I was idly chatting with a few people in a bar and offhandedly mentioned the fact that I'm a feminist in a passing joke that I assumed no one would remember or care about when a young man in the group made the decision to purposefully scoff at me, or I suppose just at feminism in general. And oh-- it was a pointed, purposeful scoff, friends. He leaned right into that scoff, and made me very much aware that he was not happy with these particular womenfolk with whom I identify myself. So since he was so adamant that I recognize that he just DISAPPROVES of feminism, I feel comfortable discussing this interaction freely, on this blog, that I hope I will regret assuming no one reads.
You should know that the guy is from Kentucky, and I will let that statement stand on its own with no further comment, because unlike certain young gentlemen from Kentucky, I try not to make generalized and insulting assumptions based on stereotypes and some personal experience skewed by my own refusal to educate myself on the history or literature of any individual or group. He might not even like fried chicken, for all I know. You, however, dear reader, can do what you like. So, I repeat, he's from Kentucky, which is located in the Southern part of the United States of America, literally right above Tennessee. Tennessee.
So being the self-destructive fool that I am, I did engage the young whippersnapper, and I asked him what the hell is wrong with feminism, but in a slightly nicer way, as I was only one deep in the nail polish remover I was drinking that evening. He responded that I should instead believe in "equalitism", by which I'm sure he actually meant the English word "equality". I'm sure of that.
And here, I'm afraid he has a point, however circuitous it may be... you see, the vast, vast majority of feminists do believe in equality, for everyone including white Christian heterosexual men, which is a fact that anyone would know by reading literally any feminist web site that isn't set up on a geocities account with two crossed rifle gifs spinning in glitter-stars above a headline that reads DEATH TO PENIS, with a little trail of vagina .imgs following your mouse around. I mean, you would know that unless your mind was somehow pickled with moonshine bourbon and sweet tea, which are things that I have seen people from Kentucky drink, more than once, just so you know. You see, even though we believe in equality for everyone, our name does not reflect that, and I will tell you why. I'm gonna do it right now, stay tuned, I just feel like I should break paragraphs because this is an important and valid point that I'm making.
Okay, so when a person believes in equality for women, we call them a FEMINIST. Or a femi-nazi, depending on your head-fat to illegal-drug-brain-marinade ratio. Equality for women gets this cutesy little name. So, what do we call a person who believes in racial equality? Like, besides a "sane person", what do we call them? Maybe like a 'civil rights activist' if you're a time traveler or something? So, two types of equality, and one gets labeled with this weirdly specific name, and the other is like... yeah why the hell wouldn't you believe in racial equality, duh? The same goes for the slightly more polarizing "gay rights activist". We don't call them "homosexualists", or something. I mean, does everything for women have to come with a cutesy name? Does it all have to be pink pens and vagina de-odorizers for us, all the damn time? Where is your penis de-odorizer? Hm?? You may think that I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but it really comes down to this fact: in order to be an activist for women's rights, you basically have to identify as a label that has historically been shit on in a big, big way by everyone. It's been made to be militant, and unattractive, and angry by the mainstream, much like the Man from Whatever-Southern-to-Midwestern-State-Starts-With-a-K's mom, who I heard had a house dropped on her in a tornado. I heard that somewhere.
I can't remember if the next part of the long, pained sigh this blog post is turning into happened later that night or a few nights later, but we were taking the subway and I found myself wordlessly apologizing to the women and minorities around us when the Man from Kentucky, shoeless and wearing a sundress as I assume all Kentuckians do constantly but did not verify by actually looking at him (why should I take a close look when I can just judge ignorantly?), complained about another busy subway ride he took in which he was tired, sat down, and then was mercilessly looked at. Looked at, by all the women standing around him, who didn't have seats. One of them even cleared her throat at him or something. Irrefutable evidence, of course, that feminism is wrong, because some women look at a young, agile man sitting down during a subway ride and feel that he might be one of the last candidates in the "those who deserve a seat on a packed train" list. And, through the majesty of mathematics we can also assume that even if these particular women did feel they, as women, deserved a seat more over a man, these some women actually amount to all women expecting an (abysmally slight) and yet unfair advantage in this completely trivial area of life, and that somehow their feeling this at him was an injustice.
The thing that really affected me, though, was the genuine victimization felt by this person. This man... this handsome, bright, English speaking, straight, white, American, working-to-middle class man who could literally pass as a stellar example of Hitler youth and therefore would have been incredibly at ease in exactly any time period or place in history, felt like the recipient of a small injustice because of some perceived judgement from an historically disenfranchised group. He was completely unaware of his privilege in society, and it's not totally his fault, in my opinion. To use myself as an example, I try to keep myself aware, at all times, of the way my own privilege aids me in my day-to-day life, but even I, as someone who is conscious of these issues, am constantly upbraided by my interactions with people of color, or homosexuals, or non-Christians, or non-English speakers living in America. And, I'm obviously being very unfair to this man from Kentucky, because part of the reason I'm even willing to see my own privilege is because I've experienced discrimination from both sides, and can more aptly understand that even when it's not necessarily our fault that people are at a deficit in our society for our benefit, we are still absolutely responsible.
So I hold no resentments against this man from Kentucky, or any other men from Kentucky, and neither should you. And in fact, I wish him a long and happy marriage with his sister-cousin, and I just hope the goat can move on with her life.
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