So, some context. Someone on my FB posted an article to their page which appeared in my feed. I quickly dismissed it in a short comment. Someone called me out for being dismissive so I wrote this whole long post explaining why I thought it was a piece of shit. I posted it as a draft on my blog, here, because I knew I'd written a lot and I didn't have a way of saving what I'd written. So, instead, I put it here, and I figured, why not post it? I bothered to write all this. Why not have people read it? Just keep in mind that it's a response to someone.

The article I'm referring to is here: http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/11/6-ways-that-feminism-insults-and-demeans-women-while-claiming-to-protect-them/

First of all, the entire article hinges on the idea that feminism aims for women to be better than men rather than equal to men. The problem with attacking -all- of feminism is that feminism isn't just one thing. And that causes a problem with the label and it's true that we might be better off using different terms rather than trying to adhere ourselves to this amorphous blob of an antique that so many people seem insistent in clinging onto, but that's another whole can of worms that I don't really care to open up. The point is, there is actually very little consensus when it comes to feminism. So when it comes to talking about feminism, it's best to clarify either what kind of feminists you're talking about or at the very least, say -some- feminists, rather than grouping every single feminist together under principles they don't adhere to or ideals they don't follow and dismissing the movement as a whole based on such.

I'm not going to attempt to make some claim that there aren't misandristic, extremist feminists out there. There are. Plain and simple. At the same time, that's not all feminists. In fact, this is, rather, the loud minority. The reason that those are the only feminists many people hear anything from is because they're all shouting louder than anyone else. But that's not the majority of feminists.

It's hard to even really comment on feminism as a whole because it's so fractalized. There are feminists with a whole range of ideas and beliefs. I think it's really stupid of someone to attack feminism as a whole when it -is- so fractalized. Because even if you attack one aspect, you're really only attacking one part of feminism or some feminists.

For the sake of being able to talk about it, though, let's try and talk about unifying factors, and dare I say probably one of the only ones. And even -then- there are people who claim to be feminist and don't truly buy this. But for the sake of argument, I think most feminists are interested in women being equal to men. And in recent years, that's really a lot of what I've seen. I'm not gonna say that I've never seen anything else, but for the majority, that seems to be the consensus.

Let's talk about that word, equal. A lot of people take issue with feminism for it fighting for women to be equal to men, but not for men to be equal to women. Frankly, this is stupid. The word "equal" means "even." It means that all parties have what all other parties have, no more, no less. So if what feminists really want is equality, it is inherent, by definition, that they also want equality for men. Because that's what equality is. To want anything more or less is not truly fighting for equality. And in recent years, that's also what I've seen among most feminists I've seen or talked to.

I think most people have realized that rather than bringing women up to men's level or looking at one side of the issues, people have realized that in order for equality to happen, at this time and how things are, it's more about balance. Most women's issues also affect men. The things that disenfranchise women do the exact same things to men. And rather than looking at the plights of one group of people, we need to look at the plights of all people if we're ever to even attempt to attain equality.

This article completely ignores all of these notions, entirely. And rather, it attacks a straw feminist rather than any actual issues feminists raise or any of the things they've actually fought for.

You asked me why I formulated such a short, non-constructive response. It's because I was pissed off and couldn't manage anything else out. Re-reading this, at point one, I remember exactly why I was so pissed off. I would like to ask this woman, what, exactly, is wrong with someone getting consent before sex? Like, this doesn't even make sense to me. I absolutely think that you should be having a conversation with your partner before having sex.

"Not only does this turn sex into a decidedly unsexy, legally fraught encounter, but it also implicitly requires men to obtain consent from women and not the other way around."

Because not being sure of your partners needs is soooo sexy. So hot. Can't even tell you.

Why does asking your partner what they want to do and keeping lines of communication open have to be unsexy? Sex is a way that we can communicate with each other and verbal communication enhances your experience. It honestly baffles me as to why someone has to take such an issue with this. Just ask if they like what you're doing. If not, stop. Why does this lady have to have a stick up her ass about this?

I like how she doesn't cite the bill as a source so you can't go and check the law unless you look it up for yourself. Fortunately, Google exists. It does not require men to obtain consent from women but not for women to obtain consent from men. The bill doesn't mention sexes or genders and refers to people as people, parties and similar, non-gendered terms as well as the pronouns "he or she." I think the only reason the writer thinks this is due to her own social biases and the way she believes the script of engaging in sex to play out. There is nothing gender-specific about the law.

