As women, from the day we are born, we are taught, groomed, socialized, and continuously reminded that we are to put our own needs aside for the sake of others. Thus, the needs of others take precedent over our own.
It is a difficult aspect of patriarchal truth to overcome regardless of how evolved, how feminist, how radical one might think themselves to be. The simple truth is in how difficult it is for us, as women, to say NO.
Nedra Johnson is a very good writer demonstrating, in the 2 blog posts, that this concept of putting our own needs aside for the sake of others is still alive and well and thriving in our thoughts and actions.
Her words demonstrate how women will intellectualize, rationalize, and compromise as a rationale as to why they are willing to, going to, have to, capitulate to the needs of others over the needs of themselves.
Women who have the audacity to say NO, are called names (terf being one of the milder ones), harassed, blamed, shamed, bullied, threatened with violence, and otherwise faced with intimidation tactics designed to silence them aka remind them of their place, purpose, and expectations.
Radical feminists do not advocate for reworking the terminology to appease those who expect women to cave into their demands. Nor do they advocate for women to explain or justify why they need their own space. We do not require others approval or permission to do what we need to for us.
Rather, they very much advocate for calling things what they are rather than downplaying the reality to make it more palatable. Thus, domestic violence is male violence against females and rape is male sexual assault of women. Concocting an array of socially constructed acronyms in an effort to keep the peace, or make nice is not calling things what they are.
Very glad to hear MWMF was a positive experience this year. And very happy to see women talking about the need for specific spaces.
|