My cynicism around feminist ideas is nothing to do with not wanting to support women’s rights.
Because I do support them.
My cynicism around feminism is not to rob women of an indispensable space to talk, listen, advocate for and understand one another.
Personally, I see feminism as an essential space for women to identify abuse, to learn who they are, make allies, build friendships, find love and understand trauma.
My cynicism is around the sexist, divisive and easily corrupted ideological dogma at its core.
‘The Patriarchy.’
The bogeyman beneath the bed, the spectre hiding in the the darkness.
The blurry bludgeon with which men and boys have been hit with for decades.
The blindfold tied over the eyes of society.
A theory that hurts more than it helps and that divides more than it unites.
And as men and boys disappear further into the quagmire of their own gendered related issues, it’s a theory that makes less and less sense as every year goes by.
So the theory continually warps, twists and contorts, into idiosyncratic new definitions that cannot be held onto, agreed upon, or quantified.
No I do not support the theory, and believe we now have better words and concepts to discuss the same ideas.
With this brick, as such a central part of the movement, I cannot call myself a feminist – for no advocacy group should be defined by stripping individuality, denying suffering, dehumanising men, obfuscating truth and victim blaming those in pain.
And my opposition of this idea is not ‘thinly veiled’, or an ‘undertone’ of this account, as those who push against me like to claim.
I hide nothing – my opposition is loud and unapologetic.
Most importantly, being critical of patriarchy theory is not to be critical of women, and it certainly isn’t to hate them.
I love, admire and respect women, I feel compassion and heartbreak for their pain, and want to get to the same golden hill top as they do.
Equality is the goal, but not on this path.
So is there a better wave yet to come, one that sees men and boys as who they really are?
What do you think?