All My Abusers Are Feminists

On Performative Men and Sexual Degradation 

“But he was always so nice to me.”  

  

In my twenty years of womanhood, I’ve learnt to fear men. I don’t flinch like a beaten puppy when I see a man on the screen or start shivering when a teenage boy passes by me. I don’t mean the dramatically exaggerated fear you’d think of when I write these words, nor do I mean to make you laugh.   

I’ve learnt to fear men who call me pretty or laugh at my jokes. I’ve learnt to make myself as small as possible when I feel a man’s arms wrap around me. I’ve learnt to “shut up and take it” when their icy hands touch my thighs. I’ve learnt to be good when he tells me to be good, and I’ve learnt to smile when he tells me to be bad.   

Who is he? A criminal? A thief? A pirate? A corporate CEO or a small-wage worker? He is everything, and he calls himself a feminist.   

The far-reaching branches of different forms of feminism that intersect or avoid each other have become comedic tools to ridicule the movement. The “6’3 feminists” and the “performative men” mock free sanitary products, feminist literature, and female interests. These men who change their appearance and hobbies as a way to sexually pursue women have taken over the internet and negatively impact the representation of feminism in media to younger audiences. The internet meme reduces and compares feminism to a joke, a performance put on by men who only seek to impress women.   

Yet can a man ever consider himself to be a feminist?   

A while ago, an event for feminists influenced my perspective. I met a young woman who claimed that men, even in their most authentic interest and truest form, can never actually be feminists. The idea is that an oppressor can never understand or side with the oppressed. For a man to grasp feminism, he must acknowledge that the movement is not for him. In order to be "pro-feminism", he must put his own interests to the side and work for an advancement for others. A man may acquire the knowledge needed to understand the perspectives of women, but he will never have them. A man cannot be put in the societal position in which a woman finds herself, as the male experience is the female oppression.   

Those men who do call themselves feminists pride themselves on having female friends, female coworkers that they like, a mother who they respect, a female musician that they love listening to, and multiple women they fuck during the weekends and tag in memes, because they’re “nice guys”. A man who loves women also loves using women as a shield. I often found that using my voice to talk about the feminist men who’ve abused me would cause quite a stir. I’ve heard the phrase “But he was always so nice to me” more often than I’ve heard men actually be nice. Because feminist men could never be abusive; they have female friends, female coworkers that they like, a mother who they respect, a female musician that they love listening to, and multiple women they fuck during the weekends and tag in memes.  So, could they ever be sexist? Considering they say it over and over again? 

To make who believe?

These men are nice. They’re different from other men. They don’t call you a bitch in public; they will do it in bed, or in their kitchen, their living rooms, or on the phone. These men know that they have feminism to protect them, because for men it’s enough to claim that they are feminists and love women to no longer be questioned for their behaviour.   

I’ve had feminist men applaud themselves for working with women on projects while holding my legs down during sex and telling me to “quit being scared and just take it”. I know feminists who side with predators or become predators themselves. I know feminists who claim to be in touch with their sexuality and beg bisexual girlfriends for a threesome, but only with their “hot female friend”. I have known feminist men who preach equality online and degrade their teenage girlfriend in text messages. I have known feminist men.   

 So where does feminism fall for them? What does it mean to them? Does feminism mean that women should show their tits and be fucked casually to “fight patriarchy”? Does feminism mean that women should embrace sexual humiliation? Be beaten and choked during sex? Like giving blowjobs, because “they’re in control”?   

I have known feminist men who just want women to shut up and take it.   

Any abusive relationship, platonic or romantic, causes irreparable emotional and mental damage to the victim. I needed weeks, months and years to fully grasp the intensity of the problem. Men who use women as a shield to hide their abusive and malicious intentions will convince their victims of their own innocence. A simple, “I would never do that” can cause deep levels of emotional confusion. Good, feminist men would never abuse women, and yet somehow, they do?  

I mistrusted my own judgements and believed the voices of the female shield that a man was controlling. The mass of women supporting the abuser are directed and orchestrated by him. Abusive men know that they need a cover. They need someone who will side with them and say, “But he was always so nice to me.”  

In this male-centred society, a single man’s voice preaching feminism will always be louder than that of a thousand women. He will be heard. Men are applauded for saying that they respect women, abusers know this. Therefore, little jokes on feminism being a performance for men irks me, because it’s true. The oppressors set up playdates with the oppressed and joke around with the latter’s only defence.  

Thus, I will not believe in feminist men. I will not side with them. I will not fight for the oppressor. Feminism is not for men. A man can only fight for feminism. He must work and fight for the marginalised group. As he grows up in a sexist agenda that practises gendered bias and ridicules marginalised groups, a man can only be pro-feminism.