I have a minor in Women’s Studies. It was getting that minor that led me to leaving the feminist movement.
Can’t really be sure which part made me leave but I had a lot to choose from:
-massive victimization complex and culture
-condescending bullshit (much like OPs)and elitism, usually coming from someone from Western, middle-to-upper class privileged backgrounds
-pretending that inconvenient parts of their history didn’t exist (rampant racism, homophobia, eugenics, ableism, transphobia).
-promotion of history by “scholars” who wanted to provide either scary horror sound-bites (”The Burning Times” “rule of thumb”) or feel-good fake history (the idea of a giant overarching ancient feminist matriarchy where everything was perfect until PATRIARCHY).
-pushing of the “right” literature and the “right” authors
-rampant anti-Christianity, especially against the Catholic Church. All others got a free pass.
-idealization of lesbianism as the epitome of feminism, while simultaneously ignoring actual lesbian issues
-aggressively promoting limitless free sex, even if it meant supporting birth control methods known to be harmful, pretending STDs are minor issues, making up statistics and using figureheads to promote abortion, which is always perfect
- condenscending feminist pseudo-colonialist behavior towards non-Western countries. They are either overly idealized and ignore anything bad coming from them, or passive-aggressively lecture them on “women’s health”, making sure village health centers have plenty of MVAs for abortions and Depo-Provera kits but no mosquito nets to prevent malaria
- Want to have kids? If the anti-child rhetoric doesn’t sway you, Here’s some heavy-handed anti-medical propaganda and promotion of birthing like you’re in the third world, regardless of you or the baby’s ultimate health.
Well, I will take some of that back, there were two classes I took for the minor that were worthwhile.
Women and Minorities in the Media, which focused on actual real-time strategies that people could do to move things forward, encouraging action instead of passive complaining and protesting. Like challenging feminist rhetoric
Medieval Women’s History, where I learned that, for a supposed backwards oh-so-evil Catholic Church that hated all those strong women, they sure produced and revered a lot of strong women that did fantastic things. That class was also a major factor in me leaving Wicca and becoming a Catholic, but that’s another story.
Why do so many feminists, who agree Freud was a sexist psycho, always default to “sorry your daddy oppressed you.”
My dad, whose mom was a WAC in WWII and came from a family of tough Italian women, taught me how to fish and camp, helped me with my Girl Scout projects, and volunteered for awhile at a domestic abuse shelter helping battered women.
What’s your dad done? Shit, honey, what have YOU done?
it’s people like you why I left the feminist movement. Look in the mirror - there’s the problem. Lies, misdirection, gaslighting, victim-blaming, willful ignorance and absolute refusal to even CONSIDER AND LISTEN to constructive criticism.