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Summary
Feminists are not inherently bitter, our activism is a response to systemic injustice, advocating for equality, dignity, and human rights despite societal resistance.
It is time to put to rest the enduring cliché that feminists are bitter people. Their activism should be rightly framed against a sociocultural background, which will only expose their bitterness.
This conclusion does not unironically mean that a) feminists are saints and b) only self-identified feminists are good.
Situating feminist activism, and whatever criticism of it, within the prevailing social norms, is necessary to avoid errors in judgment of the movement. Acknowledging feminism side by side with the obtainable overarching patriarchal social system helps to understand feminism’s point of origin, trajectory, and destination. It’s also important in quelling a number of anti-feminist grievances.
As echoed in this piece, feminism takes a bold stance and claims loftiness in many respects. For many feminists, being a women’s rights advocate can be a thankless, tiring, and thrilling endeavour. And this is still secondary to affirming a person’s humanity, reinstating their equality, and upholding their dignity.
No feminist is an innately perfect person, but to stand for people’s rights—more so, women’s—is a good thing. To see and treat everyone, women particularly, as equal beings is an upright attitude. And do we not all want a just world where people are happy and considerate of one another?
That human nature is predisposed to being bad does not mean we cannot be good and improve our world– socially or naturally. To be a human/women’s rights activist is an ideal call to heed. This proclamation does not mean any other path one may decide to choose in life is not meaningful or exemplary. It is simply a statement of fact as to what being a human/women’s rights advocate means. This also doesn’t postulate the quality of the character of feminists.
There are quite a number of people who are anti-feminist and are of a base nature. In the hierarchy of ills that have plagued this world, from wars to racism to deaths caused by techno-medical and capitalistic oligarchs, by sheer will or atavistic nonchalance, feminism cannot be said to be such an anti-human factor that has brought untold hardship to millions of people.
If it weren’t for the influence of feminists, activists, social theorists and their likes, the relatively normal world most of us have now come to enjoy and see as the status quo would not exist. Without concepts like rights (for women), justice, love, and freedom, the rapidly progressing innovations and giant leaps of scientific breakthroughs would be without a humanising cushion or civilising mitigation. Black women who were slaves in the past, for instance, were used as experiments for gynaecological research. Womb transplants are also a wonder of modern science and, in itself, a neutral invention, but discourses about men having the ability to gestate children pose significant feminist concerns.
Rape, honour killing, widow burning, acid throwing, child marriage, female genital mutilation, foot binding, breast ironing, prostitution and more are such regressive, violent practices against women and girls manifest in various parts of the world. The courage and character of feminists to demand and fight for a change in these cultures, daring to risk their lives and suffer numerous social consequences, are a testament to their humanity. And, given these harsh realities women have no choice but to navigate through, it is easy to become cynical and bitterly critical to think of how comfortable people are with their conditioning on these norms.
Bitterness is no feature of feminism, even when evident in some instances, is not peculiar to the movement. In all, it may be easy to preach a message of not fighting ‘hate with hate’, at least in theory, but that is just an impaired way to look at it, especially without addressing the root causes necessitating the existence of feminism in the first place. Accusing feminists of being bitter also shifts the burden of responsibility from men to women, who are expected to highlight the plight of women without managing to hurt the feelings of men while at it.
