Ugly Words

Ever want an easy way to start a shitstorm in a comment section? Say you’re a feminist, works wonders. Want another way? Try saying Black Lives Matter and wait how long it takes for All Lives Matter to come up as the rebuttal, I’d tell you to take a drink every time that phrase inevitably surfaces but you’d be comatose in ten minutes. Of course, these are dressed up as well-meaning things, calling yourself a fighter for equality because men have issues too or saying all lives matter, not just black ones but in truth these are attempts to whitewash and control social movements by an ignorant majority – the very fact they have to distance themselves from the word feminism shows they’ve missed the point. I don’t mean a marginal misunderstanding you can correct as easily as a spelling mistake, I mean they missed the point by such a distance they’d need to catch a bus and a plane to get back to it. Still don’t get my point? Hmm, let me fill you in.

Feminism

People have the misconception that feminism is about putting women at the top of the social hierarchy and rebuilding society around the awe-inspiring might of the vagina or something. Feminism started out as a movement to give women the rights that man already had – the right to vote, to work, to own property – and through protests and other means they achieved a great deal of what they set out to do. We’ve come a long way and humanity deserves some credit for that, for the most part in modern Western society, women are not so much seen as sandwich making housemaids but are also seen as politicians, doctors and so forth, that’s great. However, gender roles are still a thing, a negative set code that is forced on boys and girls alike, which I have discussed in great length and it is so ingrained in us that just the Fem in feminism makes it an ugly word to us, associating it too strongly with women (Counter movements even take the name of Meninism). Feminism isn’t done, women are closer to being equal to men but not quite there yet – most CEOs are still men and that’s not because women don’t bother, they’re just never promoted ahead or so on, women still receive lower wages for the same work as men in various fields such as teaching, construction and management and of course there are still things such as victim blaming in rape cases and entire countries where women are still oppressed (Though meninism tries to tell Western women that they should be glad they don’t live in Saudi Arabia, like that’s an excuse to call them a slut and demand sexual favours, akin to saying “It sucks that you got mugged but at least you don’t live in Venezuela, that place is really dangerous!”). Are we so uncomfortable with our feminine selves that we must lambast a movement rooted in it for daring to suggest women and trans women, lest we forget them due to their lack of representation in the media, are in fact just as worthy as cisgender men? Feminism isn’t about taking away the rights of men, it fights to represent them in things such as the oppressive male standard and how men can be victims of domestic abuse and so on – what feminism is is gender equality, it is not so much destroying the male dominated power structure but disrupting the lack of diversity within it by allowing women to be seen as true peers to their male counterparts.

Black Lives Matter

When police brutality began claiming name after name of black victims over things such as kids holding toy guns, men fleeing in panic at the sight of a police officer and even one police officer apparently mistaking his pistol for his taser and ‘accidentally’ shooting a man dead in the street, the media didn’t sensationalise it like it does everything else – bit pieces were featured in newspapers but the world spun on not really caring all that much. Black Lives Matter is a social media campaign to get people to talk about the fact people are dying and they’re not being spoken about in the news in any great length, their murderers let off the hooks with weak excuses and attempts to besmirch the names of victims are made. Seems in this world, if you’re raped or murdered, someone has to find a way to blame you for that, not your assailant. However, this campaign was hijacked by people saying All Lives Matter, all victims should be grieved for and justice for all innocent lives claimed wrongfully… which is what Black Lives Matter is all about. BLM began because the news already covers the tragic tales of innocent young white people getting murdered or assaulted or accidentally dying in tragic circumstances, black lives not so much and if they are, it’s not with that same respect and dignity, instead it’s a “Who is really to blame?” rhetoric spurted out at us by some right-wing imbecile defending the prejudiced actions of a trigger-happy police officer. BLM, therefore, tried to say the minorities were being overlooked and in response the majority went “Oh god, if they’re being overlooked, maybe we are too, let’s make sure that’s not the case! Quickly majority, let’s make sure every single story about us is heard on every platform we have!”, forgetting the minorities who are still waiting there to be given some time on that stage. Social media is where that happens but they get shot down for daring to suggest their deaths are just as sad as those of white people, who feel offended and have to ask why BLM isn’t giving those deaths consideration. They’re not a movement for that, white people don’t need better representation in the media, we’re already the ‘default’ definition of a human being, what more do we need?

In summary, the straight white male is obviously still the demographic that has all in its favour and it fears for the length of its supremacy over all others when those others unite and demand fairer treatment. Nobody wants to take away the rights of men or white people or Christians or straight people or whatever, when gay people are allowed to marry or white-on-black violence reported in the news, nobody loses out, nobody is worse off. Feminism isn’t man-hating, BLM isn’t racial discrimination. Such movements only want to establish an equal playing field where there is no favouritism. There is no need to fear, white men of the world, we still have a pretty sweet deal going on – we run most of the world, politically and financially, most heroes in fiction resemble us and we’re the most pandered to demographic in all marketing. Equality isn’t, and has never been, a movement to destroy society, it has always been a movement about making it fairer, richer and representative of the diversity within it.