The Feminist Dissident: The Evolution of a Feminist
"Feminism is a favorite whipping girl...feminist women are, indeed, not born feminist. But this does beg the question, doesn't it..? --why do they become feminist?
"I can't speak for all feminist women; no one can speak for all feminist women...However, I can state with confidence that many of the factors that drove me from a state of non-feminism approaching active antipathy to feminism, to publicly identifying as a feminist, are shared by a lot of other women.
"I'd love to discuss all the factors--but in the interests of article space, I am going to focus on just one of them. I believe that if this one specific factor were removed, there would be far fewer new feminist women...
"The factor: Sexual predation.
"For one, imagine what it would be like to not only be smaller, weaker and slower than almost every male you know, but also that all those males know that you are smaller, weaker and slower than they are...
"Now, imagine that all your life, from your boyhood onward, there had been a steady stream of males, from boys your own age up through adult men, who had tried to have sexual intercourse of one description or another with you and were often undeterred by your lack of interest, response or enjoyment.
"Say that, as you grew up, when you were alone with one, while most of the time they didn't try to forcibly rape you, once in a while one of them did--but you never knew in advance which one it would be. Say that, once you reached adolescence and young manhood, you found that if you drank too much alcohol, other men would not infrequently try to use your inebriated or unconscious body for sex--again, indifferent to your lack of interest, response or enjoyment, and you never knew when it would happen and when it wouldn't...
"[T]here is one place where this situation is somewhat similar for them, and that's in prison. Many men are terrified and revolted by the idea of going to prison, and the primary reason for that terror and revulsion is their exposure to, and the knowledge of their own lack of ability both to defend themselves physically from and to get sympathetic aid from the authorities from, sexual predation. Think of prison, in terms of sexual predation, as simply a more violent and concentrated form of the life of a girl and woman in terms of sexual predation--because it is.
"No, I'm not exaggerating...."
The purpose of The Feminist Dissident is to give feminists a chance to speak directly to my audience, and my audience to debate the issues with them in a civil manner. Uncivil comments will be deleted. To read previous entries, click here.
The Feminist Dissident column below is penned by Lisa Kansas, a feminist and a chemical engineer in Maryland. To visit her blog, click here.
If you are a feminist and are interested in submitting a blog post, please email me at glenn@glennsacks.com.
The Evolution of A Feminist; or, Don't Like Feminists? Stop Helping Create Them
By Lisa Kansas
Pat Robertson said it best: ""Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." More succinctly put, feminism is a favorite whipping girl. Feminism has become that magical word--"mainstream"--but that hasn't made it popular or generally regarded in a positive light. And of all the folks out there that really hate feminists, men's rights activists are probably among the most virulent and vocal about it.The big difference between hating black people or Jews and hating feminist women--the difference espoused by people who hate the latter and not the former, say--is that black people or Jews are born that way. It isn't a choice; being a feminist is a choice, a philosophy, not an ethnicity. Very true--but this argument leads to another, conspicuously not followed through upon by those who advocate it. As they say, feminist women are, indeed, not born feminist. But this does beg the question, doesn't it..? --why do they become feminist?
I can't speak for all feminist women; no one can speak for all feminist women, all women, all feminists, or all members of any other subgroup of humanity. However, I can state with confidence that many of the factors that drove me from a state of non-feminism approaching active antipathy to feminism, to publicly identifying as a feminist, are shared by a lot of other women. I'd love to discuss all the factors--but in the interests of article space, I am going to focus on just one of them. I believe that if this one specific factor were removed, there would be far fewer new feminist women--all you'd have to do to achieve a world much freer of mainstream feminism would be to outlive all the defanged old ones. (Witness their trouncing during the Democratic primaries as an example of that dynamic.)
The factor: Sexual predation.
Men are uniquely placed, as a group, to help end this problem and rid us forever of lots of future feminists. And it is a real problem, and it is a problem that I think men do not quite understand in its impact upon women in the same fashion that, say, white people do not understand what it's like to grow up black. Not the day-to-day experience with all its million-and-one little unpleasant episodes, tens and hundreds of greater unpleasantnesses, and the periodic whomper of a crappy one that sometimes alters the entire course of the recipient's life for the very much worse.
For one, imagine what it would be like to not only be smaller, weaker and slower than almost every male you know, but also that all those males know that you are smaller, weaker and slower than they are. (Men who are on the smaller side are not always automatically assumed to be easily physically dominated by larger men--but all women are assumed to be easily physically dominated by all men, whether it's true or not). Now, imagine that all your life, from your boyhood onward, there had been a steady stream of males, from boys your own age up through adult men, who had tried to have sexual intercourse of one description or another with you and were often undeterred by your lack of interest, response or enjoyment. Say that, as you grew up, when you were alone with one, while most of the time they didn't try to forcibly rape you, once in a while one of them did--but you never knew in advance which one it would be. Say that, once you reached adolescence and young manhood, you found that if you drank too much alcohol, other men would not infrequently try to use your inebriated or unconscious body for sex--again, indifferent to your lack of interest, response or enjoyment, and you never knew when it would happen and when it wouldn't. (more...)
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