Twitter: Feminist Complaint in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

Here’s a hypothetical… pick a random person in your life… ANY random person in your life. Now… whatever gender, ethnicity, sexual persuasion they are… imagine that person lost their job and had to take 2 Minimum Wage jobs to make ends meet. How do you react to them?

I have a friend who is BIG into modern feminism who has been having job difficulties. She got a job at a book store and another job at the Animal Shelter. She is working INSANE hours to make ends meet. She posted on Facebook that she feels like she is swimming upstream… something I can certainly relate to.

Yet… a friend of hers posted this response: “Life in the patriarchy, eh? Because #YesAllMen !”

Maybe I’m overly sensitive but… really? I mean… when I read that response do you know what it says to me? “Since we live in a patriarchal society; if you were a man, you wouldn’t feel this way. Because Yes All Men belittle women.”

That’s just… unnecessarily divisive! Guess what… anyone that works almost 80 hours a week is going to be tired and feel like they are swimming upstream. GUESS WHAT… lots of people of all genders, ethnicities, and sexual orientations are in ridiculously shitty professional positions right now. Blaming “the patriarchy” because “#YesAllMen” seems like victim culture with no respect for individual agency OR personal choice and struggle. In fact, I would argue that immediately blaming the patriarchy instead of dealing with the issue itself is ANTI-feminist.

I’m just… horrified that we’ve come to this point. That a woman says, “I’m tired” and it’s the patriarchy’s fault. A black man says, “I was convicted of a crime” and it’s racist cops. A straight man doesn’t like a gay man and it’s homophobia! Well… lets look at the details. Maybe the woman who is tired because she works so much… is a 35 year old with a bachelor’s degree in English and the job market sucks for people of ALL genders. Maybe the black man that was convicted of a crime impregnated his 13 year old foster daughter. (And yes, that defendant continues to say he was convicted due to racism… despite DNA evidence from the miscarriage.) Maybe the straight man doesn’t like the gay man because the gay man is a genuine asshole and won’t stop picking on the straight guy.

If we CONSTANTLY go to the divisive, easily labeled answer… we’re only going to make divisions worse. Because shouting RACISM for not liking someone of a different color is, at times, too convenient. I like some of the black guys I’ve met through law school. I do NOT like some of the black guys I’ve met through the jail. Shouting SEXISM is also too shallow at times. Work Crush is convinced that her meeting with Boss’ Boss went worse than mine because Boss’ Boss is a sexist pig. OR since I’ve worked there for 4 years; have more experience handling this asshole; and think like he does… maybe I just handled the situation better. But no… sexism.

I’m not one of those people that claim it is NEVER sexism, or racism, or homophobia. But for every. little. thing. to instantly be assigned to sexism, racism, or homophobia… is just offensive to the complex nature of human relationships and interactions.