I see a lot of you getting really frantic and worrying that big bad meanies like me will “give feminism a bad name”. You need to wake up and realize a few things, really, really quick, or you are in for a lifetime of misery, hardship, and trouble:

1) Feminism will never get a “good name”, if by a “good name” you mean “willing cooperation from men who will eagerly treat you like human beings because you asked really, really nicely and were a good sweet girl who was polite and did things the nice way”. That is NOT going to happen. You can be the nicest, sweetest, most giving girl in the world and men will spit on you, beat you, rape you, jail you, call you a bitch, a whore, a slut, a hellbound sinning witch, AND a vicious man-hating radical feminist if you so much as ask for a few extra dollars with which to feed your starving child. This happens to thousands of women DAILY no matter how nice they are.

2) There are literally millions of people who call themselves feminist, and probably well over a million books written on the topic. If someone is going to pick my blog as a reason why they believe women should continue to be enslaved, beaten, starved, mutilated, and raped as they have been for thousands of years, they are just choosing to do that because they don’t really have any good argument. An ad hominem attack is a poor reason to dismiss an entire movement. Imagine in any other movement declining to stand for the side that is fighting for the liberation of billions of oppressed people because you personally don’t like one tumblog. “I’ve already made up my mind – don’t confuse me with the facts”. They seek confirmation bias – they’ve decided feminists are all mean, and they find a mean feminist to confirm their bias. (Note that I don’t deny being mean. Of course, I am mean because men taught me that I must be mean to survive, but they don’t ever want to admit that. I used to be the nicest, sweetest little girl you can imagine.)

3. On that last note, what do you think that you are getting out of trying to convince men who are hostile to feminism to convert to the cause? I can assure you, they aren’t going to listen. These men are your enemy. I don’t care if they are your fathers, your brothers, your best friend since high school. If they are saying crap like that to you, there is a message in it, and the message is, “If you are too strident and vociferous in standing up for yourself, I will do everything in my power to stomp you down. I will call you names, I will make you feel like dirt, I will gaslight you until you are certain you are the abuser and the bad guy here. You better cater to my feelings. You better not devote any more time and attention to feminist causes than *I* think is appropriate, and they better be feminist causes that *I* approve of, or I will withdraw my attention, affection, and love from you.” This is emotional blackmail. These are toxic men to whom you should limit contact to the bare minimum necessary.

Never apologize for seeming too angry.

Never apologize for your feminism.

Never apologize for standing up for yourself.

That’s just a long, spiralling road down to hell.

 

Source.