I’M IN UR FEMINIZM BREAKIN’ UR MOVEMENT!!!!!
I love this graphic. It so perfectly encapsulates so many feelings!
I have seen the light.
I am doing feminism all wrong.
See, I thought that what feminism was about, was allowing women to make their own choices, and in supporting them and helping them to do things like get education, wage parity, and access to medical treatment and family planning.
What it’s really all about, apparently, is not calling myself a girl.
See, apparently I am single-handedly bringing down the cause of feminism because I go have drinks with the girls, call my other website Geek Girls Rule, and tell people that I like dressing like a girl.
And how do I know this? Because a gentleman came into a thread of women discussing a video called “How to Get More Women in Tech,” by Caroline Drucker wherein I explained that it was a bunch of victim-blamey bullshit to tell women that the reason no one took them seriously was because they referred to themselves as girls, and he told us we were doing it wrong.* I have more thoughts on the Drucker video and if you’re interested ask.
When several of us pointed out the mansplain-iness of this (nicely at first), and the fact that he had just walked into a conversation among feminist women in order to tell them that they were wrong about their feminism because it didn’t meet some sort of bizarre metric he’d developed in the late 60s or early 70s, he told us we’d make Bella Abzug weep (I’m totally getting that on a t-shirt, “I make Bella Abzug cry”) because we’re THROWING AWAY AND DISRESPECTING ALL OF THE FEMINISM EVER!!!!
Many, many people in the thread continued to point out to Captain Feminism, myself included, that if we want to call ourselves “girls” in an attempt to reclaim the word, we could. His response was that reclaiming words didn’t work and he didn’t approve of Slutwalks or African Americans using the N-word, either. Apparently, because HE can’t use those words, they aren’t reclaimed.
Sigh.
Look, Captain Clueless McMansplainer, this is the deal. You don’t get to tell women how to do feminism. That’s not how it works. And your age-ist bullshit is not cool either. Dismissing an entire conversation of women because you don’t agree with what we’re doing, in spite of several of us attempting to explain to you how the movement has changed, is changing and still needs to change, is SEXIST AS FUCK!
Also, as I stated repeatedly, what message are we giving girls if women act like being called a girl is bad thing? If we treat the word “girl” like freaking kryptonite? I named Geek Girls Rule that for a specific reason. I’m trying to appeal to women and girls, being female-identified persons below the age of 18 (liberal use of the word “fuck” aside). I want them to know at a young age that sexism is bullshit, and that they have worth and power, and that someone’s got their back.
You know what doesn’t let girls know they have power? Men telling women that they know better than the women do. “Nevermind your silly lived experiences as women in this world, I, the man, know what feminism is, you silly female-people! I am here to save you from the sexism you are too stupid to recognize or resist.”
That is bullshit, and honestly, as much as you felt picked on and abused, we were way nicer to you than you deserved. Trust me on this: Feminism, UR DOING IT WRONG.
A brief note on reclamation of words. Yeah, someone can call me a slut and mean it in every horrible and derogatory way, but when I laugh, put my hands on hips, and respond with “Why, yes, I am! Jealous?” it defangs their attack. Because I have reclaimed that word for myself, their intended hurt bounces off, and usually confuses the hell out of them. Yes, there was a time when that word could destroy me. There was a time when “Nerd” and “Geek” were derogatory, hurtful terms (some might argue not on the level of slut), and the Nerds and Geeks of the world have reclaimed them and made them theirs. Reclamation of words can work for the people at whom those words were directed. If you are not the person or group that hurtful word is directed to, no, you can’t reclaim it.
*I understand she may have had some valid points about self-sabotage, but I couldn’t get past the blamey language and the transphobic comments about women being people who menstruate.
Polimicks 
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