Why I fight the patriarchy.
Since the age of 18 before I realised what the word even meant, I became a feminist during my last year of A Levels.
And let me tell you how much of a minefield that can be in terms of meeting people. It's almost like you polarise friend groups, family members and generally the people around you because hurrah, you've found a tribe who you feel belonging with.
Your feminism is basically a threat to the toxic people who prevade your life with their unhealthy ideals of how a woman should be, and how their ideals of household labour and freedom jar with their need to be a constant influence in your life. How your needs come after theirs in terms of what you believe in. You essentially become selfless and lose yourself.
Why I'm writing this? So when I left my recent partner a month and a half ago, I essentially found myself again after years of mental illness and self invalidation through dating, the end of my DBT Life Skills therapy and roller derby. Because being a feminist with a serious mental illness can be trying at the best of times. We don't ask for a lot, believe it or not, just fundamental, basic human rights. Without sounding poor mouth, I'm a fucking resilient person in her early 30s who realises where she went wrong in life before her diagnosis. But right now, I'm a bit fed up with how our brand gets a bad name due to a small group of people who have claimed the feminist movement for bad.
We're man haters. We're basically sluts. We ask to be raped (some classic male arguments against feminism). The list goes on and on and on and on and on and on. And don't get me started on the TERFS and the SWERFS (I will explain these terms later).
Let me expand this. If we have too much sex, we're easy. If we don't have sex, we're frigid. The double standard, pretty much. If we get tattoos, or any other body modification, we're betraying the cause. Some of the most confident women that I know in my roller derby group have tattoos and it shows. I'm tattooed in different areas of my body and would also like one or two more if I can.
I'm also sex positive and the current person that I'm dating likes that I bring that into what we have. Despite suffering sexual trauma in my early 20s it doesn't invalidate that I can have a sex life and be in touch with my body, like both my rapists decided at the most vulnerable time of my life that I had to. I decide who has access to my body and who can't now.
But the catalyst for this post is the constant dogwhistling towards prominent women who granted, have the privilege of being in the open on account of their career, but at the end of the day are just that; women. The utter reduction of their role to a single event (they got botox, a tramp stamp on their back; think Cheryl in the 2010s) and then the added insult of proclaiming that they don't have any solidarity with other feminists is just not okay. What feminists are trying to say here is that once a woman is open about her life, they are conveyed as somehow a traitor, a fallen woman. And this is the exact portrayal of feminism that we need to move away from.
I could sit all day and read about critical feminism, but sadly my Masters' degree and my part time job don't allow that all the time. My critically thinking mind, however, allows me to see that the hateful comments being paraded online aren't in solidarity - they attack the person, rather than the cause, which is internalised misogyny. And that is the main reason why I fight the patriarchy - to create a feminism which is inclusive to all, to let other women, both trans and cis, and also sex workers into the movement. Because at the end of the day, this is a safe space and gatekeeping of feminism will almost always occur from someone or others who don't agree with what another feminist has done, and so the efforts to cancel them are desperate. And that isn't an act of solidarity.
And as a final word from me - whilst I may be a cis gender, bisexual white feminist, I also have my own handicaps and therefore struggle at times. This is where being kind to other women comes in, and I'm thankful for the group of women and men I've met during the last 15 years who I have empowered, and they me likewise.
Since the age of 18 before I realised what the word even meant, I became a feminist during my last year of A Levels.
And let me tell you how much of a minefield that can be in terms of meeting people. It's almost like you polarise friend groups, family members and generally the people around you because hurrah, you've found a tribe who you feel belonging with.
Your feminism is basically a threat to the toxic people who prevade your life with their unhealthy ideals of how a woman should be, and how their ideals of household labour and freedom jar with their need to be a constant influence in your life. How your needs come after theirs in terms of what you believe in. You essentially become selfless and lose yourself.
Why I'm writing this? So when I left my recent partner a month and a half ago, I essentially found myself again after years of mental illness and self invalidation through dating, the end of my DBT Life Skills therapy and roller derby. Because being a feminist with a serious mental illness can be trying at the best of times. We don't ask for a lot, believe it or not, just fundamental, basic human rights. Without sounding poor mouth, I'm a fucking resilient person in her early 30s who realises where she went wrong in life before her diagnosis. But right now, I'm a bit fed up with how our brand gets a bad name due to a small group of people who have claimed the feminist movement for bad.
We're man haters. We're basically sluts. We ask to be raped (some classic male arguments against feminism). The list goes on and on and on and on and on and on. And don't get me started on the TERFS and the SWERFS (I will explain these terms later).
Let me expand this. If we have too much sex, we're easy. If we don't have sex, we're frigid. The double standard, pretty much. If we get tattoos, or any other body modification, we're betraying the cause. Some of the most confident women that I know in my roller derby group have tattoos and it shows. I'm tattooed in different areas of my body and would also like one or two more if I can.
I'm also sex positive and the current person that I'm dating likes that I bring that into what we have. Despite suffering sexual trauma in my early 20s it doesn't invalidate that I can have a sex life and be in touch with my body, like both my rapists decided at the most vulnerable time of my life that I had to. I decide who has access to my body and who can't now.
But the catalyst for this post is the constant dogwhistling towards prominent women who granted, have the privilege of being in the open on account of their career, but at the end of the day are just that; women. The utter reduction of their role to a single event (they got botox, a tramp stamp on their back; think Cheryl in the 2010s) and then the added insult of proclaiming that they don't have any solidarity with other feminists is just not okay. What feminists are trying to say here is that once a woman is open about her life, they are conveyed as somehow a traitor, a fallen woman. And this is the exact portrayal of feminism that we need to move away from.
I could sit all day and read about critical feminism, but sadly my Masters' degree and my part time job don't allow that all the time. My critically thinking mind, however, allows me to see that the hateful comments being paraded online aren't in solidarity - they attack the person, rather than the cause, which is internalised misogyny. And that is the main reason why I fight the patriarchy - to create a feminism which is inclusive to all, to let other women, both trans and cis, and also sex workers into the movement. Because at the end of the day, this is a safe space and gatekeeping of feminism will almost always occur from someone or others who don't agree with what another feminist has done, and so the efforts to cancel them are desperate. And that isn't an act of solidarity.
And as a final word from me - whilst I may be a cis gender, bisexual white feminist, I also have my own handicaps and therefore struggle at times. This is where being kind to other women comes in, and I'm thankful for the group of women and men I've met during the last 15 years who I have empowered, and they me likewise.