"What underlies the whole affirmative consent program is the idea that women are emotionally crippled, fearful, insecure and immature weaklings who cannot possibly make their thoughts and desires clearly known to adult partners."

No, no and fucking no. The reason the law should recognize and have a clear model for what consent is is to prevent rape from happening. If a woman says nothing, it's not consent. One could argue that "S/he didn't say 'no,' so that made it okay." Rather, it firmly states that the absence of a "yes" is not a "yes." Furthermore, it pounds out certain situations where consent cannot be given, such as when a person is drunk or mentally impaired. There is nothing wrong with this law. It doesn't aim to harm anyone and it isn't making a commentary about anyone. It's simply laying down ground rules for people to follow so we can all have a more clear and enjoyable sexual experience.

As I stated before, this person clearly doesn't understand thing one about PTSD. This whole argument against it seems to believe that only women benefit from trigger warnings. That isn't the case. Trigger warnings aren't for women. They're for anyone who needs them, men, women and anyone else included. And honestly, I don't get what the problem with this is. It takes 5 seconds and alerts people to the content of the medium. Again, why does she need to have a stick up her ass about this?

I have PTSD. I was assaulted in a movie theatre. This happened 5 years ago. Last year, I was in a movie theatre with my partner. I was sitting in a very similar location to when the incident happened. I did what I could to lessen the effects, but nothing helped. (In all honesty, I should have just left the theatre at that point, but I'd paid for the tickets.) By the end, I was so anxious that I was shaking and nauseous. It was really bad. From then on, we always sat on the right side of the theatre, after I told my partner how badly it affected me.

Should I avoid movie theatres? No. Should movie theatres have trigger warnings? Of course not, that's silly. However, if someone told me ahead of time "hey, sitting there might set off an anxiety attack," I might have listened. And that's what a trigger warning is. It gives you a head's up about what's in store so you can make an informed decision about the situation and not be blindsided by a triggering comment or situation or anything.

"Know what I hate? Reading about adults who kill infants. It makes me feel sick to my stomach, so when I see headlines like “Mother Microwaves Baby,” I don’t read them.

"In the era of clickbait journalism, it’s incredibly rare to see headlines like “Unusual Situation Happened Last Night” or some other misleading or elusive headline that downplays the actual events. Quite the opposite."

It depends on the types of journals you read. Or videos you watch or podcasts you listen to. If there's a video out there entitled "My Suicide Attempt Story," yeah, no duh the video's gonna talk about suicide and most likely give some substantial detail about it. However, if you have something with a title about something like depression or mental health overall and your video intends to tackle suicide at some length, yeah, I think people should be aware of that. Again, I don't see why that needs to be any sort of problem.

"But feminists adore trigger warnings because it reinforces the idea that women are ruled by their emotions, are incapable of recovering from trauma and are just generally hysterical nitwits unprepared to confront adulthood and reality."

I think I facepalmed so hard, I gave myself a headache. Again, trigger warnings aren't exclusively for women. They're for ANYONE who's experienced a traumatic event. Or is the author implying that men never deal with emotional trauma? The thing that pisses me off about this is conflating having a legitimate anxiety disorder to being a "hysterical nitwit." That is -so- insulting to anyone with any kind of psychological disorder, especially anxiety. Again, PTSD is a real thing. It's not just some emotional stint. It's a reaction that's out of the person's control. -Women- are not ruled by their emotions. Rather, -people- are -affected- by their emotions. But this is all the more so for people with emotional disorders. Again, an emotional reaction is not within someone's control. So there's nothing wrong a little courtesy and a 5 second heads up. Again, I don't get why this needs to be any sort of problem.

The next point is the only one I gave any credence to in my original post. I take it back. I do agree that we shouldn't look at women as incapable of inflicting injury on men. The author failed to realize that many feminists fight against this notion. It does disenfranchise women as it does men. It paints men as violent and women as helpless, which is not positive for anyone. Moreover, there are many situations where a man couldn't overpower a woman. For example, if he's attempting not to hurt her or if she's wielding a weapon. However, like I said, many feminists also agree. You can't just broad brush the situation like that. This is one point of contention that people are divided on when it comes to feminism, but in order to be divided, there has to be another side.

I'm not for affirmative action on any front. I feel like there should be an entirely different way of hiring people based on their actual qualifications. First, I feel like there should be more of a blind resume sort of system, where there are no names, ages, sexes or ethnicities. Only the school and work history. Additionally, interviews are a terrible way of judging someone's work ethic. Again, I think there should be a blind trial where the employer doesn't see the applicant. Just their work output.

