My Story with Feminism

Many years ago, when the author was still studying at U, there was a female housemate from Northern Europe, and everyone usually shared the kitchen. This Nordic girl is different from the white or Chinese girls I have known before. She has never shied away from cleaning public kitchens and disposing of garbage on the grounds that she is a woman with insufficient strength. On the contrary, she is very proactive, sometimes even doing more than other male housemates. Once the author saw that she was about to go out with two big bags of garbage from the public kitchen, so I helped her take a bag, and asked her curiously: "Don't you think it's heavy? Leave the garbage to us boys. It’s fine if you can’t do it?” She smiled and replied, “Heavy, but since this is garbage from a public kitchen, of course I need to contribute to living here. Girls and boys are equal, and there is no girl who doesn’t need to throw garbage Falun Dafa." The author had a flash of inspiration and asked, "Are you a feminist?" In fact, the author knew very little about feminism at the time, and only had a very simple understanding of it. When she mentioned equality between men and women, I naturally thought of the word.

Her next answer, which I remember clearly now, was, "Yes, I'm a feminist. I don't think the way to pursue equality between men and women is to blame everyone and attack all men, or to show off for preferential treatment. It needs to be Prove with practical actions that we are no worse than men, and we can do what men can do. To strive for equality between men and women, we must first reverse the concept that men look down on women or that women are disadvantaged groups in society, and use practical actions to win the respect of men. Only when men recognize women from the bottom of their hearts, treat women equally and respect women, men and women will be truly equal. If you blindly emphasize your gender inferiority and hope for preferential treatment, even if you win verbally, you will still be defeated by men from the bottom of your heart Treat them as vulnerable groups and look down on them, and they will not be treated equally.”

Although she never emphasized that she is a feminist, and she never took the initiative to persuade us to support feminism, but I have to admit that the moment I heard her words, I thought of her being the first in public affairs. Full of respect, and consider myself transformed into a feminist supporter at that moment. When I saw a feminist parade on the street before, the author took advantage of the excitement, because of my self-righteous transformation at the time, and later I joined the parade several times and donated some of my change. Although, at that time, the author still didn’t know that feminism itself was divided into many factions, and radical feminists hated all men indiscriminately at every turn. The views of the author’s Nordic housemate did not seem to be the mainstream of the feminist world. However, the author was overwhelmed by her actual actions, and thought that all feminists are like her, which is extremely admirable.

But the author’s good impression and blind worship of feminists did not last long, because when I joined a feminist parade by the way, I met a Chinese female classmate who often labeled herself as a “feminist”. At that time, I was a little excited when I found out that we were in the same school. I felt that I had found a like-minded person who I could introduce to Nordic girls. This Chinese female student was also very excited. Later, the author invited this newly-acquainted Chinese female classmate to have dinner with us at the place where we lived. When we were cooking, we found that both trash cans in our kitchen were full. So the Nordic girl was going to throw out the trash as usual, but this action aroused the dissatisfaction of the Chinese female classmate, she immediately stopped the Nordic girl's action, and said to the author in a commanding tone: "You don't support feminism How can you let girls do such heavy things?” To be honest, the author also subconsciously believed that girls should not do this kind of thing, but after being guided by Nordic girls, this kind of thinking that women can’t carry heavy objects has been downplayed. bias. However, the weakening of this concept has not completely changed the author's way of dealing with things in daily life, and the author still maintains inertia in many times when getting along with women. That is to say, if the accusation of this Chinese female classmate is changed in another scene, the author may take it seriously and feel ashamed. After all, I remember when we were in middle school, the teacher taught us that when boys see girls struggling to carry luggage on the stairs, they should help them carry a piece of luggage and show the so-called gentlemanly demeanor. However, when the Chinese female classmate raised the accusation, it was precisely in a very special situation, and the author felt a little annoyed for the first time when she took it for granted. But because the author's understanding of feminism was very shallow at the time, I didn't know how to answer it for a while. The Nordic girl responded with a relaxed tone, "women can do everything men can do" and went out with the garbage.

Later, at dinner, the scene became a little uncomfortable. The Chinese female classmates were annoyed that the author finally asked the Nordic girls to throw out the trash, deliberately snubbing me, and specifically talked to the Nordic girls. During the period, Chinese female students talked about feminism, mentioned many professional terms such as "patriarchal society", and believed that all men have original sin, just like Christian believers. Therefore, men who truly support feminism should treat the women around them kindly in a way of redemption. The author was unconvinced and asked, "I am also a man, but I have never done anything to oppress women since I was born. Do I have original sin?" The Chinese female student smiled contemptuously, as if mocking my ignorance of feminist theory , she replied slowly: "As a man, even if you don't take the initiative to oppress women, you are a passive beneficiary of the patriarchal society anyway. Therefore, you are also an accomplice of the patriarchal society, so of course you are guilty of the original sin." She saw the author’s face was ugly, and added: “Of course, you are awakened now, and you are willing to join us to overthrow the patriarchal society, and your merits and demerits will be equalized. Compared with those conservatives, you are still very progressive.” Nordic girls were still I expounded my own views, but seeing the Chinese female students being extremely strong and eloquent, I gradually became tired of coping. In the end, the dinner ended badly. Because the author is very disapproving of the many views of this Chinese female classmate, and I don’t like her commanding tone, so I also began to shake my blind admiration for feminism. The author gradually discovered that the author might only admire this Nordic girl, and she happens to be a feminist. From a logical point of view, wouldn’t it be a fallacy if I admire a doctrine that I don’t understand because of this?

