Rebecca Solnit, a well known feminist and writer, has taken feminists to task (briefly, before she attacks men) in an essay entitled: Let This Flood of Women’s Stories Never Cease. Her first complaint in this essay is that feminists allow single incidents about men behaving badly to only be about that one man. In her view, this does injustice to the “pervasiveness of misogyny” and allows society to be comfortable in thinking that the behavior is an exception and not the rule. Her second main complaint is that but for these awful, heinous men (including men who look away), promising futures have been stolen from women, all women. Because even if a woman hasn’t been personally affected by abuse or an assault, the lack of support or recognition of this misogyny is devastating to the integrity and perpetuity of women.
Solnit has been engaged in these issues for years, so she would likely tell me that my forthcoming critique is out of touch and uninformed, if she bothered to listen at all. (I’m not the kind of woman feminists like very much: I’m pro-life, I’m content, and I’m self-reliant). But it’s simply a matter of her not acknowledging that her world is not my world, and her failure to recognize the experience of women, all women, is not and will never be the same. Because I do recognize this, I can say at the same time that some men abuse women, but that dynamic does not define the world. And I think my view is the right one.
Recent Comments