FEMINISM: THE FLEXIBILITY PROBLEM

A couple of weeks ago, a story was shared on Facebook about a woman who had just given birth and wrote a complaint to an IG blog about her husband demanding for sex about 2 weeks after she had her baby through a caesarean section. Rightfully, there was an outrage. Quite several comments disregarded the husband’s wickedness but rather focused on the woman who was ‘desperate to be married’ on the assumptions that she was seeking “acceptance”, “approval”, “validation”, or in a “hurried bid to bear Mrs’’.

Comments from women. Jesting. Mocking. Shaming.

It would be shocking to me if this was new. It was one of the many attacks I had seen against women that week- for a varying number of reasons. It wasn’t the first time in recent times a woman would be dragged to filth by ideology driven women. It doesn’t matter what happened to a woman, or how traumatic that experience must have been. Dare I mention what happens to women who 'mistakenly' stick up for men in online conversations? Not having the same reaction as the fiery feminists is seen as some sort of betrayal to the fight for equality and standing in support of men is usually responded to with the ‘pick me’ or ‘patriarchy princess’ tag.

In order to attack you and or your dissenting opinions, they label you with a tag that implies that you’re looking for men’s attention. I remember leaving a comment on the said post about the inhumanity and callousness being displayed by women in the comment section, then having a back and forth with the poster-a radical feminist judging by the posts on her timeline. And I remember checking back some moments later to see that my comment had been deleted. I couldn't be slapped with a tag, so it was better if me and my opinion got lost from her comment section.

Why is there always a need to police other women’s stances? Why can’t other women disagree with the tactics employed in the fight for women? Going by the stance of many women on feminism, PROBABLY over 90% of the entire female population in the world are not feminist enough to the radical feminists. And what this implies is that this percentage of women are all Dick-riders and not smart enough to be engaged in the fight against patriarchy and the feminism conversation. Doesn’t that sound a bit familiar to how men say women are not good enough, or smart enough, or too inferior to be engaged in certain conversations, to lead to study particular courses and hold particular roles? Yes, sounds like misogyny to me.

It almost seems like radical feminists are ready to support women; until the said women do something that does not align with the ‘feminist’ ideology. The vitriol aimed at women is absolutely disgusting. It is however unclear where some women learned that one of the ways to practice feminism is through unbridled attacks at dissenting views. This will only do one thing; chase more women as far away from radical feminism as possible. We already have a huge chunk of women who feel the need clarify the kind of feminism they practice because of the ‘bitterness’ tag that has gradually trailed feminism over the past couple of years.

Naturally, many of us are angry; we have been subjected to so much abuse, and dirt, and oppression, and harassment, and misogyny, and inhumanity that we simply did not know how to deal with. Things that society told us that we deserved because we are women. I totally get it. It is what fuels us; what pushes us. Feminism doesn’t feel like just an ideology to many of us; it is our lives- it is personal, it is emotional, it is triggering. However, we should not let the anger make us become disconnected from the reality on ground. We need to accept that human beings exist; many are good, many are bad- a vast majority with good intentions.

Feminism exists in different forms to different women, and it allows everyone’s true self to shine brightly- regardless of what empowers or fuels them. Not every woman will adopt radical feminism and that’s absolutely okay. Feminism is not set in stone. It is not a rigid, unchangeable rule book that dictates how we treat the people in our lives, our relationships and our lifestyles. While it has helped us and continues to help us dig into the root of the oppression women face and how to topple the institutions that empower that oppression, radical feminism should not exchange humanity and compassion with rigidity. It should not have a humanity problem. Because if it does, we become exactly what we criticize.

The world is too complicated to be so enmeshed in rigidity. Treating people like human beings worthy of being heard, deemed as intelligent, pitied and respected should not be dependent on their acceptance of an ideology they are expected to support. People will pursue different goals, world views and ideologies from us and we may never understand their reasons. Because the world contains different human beings; each with their own unique set of thought processes, experiences, views, beliefs, and personal ideologies. And while I understand that as women, we need to sometimes have joint expectations, fights and boundaries, flexibility, compassion and tact should not be lost along the way. Spewing hate should be seen as an ugliness that should never be associated with feminism. It taints the movement.

Advocating for isolation or shutting out people who are not as radical in their ideologies as us, will only result in obstruction and hindrance in our ability to effectively change things. It will inhibit our ability to face the reality of how the world actually works, beyond theories, beyond writing, beyond wishful thinking. Not every woman will see men as irredeemably wicked species, not every woman will ask for too much in their relationships, not every woman doesn’t see marriage as an achievement and let’s face it- a lot of women are absolutely content with the status quo and existing gender roles, and they should certainly not be constantly denigrated for living realities different from us.

Because believe it or not, most people will choose happiness, connection, and intimacy wherever they can find it, over what looks like bitter pontifications.