Zeph Smith
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

“ But I get it. You don’t want to admit it. You don’t want to be a victim. You think feminism is a dirty word. You think it’s not classy to fight for equality. You hate the word pussy. Unless of course you use it to call a man who isn’t up to your standard of manhood. You know the type of man that “allows” “his” woman to do whatever she damn well pleases. I get it. You believe feminists are emotional, irrational, unreasonable. Why aren’t women just satisfied with their lives, right? You get what you get and you don’t get upset, right?”

Do you have any awareness of how much you are imputing negative stereotypes to those women you disagree with, rather than actually listening to their points of view? I find your article both well meaning, but also somewhat smug, patronizing and demeaning to women who dissent from your analysis. Anybody who questions any part of your analysis must be under the thumb of a man, must hate the word “pussy” except as an insult, etc — right? Do you like it when people use the same demeaning techniques to you — say, assuming that you must be a feminist only because you are unattractive or can’t get a good man, rather than hearing and respectfully addressing your points?

There’s also a blind spot in regard to the roles of men and women. While the first wave feminists certainly deserve tremendous appreciation for their difficult, noble and largely successful struggle, women did not have the power to enfranchise themselves — only men were able to do that at the time. All of their protests and petitions would have gone for naught, except that a majority of men were also supporting the cause (even while a substantial number of women still opposed it at the time). In practice, enfranchisement became the law once the women and men who supported it got more power than the women and men who did not, and in particular when the male support became a majority. The struggle has never been about all women vs all men, but about a subset of women and men struggling against another subset of women and men. Turning it into a simplistic morality tale where all women won a vicory against all men is not only vastly inaccurate, it misleads future struggles by learning the wrong lessons about past successes — failing to understand the critical need to cultivate a broad alliance in a democracy, rather than narrow a cause to just the most pure minority. This is not about feeling the men supporting women’s causes feeling slighted — it’s about understanding how societies really change versus buying simplistic but ultimately dysfunctional morality plays which have stereotyped villians to boo and heroines to cheer for.

While I have a lifetime of supporting progressive causes, if I bother to listen to those who disagree, I often find they are more complex than the handy stereotypes used to summarily dismiss and demonize them — and thus find some areas of common cause. No, it’s not a panacea and doesn’t fix everything, but it’s more effective in the long run than a dysfunctional polarized stalemate with each side trying to destroy the other, and both fueled by hate for and stereotyping of the other side.