Things That are Not Empowering Part Three: On Emotions

I’ve been trying to find a good way to articulate this for a while, especially as it’s been coming up a lot lately in conversations. So here’s my latest long-winded go at it.

I have seen plenty of productive women’s advocacy in the world, and this is an example:

“The unfair stereotype that women are overly emotional and incompetent has led to injustices throughout history. Because of this stereotype we have had to fight for financial independence, education, suffrage, reproductive rights, and the ability to be taken seriously in fields like politics and science. The belief that our hormones and periods made us too crazy to be in charge of the Big Red Button was abject misogyny. We can be just as emotionally intelligent, self-regulated, and generally competent as men. When these stereotypes resurface, they must be combated with reason.”

Meanwhile, this is also women’s advocacy:

1. If a woman feels unsafe, it means she’s unsafe, and you have to make her feel safe.

2. Overt sexuality makes women feel unsafe, which means they are unsafe.

3. Sexual propositions and pictures of penises will absolutely derail a woman’s emotional wellbeing and should be heavily socially punished or even criminalized for our protection.

4. Women feel uncomfortable interjecting or speaking up in a group, so it’s men’s responsibility in a discussion to mediate their own input, step back, be quiet, and give women space to talk.

5. Women have a hard time saying no, so you shouldn’t trust that their “yes” is true consent, especially if you’re an assertive person whose general human presence may make her feel intimidated into compliance with whatever she thinks you want from her.

6. Women are scared of men on the street, so you shouldn’t approach her or talk to her, and consider crossing to the other side of the road so she doesn’t feel threatened by you having a destination in the same general direction as hers.

7. When a space is predominantly populated by men, women can be expected to feel unwelcome. As such, the women should be routinely reassured that their presence is desired, but you should take care to clarify that this desire in no way includes sexual desire. Because sexual desire makes women feel unsafe, which means they are unsafe.

8. In fact, we need to go out of our way to invite women to such spaces, since no woman feels comfortable joining a group where the average person is anatomically slightly different from them.

9. Women who advocate for men’s needs and rights are silly fools who are just trying to get picked, and should not be treated as though their beliefs and convictions are genuine.

10. Women should not be asked to participate in their own interpersonal relationships. Listening to a partner’s problems, remembering birthdays, and explaining your point of view in a respectful discussion are “emotional labour” that exhausts women unfairly.

11. Human beings may have a wide variety of interests and preferences, but women who purchase the pink razor that costs 30 cents more than the black one, vote pro-life, or choose traditionalist paths in their relationships and lifestyles are brainwashed and can’t be said to be making their own choices. Amy Coney-Barrett and the countless women in state-level Congress who took your rights away last year aren’t competent adults who need to be held accountable for their actions, they’re helpless victims of the male-dominated cultural influences they were raised with.

See the difference?

Productive advocacy combats the stereotype that we’re helpless slaves to our least rational emotions, whereas unproductive advocacy leans as hard into those stereotypes as humanly possible. For christ’s sake, I’ve seen feminists argue that women in power can’t be considered to have real power or make real decisions because they’re women, completely unaware that this is an argument against women’s right or ability to hold leadership positions.

If women really were this fragile and volatile, it would be completely valid to keep them away from important societal roles and protect them from themselves just as we do for children. The reason we fight these stereotypes is because they are virulently sexist and have no basis in reality.

People who forward this shit in the name of women’s rights are reinforcing the same toxic beliefs that gave us many women’s rights issues in first place.

People have fought too damn hard in the 19th and 20th centuries to undo all that damage, and it is absolutely maddening to see Victorian era misogyny and sexual morality espoused unironically by the folks who claim themselves to be the legacy of progress.

You don’t get to say you speak for me and my needs just because you put a crocheted vagina on your head.

I will give credit where it’s due, though. Something I’ve noticed in the past year or so since the Dobbs decision is that the majority of the feminists I know have stopped talking about these silly made-up problems and focused very determinedly on whatever they can do to address the very real emergent threats to women’s reproductive rights. Seeing many fake issues immediately discarded to address a real one has given me a faith in humanity that I’d largely lost. I’m very glad to see that, unlike the the statues and syrup bottles of anti-racism, and unlike the petty linguistic gatekeeping of lgbt activism, many women’s activists can actually stop fucking around and get focused when it matters.

This is productive women’s advocacy. And while I understand that it’s important to stay vigilant on some level for upcoming threats to liberty and human dignity, I really hope that once this current fight is over, you don’t go back to making up petty problems that undermine women’s agency in an effort to keep women’s advocacy relevant.

It would also be really helpful if we’d bury the motte and bailey bullshit where you claim feminism is for all genders and then position yourselves as the sworn nemesis of any and all men’s rights activism. (This is, thankfully, another habit I’ve seen decline somewhat in the wake of the Roe overturn.)

For christ’s sake, you have SUCH a powerful movement. So powerful that you brought a huge amount of injustice to a screeching halt in a century and a half. So powerful that you’re the only movement in history to have secured their own human rights without basically any bloodshed.

I don’t know how to get the idiots and bigots out of activism. But knowing how much ya’ll can get done when you’re determined, I really hope you can figure it out. Think of how much you could accomplish without the misandry, misogyny, and thinly veiled traditionalism marching under your banner.