This was the point made in a post I came across on Feministing. The author talks about how she lives in opposition to “the patriarchy”, which exists in apparently all men, who all want women to be servile and deep down just love the thought of beating up and/or raping women.

Often in my work (I do prevention education for a large midwestern domestic violence and sexual assault organization), I get asked if “it” has ever happened to me. Of course, there is the standard answer: the numbers tell us we all know someone who has been sexually or physically assaulted. The standard answer redirects the question to community responsibility rather than on my survivorship or victimhood, which is the right path for prevention work. It also removes my vulnerability as an educator and reaffirms my status as an “expert” on violence against women-rather than just an expert on my own experience.

But the real and honest answer is yes. But it isn’t yes because I had a girlfriend who was scary, emotionally abusive and controlling in my early twenties. And it isn’t yes because I was sexually assaulted when I was 16 and again when I was 21. Those things are true, and they did shape me as a person, as an activist and as a feminist/womanist. But they aren’t the reason the answer is yes.

So if those aren’t the reasons why the answer is yes, then what is? Frankly, I am a woman. I have lived my entire life in opposition to the patriarchy. Certainly, as an adult this has been more an act of consciousness than as a child. To be raised as a girl, and grow into a woman, is always in opposition to the patriarchy. I am not special in this regard.

… Anyway, back to living in opposition. I know that when I spilled coffee in the kitchen when I was 8 or 9, and my dad-who had just barked the order, “COFFEE” at me-told me I would make a terrible waitress, and my response was “I don’t plan on being a waitress”, that I was living in opposition to the patriarchy. No, I don’t and didn’t think there is anything wrong with being a waitress-my mom did it for years, and for a long time, it was one of the only careers available to women. But I did realize, even then, that I wasn’t going to be what men wanted me to be (no woman ever really is, you know?). My dad was a man that expected his children and wife to be servile. And that’s what my dad meant by waitress: not server but servicer.

I also know that when I affirmed for myself that I wanted to partner with women, I was taking a risk and AGAIN living in opposition to the patriarchy. How dare I not be sexually available to men! How dare I not become a man’s wife!

I am also fat, and fat-loving. This, again, is not something a man wants me to be. I take up space. I don’t apologize for my size. The diet and fashion industries, largely run by men, want women to disappear (size double zero???). I refuse. I actively resist the push for me to get smaller and be quieter.

I am also masculine, and a woman. I am not transgendered, I use female pronouns and I use my girly first name. This, I think, is the biggest of the unspoken affront to the patriarchy. This is, also, the only aspect of my identity that regularly makes me afraid. I am afraid to use public restrooms-which I have to confront as my daughter is potty-learning right now. I am not afraid to be there, I am afraid of what might happen to me when someone realizes what I am. Just this week, I followed two women into the “ladies” room, and one of them did a double take at me, then went and looked outside at the pictogram on the door. As she did that, I said, “I am a woman and I am in the right bathroom.” She of course got all kinds of embarrassed and apologetic, from which I turned away. I try to tell myself her embarrassment is not my responsibility, but my fear is about what she does with her feelings. Does she go tell her male partner about me and he takes it upon himself to correct what is wrong with me? Sometimes, I think I am being paranoid. But then another transperson is killed, and I get reminded that maybe I am not paranoid. Like I said, I am not transgendered, but my gender is certainly transgressive. And rigid gender ideas are the props of the patriarchy. If we start to push the boundaries of gender, we push at the foundation of patriarchal power. I do that, everyday, with my man panties and my men’s deodorant (as if deodorant or underwear have a gender).

But ultimately, what I do that is in opposition to the patriarchy is live, and breathe and be. Men don’t like women (there I go with that reductionist shit again). In fact, men beat, rape and control women. In some places, women’s presence outside of the home is considered obscene. In other places, the qualities that women are encouraged to have (empathy, for example) are looked at with disdain and even contempt (Michael Steele, I am looking at you!).

I know that my very existence, even if I worked at the zoo, is in opposition to the patriarchy. I might not have to defend using gendered language, but I would still be afraid of what might happen when I use the bathroom. I would still not be a man’s servicer. I’d still get pegged as a humorless, strident man-hater. I’d still get called a bitch, a dyke, a whore and a cunt. I would still fear for my sexual safety. And even so, I would still get up every day, put on my man panties and go out into the world. That audacity is how I live my life in opposition to the patriarchy, just like every woman does.

This woman is seriously delusional if she thinks that someone is going to hunt her down and kill her just for looking butch and using the women’s restroom.

Anyway, I read this and just want to scream at this girl to grow up and get over her damn self. I don’t say this often when talking about feminists, but there is so much arrogance and narcissism when it comes to their views. For example, she just assumes that her manly appearance will cause another woman to go tell her boyfriend about her and then that boyfriend will come and kill her (or something similar that makes no sense whatsoever). Of course, this would require the other woman to not forget about their encounter in the ladies’ room, which I’m sure she did as soon as the narcissistic feminist left. The feminist just assumes that their encounter was so life-shaking that the other woman was thinking about her all day and would actually tell other people about it.

She again thinks that she’s just so important, that men would care that she wasn’t making herself sexually available to them by becoming a lesbian. Again, GET OVER YOURSELF. I doubt there’s a single man alive, save from maybe your father, who gives a damn.

And since when are men responsible for the super-skinny craze going around Hollywood and the fashion industry? I’m pretty sure it’s mostly women running magazines like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Elle, Redbook, etc. What men want is actually to the contrary of what she says. Most men despise the skin-and-bones heroine chic that permeates the culture today. Men usually like women with a little meat on their bones, but why let that get in the way of her prejudices?

What is most insulting about this woman’s anti-male, paranoia-filled, narcissistic screed, however, is this excerpt right here:

Men don’t like women (there I go with that reductionist shit again). In fact, men beat, rape and control women.

Not some men. Not a few men. Just men. Men don’t like women. Men beat women. Men rape women. Men control women. All men, everywhere, and the ones who don’t do it wish they could. Yes, there are some violent men who abuse and beat and rape women. No one condones that behavior. But it is not all men or even most men, yet that doesn’t keep this bitch from painting all men with a very broad brush. What she, along with most modern/radical feminists, is doing is inflammatory and harmful and dangerous and wrong. There are so many good men, honest men, loving men, chivalrous men… and they do not deserve to get slandered by some stupid narcissistic paranoid feminist bitch. I know many, many men who are undoubtedly much better people than she is. And she parades around as if she is some kind of martyr and gender warrior, fighting some imaginary ideological battle, and is able to imagine this simply by the virtue of having a vagina.

How would she, I wonder, react if someone wrote a post saying similar things about women? How would she react if someone wrote a post expressing such hatred and suspicion and wariness towards women, just because they were women? I’m sure she, along with her other over-offended feminist friends, would be screaming SEXIST!! at the top of their lungs. Feminists constantly say that no one should be judged based on their gender, but they don’t mean it. What they mean is that women shouldn’t be judged for being women, but men can and should be judged for being men. Feminism is full of hypocrisy and hatred, and this post shows it perfectly.