I will not date you if you are not a feminist
I am a feminist. Most, if not all, of my female identifying friends are feminists. We talk about feminism a lot. We form sisterhoods over our shared experiences with womanhood — in all its beauty, delights, and frustrations. I rarely have to question whether my female friends are feminists. For most young female adults, feminism has almost become synonymous with womanhood.
But as important as it is to be surrounded with strong feminist women, it is equally important to be surrounded by strong feminist men. It concerns me that I am far less certain about the percentage of my male identifying friends who would openly identify as being feminists. This disparity between my female and male friends is quite alarming, because the success of feminism is contingent on the support of men as well.
It is clear amongst the women in my life that feminism is an incredibly important quilt with ideological threads that bind even the most unlike of us, together. Feminism has given me a sense of solidarity with these women, in a world that has taught us that our struggles will always be secondary to that of men. When we talk about feminism and how to broach the topic with our male counterparts, we often talk about how to talk about feminism peacefully. So that our male counterparts can feel included in the conversation. So that our male counterparts are not alienated or intimidated by a subject that does not assume their position as the default human in society (as every other institution and ideology does).
“Men don’t like angry feminists.”
Even when talking about an ideology that was developed by women for women, that is about the empowerment of women, how to support women, how to level the playing field and end systematic injustices against women — women still find the need to be accommodating to men. But the more I talk about feminism with women, the more I find it very hard to believe that feminists who are not angry, exist.
I am an angry feminist. I have spent many years trying to calm this anger. I have tried for a long time to build a brand of feminism that is “light” and easily digestible and uncontroversial. I have tried to assuage my anger into a form of feminism that is palatable so that I can still be likeable. I have contorted myself into these boxes of feminism-lite so that my male peers do not feel offended by my anger. So that I do not invite belittling comments such as “it’s not that bad” or “you’re overreacting”. So that people I date don’t run for the hills after the first date (it is no secret that our society has a problem with loud, powerful women).
I realized recently however, with the help of women much wiser than myself, that it is more important to be honest than to be likeable. It is incredibly hard to be a feminist and still be likeable — being likeable means compromising. It means speaking quietly when you deserve to shout.
And you deserve to shout. You deserve to be angry. If you are a woman, you are more likely to be assaulted, raped, and less likely to have a leadership position in any company or government. You will make less money than your male counterparts, but you will spend thousands of dollars more a year on beauty products because you have been taught that your worth is directly tied to your beauty. You will never have pockets that are practical and big enough for your cellphone because it is offensive to have clothing that does not sensualize a woman’s body. You will bleed 7 days a month, every month, for decades of your life and be made to feel dirty about it because the blood that allows us to create life on this Earth is “unsightly” to our male peers. Your competence will constantly be scrutinized more carefully than a man’s, your orgasm and pleasure will always be less important than a male partner’s in sexual encounters, violence against you will be institutional and justice will always be against your odds. There are so many reasons to shout. There are so many reasons to be angry.
Compromising my anger for like-ability has led to compromising on holding everybody important in my life to the values of feminism. When I was younger and more concerned about being liked, not being a feminist was never a dealbreaker for me in dating. But as I’ve gotten older, it has become clear that the compromise isn’t worth it. To trade my anger for agreeableness has meant diluting all of the ugly, difficult experiences that have shaped my identity as a woman. It means burying the very formative experiences that make me who I am. I have been told many times over that I should never have to compromise who I am in a relationship. If that is the case, then I should never have to compromise my anger as a feminist, because that is foundational to who I am as a person.
When I was 18, about to start my freshman year of college in a new city far away from home, I was sexually assaulted at a night club. It was during orientation week. It was by a man I continued to see everywhere on campus, and even to this day, in my neighbourhood.
The assault didn’t make me angry as a feminist though. It should’ve, but it didn’t, because immediately after it happened I brushed the experience off as behaviour that came with the territory of being a young woman in a nightclub. He thought I was flirting and playing hard to get when I said no. I thought his reaction was normal. I thought a man aggressively trying to put his hands up my shirt and skirt and remove my clothing in public against my loudly expressed verbal non-consent, was normal. When I think about that night, I often wonder if I spoke too quietly. I wonder if I should’ve shouted.
It took me two years before I realized that his behaviour was not normal — that it was abusive, violent, and that it was assault.
I realized it was assault during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when the sexual assault allegations against Trump were made public. In reading about these women’s experiences with Trump’s invasive behaviour, I realized that abuse against women was so pervasive in our communities that my own experience in the nightclub would seem “normal”. And suddenly, beyond his politics and his ignorant, racist, xenophobic rhetoric, I was inflamed with a new anger towards this politician. Here was a man with a proven pathology of abuse against women. To see him rise to the highest position of political power in one of the most powerful countries in Western society, spoke volumes about how violence against women has been institutionalized. At a time when I came to terms with my own experiences of assault, suddenly the anger became personal.
At the time of the election, I was still dating my first serious college boyfriend. His name was Alex*. Alex and I had been dating for over two years at this point. I never asked openly if Alex was a feminist. I suspected he wasn’t. But I was young, and I wanted to be likeable and accepted. I didn’t make feminism a dealbreaker. Alex and I followed the U.S. election very closely that year and debated the politicians involved frequently. Alex made it clear he did not support Clinton, but being a college educated millennial, I did not peg him to really be a Trump supporter.
We watched the election results together that night in November 2016. When Trump won, Alex was visibly elated. I was visibly upset. The anger became visceral that night.
Being sexually assaulted at 18 didn’t make me angry. But seeing the closest male counterpart in my life at the time reveal his support for a man with a proven history of violating and assaulting women, was deeply infuriating. As a feminist, I have never felt more hurt, sadness, disappointment, or anger than I have felt that night. I had never opened up about being assaulted prior to the night of the election, but that night I shouted my disbelief at him for supporting a sexual predator. The same actions that Trump had exerted onto the women who bravely stepped forward, were actions that every woman in Alex’s life had probably experienced. Including myself. Because I had also been assaulted two years prior. “How could you support him?
By supporting him, do you realize you don’t support me?”
He didn’t have an answer. Up until that point, I had never made it mandatory for the men in my life to support feminism in order to support me. For the first time in my life, watching a man get away with abusing women by becoming president, I started to want the men in my life to be allies. Now, I have slowly started to expect the men in my life to be allies. Feminism has become a dealbreaker. Feminism has taught me that I am worthy as a person and not because of my ability to conform to narrow standards of beauty, or my relational value to men as a sister/daughter/friend. Feminism has taught me that I deserve a place at the table, both in business and in government. Feminism has taught me that my experiences are valid, that my sadness is valid, that my anger is valid, that what happened that night in a nightclub when I was 18 was not normal, was wrong, was assault. To the men in my life — how could you support me without supporting feminism?
And how could you support feminism without supporting the anger from all of the systemic injustices, crimes, and abuses that make a feminist angry?
*Names have been changed.
