quietprofanity

I think feminism is like any other political issue: you can be a hawk or a dove about it.

I ... don't know into which category I fall. I think in years past I would have described myself as a dove. I used to think you really could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, that an argument for feminism that acquiesced to the concerns of men would be inherently better, that if you just explained yourself well enough people would listen. I thought that I could be the "good" feminist and automatically change people's minds by showing myself to be good.

I don't think that way anymore. I think working from the mindset that you have to prove yourself a "good" feminist and people will listen to you has hurt me in some ways. I think some of my old friends from college treated my beliefs on this subject as an, "Aw, that's cute" manner. Like they tolerated me when it came to them because I was nice otherwise. It didn't matter. When I disagreed with them, they were still willing to throw them in my face as a negative. An ex-friend did it to great effect when we had our split, too.

So I don't know if I can be "Feminist by example" all the time. I'm a bit of a wuss, anyway. I'd like feminism to look out for all women, including cowards like me. And lately, things have been making me mad. I notice a lot more things than I used to, and what I'm willing to dismiss has grown shorter, although I'm always trying to check myself and look at it from all angles.

I feel like a hawk lately, though. When I went home for Thanksgiving a few days ago, my brother and I got into a fight about fucking Katy Perry of all things. And I just felt BAD about it afterward, and a little nasty. Then my brother played this song about a guy raping a woman and then killing her and burying her in the back of the yard I went to his girlfriend and was like, "Hey, would you listen to a song about a girl who hacks off a guy's penis and feeds it to him?" She said yes, but my brother called me petty and full of negative energy. And of course later I go home and think about that stupid song for days and then I'm like, "Well, murder ballads have a long history in music/You're making excuses/Why the fuck would anyone write a song like that?"

Like I said, I don't like fighting. I'm a wuss. And it's exhausting.

But I can't stop, you know? I see all these double standards everywhere and in response the rest of the world tells me I'm being TOO SENSITIVE and I tried to be the good person and it didn't work and I'm like RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGH!!!

On the other hand, there's parts of the feminist community I don't really like. Anger doesn't come into it, although I don't like how sometimes the idea that you can have (often justified) anger and that a lot of people who disagree with that anger can be asshats = "Let us automatically twist the arm of anyone who disagrees!" I just hate that sort of crap. And the type of feminism that offers simplistic solutions that often only apply to one type of woman. (Hallo Feministing!)

I don't want to snap at everyone; it's not in my nature. Although that's not true. I've said some nasty things about some women in the feminist comics community. (Although looking back, I don't always feel bad. OK, this one time I think I overreacted to my disagreement with Karen Healey, but the other two I was still right about.)

So maybe I'm just in the great middle like everyone and I have to deal with it.

I guess that works.

I bet Ragnell thinks this post is stupid. Oh well, I'll try to be more insightful next time. I'm hungry and trying to tell myself to go to the gym.