| Nymeria said: I volunteered with a group that dealt with domestic violence, largely abuse and rape cases. For a long time it was all women, volunteers and members. It was supportive, offering all the aid it could to those affected. One day a man came in and it made nearly everyone very nervous. He was the victim of long running abuse and after telling his story others became more accepting. It didn't diminish for one second the work I put in aiding women, or that the group was overwhelmingly helping women. The point was we were a safe place for suffering people and didn't define people by their sex. We didn't become male centric for being sympathetic, it was just the right thing to do. I am a women. I am bisexual. I am an agnostic atheist. I was raised in a patriarchal cult that taught me my sex made me lesser, my sexual desires made me deviant, and my doubts made me weak. I have no doubt the the attitudes the exist in parts of society. When I left and lost everything I wanted so badly to hate them for all the pain and anguish they had put me through. How they distort things and manipulate people, it would be so easy to hate them, hate those awful old men and their antiquated teachings. I had to make a hard decision, and I chose despite all the evidence in my life to work that people can be better as a whole than they were. Call it naive, but 20 years ago 67% of people didn't accept gay marriage and it was illegal. Today it is legal and that number has fallen to 32% opposing it. It was fought for and discussed with, in part, straight people as gatekeepers to that right. It never became about heterosexuals simply because they were part of the discussion. I will never compromise or shy away from my principles of supporting women. We don't belong to anyone and deserve to have agency in life. As stated before, if a man cannot handle that and wants to just yell at me, he is not someone I engage with. When I know men who are trying, yes, I try to help them. I'm not going to lower myself simply because my opposition has the capacity to be repugnant on issues. |
I think maybe we're misunderstanding each other here. I don't dislike men as such or view them as inferior or as less deserving of the same array of rights and representation and gender expressions and all of that. I am but suggesting that it is okay if we as women have something that is our own, like our own movement. The distinction -- the autonomy -- of feminism from broader struggles around social justice need not be viewed as something that undermines the validity of other causes.
