I have a male relative who is famous in our family for being very rude on Facebook. If you ever post something he doesn’t agree with, he will blast you for it in the comment section. I’ve never been a particularly controversial person on Facebook and tend to steer towards feel good, humorous stuff, but recently I started sharing things pertaining to feminism and issues surrounding it. He, as you can probably guess, wasn’t too fond of it.
The first incident was when I shared a picture of a tweet by a girl named Chloe Cheek about the Brock Turner trial which said “rape culture is victim shaming a woman for being ‘too drunk’, then defending a man by saying his actions were influenced by alcohol”. My relative went on to comment with “there is no such thing as “rape culture” and if a woman chooses to get drunk if ANYONE!!! chooses to drink…they get EVERYTHING that comes with it. sorry! that’s the plain truth of it”
first of all, what the actual heck? How on earth can you ever insinuate that a woman deserved to get raped? Under any circumstances? I understand that he and I both come from a christian perspective that being drunk is sinful, but I don’t believe that just because you sin means you deserve to have bad things happen to you. No human being deserves to get raped. Period. God does not punish a woman’s sins by making a man rape her.
That was his first offense, and I let it slide because A. I’m not a controversial person, and B. I know he’s the kind of person who will never have his mind changed. His beliefs are rooted too deeply. and when a stubborn man think God is telling him something in particular, nothing but an act of God is going to make him see his ways. So I responded with an “Okey dokey, artichokey” and left it at that.
But today another incident happened.
I posted an Emma Watson quote that stated “If you stand for equality, you’re a feminist. I’m sorry to tell you.” seemingly harmless, right? Something a young woman should be able to post on Facebook without being insulted and degraded simply for the fact that she has a vagina and not a penis, right? WRONG.
Him: oh. my. God. ugh…I don’t even know where to start.
Me: Then don’t. Neither one of us will convince the other to see things the way we see them and our opinions aren’t hurting or affecting each other at all, so we’re both better off just agreeing to disagree and nobody gets hurt feelings. Sometimes we just have to choose our battles. So thanks for not starting. 🙂
I was being so kind and accepting of our differences in opinions, right? Surely that merits me at least a little bit of respect for being a human.
Him: well feminist lies are not opinions per se. and yes the spread of them does hurt. it hurts men. it relations between men and women. and it hurts gullible young women who refuse to learn better. there. that is where I started. and stopped.
There he goes. I am simultaneously told that A. Because he sees my opinion as a lie it means that I am automatically stripped of even having an opinion, B. That I am just a gullible young woman who refuses to learn better, and C. That I am hurting men and my relationship to my fiance by wanting to get equal pay if, say, me and a man are both working a job and have the same qualifications, and also because I don’t want to, you know, have to worry about being RAPED every time I walk out of my house without a man I trust with me.
I have bad anxiety where when someone says something mean or degrading to me, my heart starts pounding, I can’t think straight, and I start to cry. This is not the first time this man has made me cry, but it is the first time he’s treated me like a lesser human.
My older sister, who has had lots of battles with this man, including over feminism, gave me the advice to not rise to his bait or act angry, because it will just infuriate him more if I act nonchalant about his rude attitude. But it just made me so sick.
That’s when I started to think about how he can only make me feel small and lesser if I let him. That I cannot stop making my voice heard just because he wants to shame and scare me into being a good submissive woman. That’s when I got my idea.
This may sound a little crazy and obsessive, but for the last hour I’ve been stockpiling bookmarks of feminist quotes, pictures, articles, everything….and I’ve decided to periodically post them. I feel like he will either see that I am standing my ground and give up, or he’ll continue to make a fool of himself on my posts and eventually I won’t get that heart pounding, blurry thoughts, teary eyed moment that he usually makes me have. It’s a win/win.
So with that being said, I know that this is not nearly as bad as what a lot of women face on a day to day basis, but this is my story. I wanted to get it out there and share that sometimes a misogynistic man who picks on little girls can end up being just the fuel that makes that girl finally decide to stand up for what she believes in.