I refuse to be a feminist anymore

I refuse to be a feminist anymore.

I have spent the last 20 years of my life baring this flag, but I refuse to be a feminist anymore.

When I joined the feminist movement – and this happened while I was still in high school, and started to debate on women’s rights in the (accidentally) all-girl school I attended – I believed the feminist movement was about protecting and fostering opportunities for women in order to grant everyone a better world. Twenty years later, I read a couple of articles written by feminists. I do not want to be like them anymore: they are bashful towards men, irrational about media, and their irony is acid towards their own kin. So I refuse to be a feminist anymore.

I resent having said that feminism was the answer to all the world’s maladies, and I am ashamed to have supported so many bras being burnt. If I could, I would take back all the books I have read, the conferences I have attended, the marches I have walked. Because I refuse to be a feminist anymore.

I do not want that for me anymore, but I want to address some topics raised by those articles before I can move on. Take it as you want: I call it my 15 top reasons why I don’t want to be a feminist anymore.

FEMINISM is not about treating other women with respect, it is about treating human beings with respect. So stop being bashful towards people without a cunt.
YOU are not supposed to feel bad for not liking all women. Some women are assholes, like some men are assholes – in fact, some people are even less than assholes, so there is no problem in hating some of them.
I DO NOT care if corporate media feeds the fire of female competition; it does the same to males and they did not turn out as nasty as some women can get, specially towards each other.
MEN are not enemies. So enough with looking at them suspiciously, as if they have a hidden agenda from day one: they might just really like you, and some of them might even have been brought up by a woman who does not see men as enemies and, therefore, was able to raise a nice one.
MEN are not a prize, either. So enough with competing for one, most of the time reducing another woman to nothing based on (a) her intelligence (b) her looks (c) her moral standards.
I CANNOT be nice to people who choose not to be enlightened, so if you belong to middle class – regardless of your ethnicity – and you choose to act like a jerk despite having access to information, I will treat you like the ass you are. This is valid for both genders – don’t think I will be lenient if you are a woman.
ACTUALLY, time for leniency is over. No more excusing women’s behavior by regarding it as a result of male dominance. This was good forty years ago – not anymore. If you are a woman and you choose to be submissive, please, do so away from me. It was your choice.
NOBODY over the age of 20 in America – or in the majority of Western countries – is allowed to be ignorant anymore. Hiding behind dated excuses from the 60s which exempted women from responsibility is a coward act, to say the least.
BE a woman. Don’t expect the world to be nice to you just because you were born with a cunt between your legs. If you want respect, demand it by acting in ways that would assure you some.
DO NOT act like a fake plastic being concatenated by masculine minds. If you are overzealous of your body but not protective of your mind do not complain when men treat you like the dumb thing you are. And, if you are reading this, chances are you had a lot of opportunities in life – you know how to read, to start with – so there are no excuses.
IF YOU are ok with being labeled a man-hater because it means to you that “feminism can better serve those it is meant for”, think again. Feminism should not exist to serve women, but to make the world a better place for everybody.
IF YOU are a lesbian, stop acting like you are better than me because you do not have sex with men. As you yourself advocate, it is not a choice – and if I like dick, there is nothing wrong with me, just like there is nothing wrong with you liking pussy. Some might even like both – equally. That doesn’t place you in a higher sorority in the echelon of life.
STOP thinking everything a man does carries a deep, heavy anti-female meaning. Sometimes they are just being people. It is up to you to be one too, and that means being able to perceive human beings as isolate instances instead of a collective of jerks defined only by their gender. Or would you like me to do the same to you?
IF “men interrupt women more than they interrupt men”, it is because women digress more and are not as objective as men are. Learn to be straight forward or quit whining.
BEING called a “bitch”, a “whore” or a “slut” is not detrimental to women, but to anyone who gets called that. This is convention and will not change. Stop taking it personally. Actually, stop taking everything so personally. Language is only oppressive if you let it oppress you.

Just a final note: as a feminist, I do not have to like you because you are a woman. I have to like you despite of the fact you are one.

- Published April 7, 2012