I love feminists but I hate feminism.
I love Christians but I hate Christianity.
I love Muslims but I hate Islam.
I love communists but I hate communism.
I love conservatives but I hate conservatism.
I love people but I hate ideology.
I’ve never been a fan of those who blindly follow their religion, political views, or beliefs.
When I was in high school, the big bad boogie monsters were the Evangelical Christians of the U.S.
They were so fervent in implementing and forcing others to live a “moral” life that they ended up violating many of their own principles and failed to live up to the image of their Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Instead of doing unto others as they would have done to them, they forced others to comply with their views of the world. Instead of focusing on living the best life that they could, spreading happiness and goodwill through their actions, they worried about everyone else.
They cried about the erosion of the institution of marriage as if they were the only culture in the world that used marriage and that their’s was the only version permissible.
They blasted everyone else for their sins but failed to ever acknowledge their own.
I hated their bigotry then because I saw it as self-serving and fundamentally non-charitable.
They acted in a way that I would never see Jesus act, someone who hung around prostitutes and others of low status. He (in the bible) treated everyone equally because there is no better way to provoke change than leading by example.
I’ve never been a believer, but I do admire religions the same way I might admire philosophies that I may not subscribe to. I think that no one philosophy, creed, or political view holds (or even can hold) all the right answers.
In fact, I think there’s at least a speck of truth in every philosophy -, every religion – because you can’t get a real following if you’re making everything up and only speaking lies.
Feminism does have some truth to it and anyone that can’t admit that is lying to themselves or is just not a critical thinker.
Women are inherently at a disadvantage in many areas of life.
Why?
I blame nature (reality).
Women have to deal with pregnancies and periods.
They have to live in a world where almost everyone around them is seen as bigger/stronger, particularly the men.
A beautiful woman has to deal with the fact that some people will never see past her looks and will never see her for her mental capacities.
An ugly woman has to deal with the fact that almost no one will ever take the time to see her internal beauty because humans judge appearances well before we ever judge personality.
Women in managerial roles have to perfectly balance themselves: too harsh and they’re a cold bitch, too soft and they are a total pushover.
The average woman is so weak (comparatively to the average man) that they can hit their man without ever being considered a threat!
In athletics, this trend is even more unfair to women.
Serena Williams, arguably the world’s greatest female tennis player, would probably not even be counted among the 200 best tennis players in the world. (Great Quora post about it)
Imagine living in a world that doesn’t even see you as capable of doing harm, that you’re not someone to ever have to take seriously, that you can’t even truly compete with the boys.
You’re overlooked and dismissed simply because of your sex, not treated just like everyone else!
Sprinkle in some “X” studies in college, some sociology and “critical theory” (it’s a fucking hypothesis, but social sciences were never really scientific to begin with…), stories of rape, or worse, being an actual victim of a sex crime and who wouldn’t want to be a feminist at that point?
And that, my friends, is the exact problem.
Feminism, because of its tenuous links to reality, can seem like a perfect solution to all the world’s problems and inequities. You become convinced that social justice (how can justice be anything but social?) is the way forward because it has found a convenient excuse to all the world’s problems and an even more convenient solution to them:
Men (referred to as patriarchy) are responsible for all the evils of the world,
women for all that is good.
This premise, taken at a surface level understanding of the world, not only works but makes perfect fucking sense.
Who starts all the wars? Men.
Who’s been in charge for most of history? Men.
And who’s been considered as second-class, excluded from participating in society for most of history? Women.
The problem here is a lack of nuance.
The world is not black and white.
Life is hard not because men make it so, but because reality itself is a cruel, uncaring mistress.
Men, while responsible for many horrors, are also the ones we have to thank for the wonders of the modern world.
Through the desire of wanting better for themselves and for those they hold dear, men have made the world better, not worse. Things may improve slower than we’d like, but they are improving nevertheless.
Arunachalam Muruganantham, an Indian man, was so bothered by seeing his wife suffer during her menstruations, unable to leave the house due to hygienic problems, created a sanitary pad that was cheap enough for them to afford. Now, his wife and MILLIONS of impoverished women and girls can live a normal life where before they could not.
Gregory Goodwin Pincus is the man every modern western woman has to thank. Why? He created combined oral contraceptive pills, the invention which later started the sexual revolution because of the stories Margaret Sanger told him of the life of a poor woman, stuck in endless cycles of pregnancy. Without him, women would not be able to have a sexual life that they control, only one that nature dictates for them.
William Moulton Marston, upon noticing the lack of female superheroes in his day, went about creating one of the most important symbols of empowered women, Wonder Woman. Without him, female empowerment wouldn’t have this modern role model. (He’s also probably responsible for making bondage more popular, Wonder Woman ties up all her bad guys!)
Unfortunately for all those who want a simple, one size fits all answer to every problem we face in the world today, there is none.
God isn’t punishing us for our sins.
Men aren’t oppressing everyone.
Feminism won’t be the end of Western Civilization.
Each problem has its own list of causes and its own solutions.
Failing to acknowledge the nuances that exist in the world is a problem and one that can be overcome through open-mindedness and always assuming there is more for you to learn.
As long as there are men and women who think before they speak, who question everything about the world around, who refuse to settle for convenient lies, who search for harsh truths, and who work to improve everything around them until the day they die, there is hope.
I love people but I hate ideology.
Parting thought: I got the inspiration for this article after getting in a Twitter fight with a prominent local domme who is a hardcore feminist.
The domme argued that it is “wrong” for a white man to dominate a black woman in the case of her wanting to be dominated by said white man.
A pro-sex, progressive egalitarian argued that a black woman can’t live the way she wants due to her skin color.
That’s ideological possession in a nutshell: you have to be consistent with your beliefs so therefore you will inevitably contradict your positions.
The worst part is I have no doubt she’s ultimately a good person. She just wants a better world and to be consistent with her beliefs. She probably isn’t coming from a place of hatred but of love. She sees problems and is attempting to do good by resolving them where she can.
It’s unfortunate the road to hell is paved with good intentions because it means that good people can do bad things.
