My views on feminism have changed a lot over the years. I’ve decided to make a somewhat facetious blog post chronicling my evolution on this topic.

I’m going to use the “expanding brain” meme format in this post. I’m going to use this meme incorrectly. You’re going to nod along and say, “Yes Brianna, you can do whatever you want Brianna, because this is your blog.” Thank you.

2010

I don’t need feminism, because I don’t hate men, and femininity is good!

Yeah, I… didn’t really understand what feminism was. One wonders if I had even met any feminists in 2010?

2016

Okay, gender roles suck, I guess feminists kinda have a point.

After wrestling for about a decade with where I stood on the “Biblical” view of gender roles, experiencing angst and cognitive dissonance as I argued passionately with fundamentalists while also reading the Bible for myself and not liking what I saw, I finally said: Fuck it!

I would stand up for my own dignity and self-respect, I decided, and not accept any theology or ideology that trampled over my sense of self, or that disregarded my independence and autonomy.

If that meant going against the Bible, or even God, so be it.

This was a pivotal moment where I began thinking for myself in a profound way. It also launched the infamous slippery slope that many Christians warn you about! Two and a half years later, I became an atheist! Oops.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

2017

I’M A FEMINIST, FUCK THE PATRIARCHY!

I… went a little hardcore, a liiiiiiittle fast. Very quickly, I began repeating feminist catchphrases, without doing too much critical research. I became a real-life activist (not just a keyboard warrior). I definitely lost a few Christian friends online. Heh heh. Sorry y’all, I see now that I was hella obnoxious for a minute there.

Early 2018

Objectively speaking though, do I actually live in a patriarchy? That seems hyperbolic. Also, a lot of feminists say things I disagree with, whelp.

I started to get uncomfortable with leftist organizing and activism, starting in late 2017, when I noticed how ingrained anti-capitalism was in the community. Also, I came to realize how over-the-top and irrational a fair bit of mainstream feminism (especially Online Feminism™) was.

I decided to distance myself a bit, and give myself time to think and form my own thoughts more directly. As 2018 rolled around, I felt more and more out of place among feminists and leftists.

Late 2018

I don’t know if I want the label of feminist. The community can be toxic. Feminism isn’t all that needed in the West anymore; structurally speaking, we are egalitarian. Aren’t real feminists the ones fighting real patriarchy and oppression in other countries? Is it accurate to even give myself that label? Doesn’t it cheapen the meaning?

I wrote a whole article on Medium expressing this sentiment in more detail. It got featured by Medium staff. People still read it every week. *shrug*

Early 2019

Anti-feminists have some good points, but many of them are as irrational and over-the-top as they claim their opponents are, and they strawman and mock feminism by focusing on extreme examples, so it’s hard to take them seriously.

Out of curiosity, I dabbled in anti-feminist territory, and while I got some laughs, I was mostly disappointed. Many of these people were in small-brain territory, like me in 2010, and hardly at all understood what they were criticizing.

Me, however?

I was becoming positively transcendent.

NOW

My current perspective on feminism can be summarized as follows.

*takes a deep breath*

Feminism is a complex, multi-layered movement focused around women’s liberation that plays different roles, and takes different forms, throughout history and the world. It may be on its way out in the West, but the fight definitely isn’t over. We may be egalitarian under the law, but plenty of cultural problems remain.

Most of the negative pictures of feminists (unhinged, masculine, screeching man-haters) are essentially propaganda that started during the Second Wave and remain alive and well in the cultural consciousness. Any intellectually honest person should not fall prey to this propaganda, and should instead see past those stereotypes and observe feminism as it truly is: An imperfect but still important movement, focused on making the world a better place for everyone.

We can address some of Western feminism’s flaws without discarding the entire thing. However, because we are in some of the last stretches of the fight, and the culture of modern feminism can be hella toxic, it’s totally reasonable that someone might want to abstain. Perhaps they want to focus on more intense issues facing women/girls in other countries (access to education, legalized rape, forced child marriages, etc.), or maybe they just want to live their lives without fighting for these particular causes.

tl;dr It’s perfectly okay to be a feminist, but it’s also perfectly okay not to be.