This is such a well-written piece. I love how measured the tone is (since people love to discredit feminists by claiming their emotionality is problematic) and how clearly you’ve set forth your arguments. I just thought to respond because while I appreciate the piece, I don’t agree with all of it. For instance, I found the part about it being the responsibility/duty of feminist women to educate patriarchal men/women in love a bit problematic, as I think life is already hard enough for many feminist women; it’s unfair to give them the added burden of educating the unwilling.

I also would like to interrogate the point about losing credibility via ineffective communication because the truth of the matter is that when your message is unpopular and/or disruptive to the status quo, it almost doesn’t matter how it is presented. (I say ‘almost’ because I’m sure there are numerous people less radical than my “burn it all down!” self who would fully appreciate the value of measured statements such as the one you’ve made here and are advocating for.) I think it really depends on who you’re speaking to and what you hope to achieve, but mostly I’m concerned about how this point can be used to support tone policing which allows people who are uncomfortable with feminist messages to dismiss the truth simply because they don’t ‘like’ how it is presented.

But mostly, my sense of unease with the piece comes from the fact that in trying to appeal to, educate and communicate effectively with patriarchal men, there is the temptation to gloss over the actual harm and violence that they can and often do get away with thanks to unequal power distributions across gender. I noticed that you named and addressed instances of benevolent sexism, but none of violent sexism.

While I don’t presume to tell you what you should care about, I do think it’s important to allow feminists to ‘fight men’, as you put it, because the men who harm and abuse women must be fought, addressed and held accountable. And abusive men are in the majority, even though most of us may not be aware of it or believe it is true due to how normalised gendered abuse is. Sexual predators, emotionally abusive men etc. abound, even among the ‘good’ men who identify as feminists.

For instance, using my own life/family alone as an example, fully half of the men in it are emotionally/physically/sexually abusive. I was in a long-term relationship with a man who ID’d as feminist yet was deeply emotionally abusive, and I know this isn’t something that is unique to me or even uncommon. This sort of interpersonal violence that is so commonplace in male-female interactions isn’t named at all in your piece — nor does it absolutely have to be — but I do think room should be left in our feminist praxis for the addressing and dismantling of the violent patriarchy which is so rampant in our society by those who want and need to ‘fight men’. And I think ‘fighting men’ shouldn’t be done by women alone, but also by the men who claim to be pro-gender equality. Of course I don’t necessarily mean physically fighting them; addressing their violence with the gloves off is what I mean.

Sorry — I didn’t intend to write a treatise of my own. I just wanted to add to the conversation. Thanks for this valuable piece — if anything, I’m sure it will go further than anything written by my angry feminist self! :)