“whenever i say something they find hard to hear, they chalk it up to my anger and never to their own fear.” -ani d
so, someone tells you that there are feminists who went too far, practice “reverse sexism” and female domination and want a matriarchy instead of a patriarchy. in our case this is a friend. this isn’t some politican or actor or religious leader or Rolling Stone magazine journalist or anyone else i would have expected something that semi-uneducated and very unthought out from. it’s someone i know on a personal level, interact with weekly or more, someone i hired on to his job!!! it’s not this big political deal, it’s the small, deeply personal phrasing of words that has a great weight and bagage behind it.
but how could he know about that baggage? it’s not his sex/gender coming from thousands of years of oppression, a marriage contract stating he was some one’s property, a 1/3 chance of being sexually assaulted. the first law ever written didn’t say “if a man speaks out against his woman his mouth shall be smothered by hot brick”. so, there is little chance he could understand the true oppression of sexism.
i, however, came with that baggage, from that place. and because of this and the many articles/books/lyrics/poems i have read and the people who called me out on my fucked up behavior know that it’s silly to use words like “reverse sexism” (if it’s sexism reversed, wouldn’t that not be sexism?), or to even say that feminism itself is untouchable because of “a few rare people who took it too far”. what movement/government/community HASN’T had a rare few who took things “too far”? we live in a society of extreme music, sports, sex, reality tv, and violence. of every population there are extremists, how would a population of feminists be any different? and why would this be evidence that feminism is to blame?
at a panel on gender based violence at an Amnesty International conference i went to in 2004 i found out that gender based violence accounts for more deaths/disabilities than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war PUT TOGETHER in women ages 15-44. on top of that, in societies that are more masculinized (ie. men is bread winner, macho is the in thing) sexual violence occurs more often. according to RAINN’s website men make up only 10% of sexual assault survivors (currently). in my domestic violence class in high school we learned that over 99% or rapists in prison were men. talk about women’s equality and female domination!
if there are women who have goal of female domination or “reverse sexism” or female separatism, or who are going too far it is in direct reaction to a society that has gone too far in her own oppression. it is a reaction to her friends being raped, her boyfriend pushing her to the side, a political system where she has only 22% representation when she makes up 52% of the world’s population, a lack of equal pay for equal work, violence against her being a norm in music and movies and an impossible standard of beauty.
whether or not it’s justified or ok for women to “dominate men” or “reverse the issues”, again: it is a direct reaction to a society that went too far in it’s oppression of all people (including men). if we are reversing the roles of our gender it might be because men should know what it’s like to be in our shoes (and we theirs). men have tried to dominate women for around 5,000 years, and for some women to take advantage of sexual power or physical ableness to dominate them is a perfectly valid response to her own oppression (whether or not it’s the best response). because hers is inherited from her mother and her mother and her mother and back, while his is an oppression of the minute or hour he is made to feel our discomfort.
“oh, i’m sorry, did I ruin 3 hours of your life? Did I ruin your good time? well, I am a woman every single day I deal with this shit every single day So I’m sorry if you felt uncomfortable for a single day But good – maybe you’ll know what it’s like What it’s like to be me Maybe you’ll know what it’s like What it’s like to be she” -Garmonbozia
i’m not saying these things to to make any man feel guilty, or to make us women into victims, i’m saying them to give a better understanding of what it means to be a women in this day and age. or, what it has meant to be one over the last couple thousand years.
so many people treat modern day feminism as a joke. we have sexual harassment laws, the right to vote and you pay for our dinner, what more could we want? oh, i don’t know, to be a person and not a prize! is this taking it too far? is that reverse sexism?
contary to the opinions of many i don’t want to have my cake forever and eat it, too. i don’t want or need you to hold the door open for me, buy my dinner, drive me to the movie or take me shopping. that means nothing if you’re not my equal/friend/partner/brother. i don’t want to wage war on men or the community around me. but i do feel like there is a war against me and my body. i don’t want to be an object or a goddess. i don’t WANT to dominate you (well, maybe sometimes i do in bed…), i want you to recognize me as your sister and not your enemy. i want to walk home at night without fear of rape. i want to invite you to my house without you assuming it’s for sex. i want my opinion to be respected. i want an end to rape as a tool of war (and war, too). i want equal pay for equal work. i want you to look at my face and not my chest when i speak. i want to wear a skirt without being honked out. i want to breast feed in public. i want my choice to be my choice. i want you to listen when i speak. i want you too aid me in revolution. i want you to take issues of sexual harrassment seriously.
is this reverse sexism, female domination, or anti-male? is this too much to ask? well, if it is, forgive me for saying it, but i can only image a better world built on the ashes of this one. you can call that whatever you want.