That's just my personal opinion. Tangent.

So I'll agree that affirmative action in -any- context is a load of crap. However, there's no reason that we shouldn't encourage everyone to go for STEM fields. There's no reason we shouldn't encourage everyone to go for languages and arts. There's no reason we shouldn't encourage everyone to go for trades. Basically, there's no good reason not to encourage students.

"Women are encouraged to ignore what their natural needs and wants are, enter careers that they are only nominally qualified to be in and guess what happens? The vast majority of women with STEM qualifications are not working in the field at all... Feminism insults women by telling them that their natural interests are wrong and they are too stupid to know what’s good for them."

"Natural" interests? Exactly what -are- women's "natural" interests? Seriously, I'd like to know. It's unnatural for a woman to take an interest in math and science? On what basis? Where are the studies that women "naturally" gravitate away from STEM fields and that encouraging them if defying their nature?

I will give you that individuals do have areas that they gravitate toward. But that's for individuals. There's no reason that women can't pursue careers in STEM fields if that's what they have an inclination for and an interest in.

One thing that many feminists aim to tackle is these notions that girls -aren't- interested in STEM fields. A lot of this has to do with notions. If Billy and Suzy both get a 70% on their first grade math test, their teacher or their parents might treat it very differently. Where Billy's parents and teachers might encourage him to try better next time, Suzy's parents and teachers might just give up or not encourage her as much. Does this mean that we should push kids into fields they're bad in or have no interest in? No. Rather it's a matter of opening the same opportunities to everyone. Which ones they choose are up to them.

The entire microaggressions thing is one big strawman, like I said. Even Elevatorgate, the author blew way out of proportion. Watson never said nor implied that "men will attack you." She simply said she felt uncomfortable. That's a huge leap and a really shitty accusation. But anyway, I've never heard any feminists talk about microaggressions. I don't doubt that some have but this isn't a central point that feminism generally deals with. And while, if there are people thinking this way, yes, that's crappy. But again, this is barely a blip on the radar for most feminists. Aside from that, though, the author acts like feminists invented the idea of microaggressions. This is much more of an issue when it comes to issues of things like race, as well as much more applicable. Like I said, barely a blip on the radar.

I've gone on for a long time and frankly, I'm really weary at writing about this article that's done nothing but piss me the right off for the past two hours, so I don't have a lot to say about the catcalling. I feel like a lot of people don't know actual catcalling when they see it. Saying "hi" to a woman isn't catcalling. Asking her how she's doing isn't catcalling. Compliments are up for debate. But there are plenty of people who get really up in women's faces about going out, getting their number, etc. And the other thing is, you shut them down, and they ignore you. I feel like I'm a very closed-off person, so I don't get much of it, but I have come across this kind of person. This kind of person who implies they wanna do something (what, I won't presume, it could be as innocent as dinner,) I tell them "no," and they keep pushing it. It makes it difficult to get out of the situation. I'm lucky that that's all I've gotten. Other women have sexual gestures made at them, sexual things yelled at them and it can really make women feel uncomfortable. Possibly men, too. I dunno if men get this kind of attention.

I really don't like that video, because there -were- a lot of people just saying "hi," yet the video counts it as catcalling. Moreover, there are no accounts of people giving examples of that worse sort of behavior, like sexual gestures and whatnot. I'm not saying anything like they should have staged it or waited until someone did it. But it really blurred the lines on where catcalling actually falls and has caused a lot of confusion amongst the people who have seen it.

Anyway, it comes down to a few things. Are you being respectful? Is this a situation where it's appropriate to ask someone out? Are you giving your number or telling that person to give theirs? It's situational, but this does exist. And if it -is- disrespectful, on the street and in your face, then yes, people have a right to be offended and uncomfortable by that treatment.

"The broader culture treats women as adult humans capable of making choices and dealing with the consequences of those choices, just as we expect all men to do. Feminism is the social movement pushing to treat women as large children who need protection from their own actions."

As I've said time and time again, this is not all feminism. This is a straw feminist that she's attacking. I really wonder if this person knows anything about modern feminism. Because most feminists don't think like this.

Furthermore, this aims to attack, mostly, little pissy things that don't matter. You have to say "yes" before you have sex. Control your damn PTSD. Seriously, fuck this lady. She doesn't know shit about shit. She doesn't know anything about different angles or arguments about different kinds of feminism. If she did, she wouldn't even be making any of these arguments. But even within her arguments, she fails to understand the basics of what she's even arguing about. I stand by my initial statement. This article is full of shit.