Later, I never participated in any feminist activities, nor did I worship feminists blindly. Just occasionally overhearing discussions of gender issues, such as when men blame women for being harassed because they wear too little, still find it incomprehensible to the person who makes that point, and then share my righteous outrage on social media. Unexpectedly, at work, the author was forced to get involved with women's rights again.

The reason is that the company I worked for followed the trend of many multinational companies and began to express its attitude on some social issues and invested some resources to support it. Among them, a meeting was held to discuss what the company should do to support feminism and support the development of female employees in the workplace. In fact, a black woman believed that the company should ensure that at least half of the middle and high-level managers are women. Most of the female managers in the meeting agreed. Some radicals even suggested that 60% of the management should be guaranteed to be women in order to make up for the loss of former female employees. The men present were afraid to speak, but the author couldn’t listen, so I asked directly: “Do you know the ratio of male to female employees in the company? At present, our company actually has more male employees, and it is rare that there are exactly the same number of male and female employees.” There is no statistical basis for setting such a mandatory ratio standard. In addition, regarding the equality of male and female employees within the company, I think it should be placed more on promotion standards that are completely separated from gender factors, mainly based on work ability and performance. The proportion of female managers should not be forcibly determined. This may lead to the promotion of female employees with poor working ability in order to achieve this proportion, which is not conducive to the future development of the company and does not conform to business logic.” Immediately, the black woman proposed that her father The oppression of women by the rights society, so women should get better compensation and feedback. If no mandatory ratio is proposed, patriarchal managers will use various excuses to fire women. In the end, the proposal to guarantee 60% of female managers was not passed. However, because of political correctness, and only the author clearly raised objections, the company still confirmed the plan to make at least 50% of female managers within the next few years.

This episode made the author a thorn in the side of some radical feminists within the company. Not long after, the author was complained of discrimination against women, violating the Equality Act, on the grounds that two of the three trainees selected by the author were men and only one was a woman. Of course, this kind of unreasonable reason was easily resolved by the author with the company's 50:50 ratio of men to women. Because of these boring things, the author often thinks back to the words of the Nordic girl who has returned to China, and begins to feel more and more confused about this kind of feminist group who regards themselves as a disadvantaged group and always demands preferential treatment. The so-called women's rights, is it the pursuit of equality between men and women, or the pursuit of women's privileges? Because of the previous patriarchal society for hundreds of thousands of years, is it fair to continue to create a society where women are treated preferentially? Everything seems to be based on the fact that men are born with original sin, and men will naturally oppress and target women. Therefore, in order to protect women, women must be given preferential treatment in all aspects, and system guarantees should be used to prevent hopeless men from targeting women.

Later, the author gradually discovered some ridiculous things. For example, many feminists like to associate gender oppression in everything. Everything is caused by the patriarchal society and the oppression of men. And many times, they always criticize some men who are outsiders, just because they happen to be born men. The author personally believes that if an incident is attributed to a patriarchal society, a condition must be met, that is, the victims of similar incidents will only be women, never men. Otherwise it is difficult to explain why men who are theoretically beneficiaries of a patriarchal society should be victims. For example, if a company pays attention to the marriage and childbirth of female candidates when recruiting employees, this is undoubtedly a concrete manifestation of the oppression of women in a patriarchal society, because only women will be treated unfairly in such matters. However, if a female employee fails to be promoted, it cannot be simply attributed to the suppression of the patriarchal society, because male employees may not be able to be promoted.

This time, the beating incident in Tangshan, China, in my opinion, is a public security incident, which involves the judicial system of the CCP and the collusion between officials and gangsters. However, it gets pulled over to a patriarchal society. For example, many feminists say unanimously that because the incident originated from sexual harassment, it is caused by the patriarchal society and the inequality between men and women. However, today's sexual harassment is not limited to men harassing women, there are also many cases of women harassing men. Therefore, sexual harassment is not limited to female victims, and men can also be victims. Why is it directly attributed to the patriarchal society because the victim is precisely a woman this time? Some people also suggested that the girls at the scene were beaten, but the boys at the scene did not go up to help, so it was caused by the patriarchal society. But if we think about it differently, the one being beaten is a man, will the other men present come to help? Obviously not. Because in the final analysis, this is still a problem of disparity in strength, not because the victim is a girl or a boy, because they discriminate against another gender, they deliberately do not go to help. In short, the perpetrators and victims of violence are both male and female, and it is very common for men and men to beat each other. It is not some kind of gender targeting. It is obviously strange to attribute the oppression of women to men. Of course, not to mention that some feminists also blame the vast majority of men in the world who are not present, which is even more ridiculous.

The author was once full of admiration for feminists because of the Nordic girl. Also because of the author's educational experience and living environment, the author also sincerely hopes that equality between men and women can be fully realized. However, the author has increasingly discovered that what many feminists pursue is not necessarily factual. In order to prove that women are brutally oppressed, they often like to refer some hot issues to gender oppression inexplicably, which makes people often Feel confused. And what many feminists are pursuing does not seem to be equal rights between men and women, but women's privileges, changing from a so-called patriarchal society to a feminist society. What is even more incomprehensible to the author is that many feminists have a general hatred of being born male, and often attack the entire group of men because of the behavior of individual men in certain events. If a man who thinks he is still enlightened does not agree with them 100% unconditionally, he will also be hated by them. All kinds of signs make the author feel that the feminist movement seems to be going astray. However, if feminism continues to develop like this, it will only lead to gender antagonism and male hostility as a whole, and the prospect is very worrying. This is undoubtedly what the author does not want to see.