” I’ll say third wave feminism, specifically. They have no direction, no overarching thing that they’re working on achieving, and no leadership. They’re focused on “breaking down the patriarchy,” whatever that is (none of them can seem to agree on what it is or what it constitutes, just like none of them can agree on what the definition of feminism actually is and who can be a feminist). They’re directionless and there’s more in-fighting among the feminists than there is in the Republican Party at the moment (and that’s saying a lot). They’re more worried about a song that may or may not be demeaning to women (Blurred Lines…god I am so sick of hearing about that stupid song) than about the lack of domestic violence shelters for men (seeing as how there about 40-45% of domestic violence victims are MALE, you’d think feminists would stop treating it as a gendered problem and just say “It’s a huge problem that we need to help stop”…but nope). Same for rape, but I’m not going into that today.
No, Feminism is not for equality. And if you’re going to spout the dictionary definition at me, aren’t you the EXACT SAME PEOPLE that have told me that you can’t use the dictionary definition of things like racism/sexism because the dictionary was “written” by white males and so is part of the “patriarchy?” When you can show me that feminism is aimed at achieving equality and equity among all human beings regardless of sex, race, sexuality, and financial status, I’ll believe you. But there’s a reason it’s called FEMinism. Don’t tell me the movement stands for equality when the actions of feminism say otherwise.
You’ve built this cultural narrative where women are perpetual victims, helpless in a society ruled by middle-age white males, and that women are still hopelessly behind and underrepresented in all fields. We’re not. I don’t appreciate your movement’s constant use of misinformation and manipulated narratives and statistics to promote your agenda.
When you can show me that feminism as a movement (and not just individual feminists) has and is actively working to achieve equality, I’ll stop being an anti-feminist. Until then, I’ll call myself a humanist and call out feminism and feminists as I see fit.
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