R

Whenever I get inspired to stand up and promote feminism and combat sexism from a video or article on social media, I become so downtrodden when I get to the comments sections. There are so many people invalidating the sexism that people face, calling them whiny, complaining that women can’t be pleased, that they need to deal with sexism because now they’re equal.

Whenever I come upon these types of comments, I always end up thinking back to my own close relative who holds very similar views. He has set up arguments with me about feminism that I can never “win” because we’re playing by his rules, and my sources don’t matter, my experience or that of my friends doesn’t matter. He thinks that feminism is bs and has gone out of his way to defend actions against women based off a small thing that she was accused of doing, rather than acknowledging how all the hate, harassment, and threats she received were horrible and unacceptable. He could not put himself in my shoes or the shoes a woman who is afraid to be alone with a man. It hurts, that he is unwilling to have a productive, open conversation about these topics. He would rather just use me as a basis to build up his perspective of the world by shooting mine down.

Because of all of this, I no longer trust him with any important issue in my life. Things are and will remain superficial at the moment. And considering how we grew up together, this really sucks.