As a priest, one of the things I tend to run into, when people are antipathic to the Christian faith, is the terrors inflicted on them from those claiming to hold it. Beyond physical beatings in extremist controlled locations, the social and emotional abuse; verbal harassment, dictated life choices, etcetera, left heartbreaking emotional and mental scars on those who had escaped it. Families torn apart by homophobia wrapped in a bible excuse, or "pro-life Christian" threats made to women who just found they had to terminate a pregnancy lest they die with their already dead foetus.
I've had more arguments with those crazy street preachers than I have those who have been scared from the cross. Each time, they felt they were doing "good work", and had support from their church community, blissfully and wilfully ignorant that they were burning more ground than gaining in terms of evangelism. They resented the idea that another Christian ("like them") would or could question that screaming at gay people that they'll burn in hell was perhaps not the correct way of going about things.
I am also a feminist. I believe passionately that women should be treated on equal grounds to men, that the ideas of chauvinism and sexism belong in the past like the practice of executing babies to make crops grow. Domestic violence is the area of charity I apply myself to, as much as I am able. The seeming collapse of the movement is troubling to me, as without active protection, people can easily fall back into the mindset of the 'weaker' sex.
Bearing that in mind; there's a video I saw a while back, written by a group of women, cis and trans alike, that was a series of critical questions that they asked openly about the movement. They didn't attack the movement, nor once say "feminism is bad". They asked objective questions like "what do you qualify as 'equality', and by what metric do you measure it by?" I will often take discourse with people who disagree with me, or things I stand by, so to better understand those things, youtube videos likewise.
The commentary was peppered with people who had leapt in to defend the concept of feminism, armed with vitriol and animosity to Stormfront degrees of passionate hatred. Threats, supplications that they hoped the women "got raped and beaten daily so that they would know what it was like to live in a world without feminism", inclusive. Men and women alike were doing this, by the way, of varying skin colours if that is important somehow.
I guarantee you, not one of those people felt that they were being extreme. Not one of those people felt they were the 'crazy feminist' types. And each of them was supporting one another, reassuring the rest that what they were doing was the correct thing to do. The bilious cultlike reaction would have turned me from being a feminist if I wasn't stubbornly dedicated to the aims of it.
That wasn't the only example; just the fastest to come to mind, and unfortunately I'm comfortable with not remembering the title as it's not hard to find many more such cases. That is the front paint of feminism to many people who are new to the movement, or who are unfamiliar with the movement. That extremism wasn't closeted away in a backwater feminist compound that the term "feminazi" would elict. It was, like those terrible evangelical hellfire preachers, in the open and aired for all to see, and triggered by anything even remotely suggesting that feminists may be less than perfect.
Now, feminism, like any other movement, is comprised of individuals. Like a church, we can't police those who claim to be a member - Duggart thinks he's a Christian, after all. We remember the bad long after we've forgotten the good, and the quiet, sane feminists and Christians alike just do their thing, mind their own business, and pay no support or homage to those who ruin life for others. We're invisible, unless the topics come up in conversation, or unless there's a need to do something because of our beliefs and ideals.
Like the benefits of modern medicine, feminism's struggle has faded into history and is overlooked by those who benefit from it, from the invisible actions of those who just want to get things done for the betterment of all. That invisibility means that girls and boys are growing up without hearing about the way women were treated. Polio is a myth to modern kids, as much as laws that governed the length and materials one might use to beat their wife before it was considered abuse. Diphtheria is a myth in the western world, as much as how Saudi women might be executed for the horrible act of being raped by drunken men.
This is how people are raised without knowing about feminism. It's invisible. The benefit - general levels of equality - are a complacent comfort that distances us from the need for vigilance.
Like with those preachers, however, there's also a reverberating silence oftentimes from those who are in popular positions within the movement. The Pope doesn't condemn hellfire evangelicals. Writers for Jezebel don't criticise the people calling hashtag-killallmen. In western societies, silence from authority implies support - look how many rednecks call for the "head of Islam" to condemn Daesh. Silence from mainstream feminists gives the impression to newcomers that those extremists are perfectly acceptable, according to the mainstream.
I don't begrudge those who spurn Christianity thanks to the acts of hatred, bigotry, and spite by those who claim to wear the cloth. I don't begrudge those who spurn feminism thanks to the acts of hatred, bigotry, and spite by those who claim to wear the colours. I do feel the pang from both, however.
Which is why I keep in touch with friends and associates who are actively anti-Christian, whether through other faiths or atheism. They don't feel the need to "burn the Qu'ran and hate gays". It's why I keep in touch with friends and associates who claim they are anti-feminists. They don't feel the need to "burn their bra and hate men".
That's the image feminism has now, thanks to the acts of a hateful, greedy, prominent few. "It's okay to hate people if you say you're one of us." We remember the bad, long after we've forgotten the good.
If we've never seen the forest of feminism for the trees of conventional equality, we especially remember the face of angry extremists as the poster child for the movement. People who will roast you over a public fire for daring to challenge that perhaps money and effort should go to helping people, rather than someone's already-flush patreon. Equality is no longer synonymous with the public impression of feminism, and yelling at those who feel that is only going to make it worse. Tell that gay couple that God will hate them, that'll convince them that they're wrong, yeah.
The threat to feminism isn't antifeminists, they've always been there, and feminism has prevailed successively for generations now. The threat is from within. The threat is from sometimes well-meaning, sometimes vindictive, sometimes profiteering people who find no outspoken resistance when they start getting louder, and that threat is present because like with those burned by Christian hate, those turned on by feminists can communicate, and they can form communities, and hold up their scars and warn others still to stay away, and by their very deserved indignation scratch equal rights back a decade or two.
So, my response, after all the rambling done so far, is simple, and it's the same response I give my fellow Christians. "Challenge the extremists, and drive them back". It is not okay to kill or commit violence against someone for their gender or sexuality, whether they are men or women, straight or gay. It is not okay to lie, to people nor to the public, in order to gain political or monetary benefit, whether this be that Planned Parenthood is selling baby parts or that you're paid less for stand-up comedy because you're a woman. It is not okay to overlook people harassing others, whether it's a mob at a mosque or a flock on a forum.
The price of our invisibility is, in fact, invisibility. We can't afford to be "silent, good feminists" any more than I can afford being a "silent, good Christian". All it does is empower those who use the movement or faith to excuse the abuse of others.
It's time to stand up and present yourself, with all your flaws. It'll cost you friends, who will see you as an extremist thanks to their experiences, or as an antifeminist for daring to challenge the slowly souring status-quo. It'll lead you to challenge from strangers, and at times being demonised in the media, and it'll have people lie about you to further their own aims. It's a role that'll lead to anguish, drama, and pain.
But we're used to that. Feminism has been fighting hatred for nearly two hundred years. It's time to join the fight.
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