BUT YOUR MOTHERS ARE FEMINISTS

What is it about feminism that make some men so angry these days? It is comical, nauseating, and almost as if they are acting out a script. A day came and I knew I could no longer ignore this new trend of “Feminism-hating.” It was a very hot day, I was dehydrated, tired, and the only thing that kept me from dramatically fainting in class was the thought of always keeping up the “steeze”. I got back from my path and pharm posting, dropped on the bed and scrolled through X.

 And there it was, another X-user labeling feminism as radical. I hissed, rolled over my bed, and kicked out my shoes. It’s just another bad day, just another trigger from the white man’s internet, nothing to get worked up over. But the feeling didn’t go, it was rage, I was filled with rage and I likened the feeling to what Nina Simone must have felt when she said “I’m just trying to survive and get my work done and not be crazy in this nutty world.”

Something struck me after the rage subsided, and here it is. Ironically, these men who claim to hate feminism so much are also products of mothers who, though don’t proclaim to be feminists, live their lives on core feminism principles. These mothers rally around their friends who are victims of gender-based violence, and they stand up for their colleagues who are being inhumanly discriminated against at work. But their offspring see young female adults, who are openly claiming to be feminists, and it irks them. Are you also part of these trend setters? Do you target females on social media and bully them for their principles? "Why are you so irrational? The word irrational is polysemous, irrational isn't just illogical, irrational also means unreasonable or absurd. If you’re not unreasonable, why would you hate someone who does the same rational thing your mother does? What is it about feminism that unsettles you so much? The discomfort of confronting your bias and prejudices? 

Feminism isn’t a threat, and it has never been a threat. It is something everyone should embrace; both men and women. Adichie even reinforced this – my own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says, yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. All of us, women and men, must do better. Do you know the terrible conditions women lived in before feminism movements? Women couldn’t own or inherit property and were denied the right to vote until the early twentieth century, women were excluded from higher education and also had limited access to contraception and abortion until the late nighteenth century, marital rape was legal until 1970. Honor killing, female genital mutilation, dowry death were rife, women faced gender based wage-gap and job restrictions until the mid twentieth century. Yet one Desmond in Isale Eko can’t understand why feminism exists. And he says “if men and women are equal, let them take up male-colonized jobs like offshore oil rig workers, underwater welding, and then we can talk about equality”. This argument dismisses women’s achievements and contribution to society, feminism advocates for equal rights not that men and women must do the same job. Choice and preference, women have the right to choose their career, just like men do. 

Your mothers are not jumping into oil rigs, and neither are they in thick furs hunting coyotes in the dew of green forests. Yet , we can’t deny we don’t hear their cries when they’re oppressed, that we don’t know how hard they fight to live a better life. But your mothers are feminists, why do you hate younger feminists so much? 

Victoria Bello