I am an angry woman.
Should this come off as a rant, too bad? I am an angry woman. If you are a woman, and you are not angry then you must be dead. Either that or I want some of your drugs. Today there is so much chaos, noise and respectability politics. Regrettably, women keep dying and suffering needlessly in the midst of it all. You read that a woman was the victim of rape, harassment or murder. Anyone would expect sympathy and anger against the criminals. But there comes a barrage of simpletons trying to shift the blame to the victim. She didn’t rape nor kill herself so, why is the focus on her and not the perpetrator? A man is caught on tape confessing to a rape and, there are cretins saying people should forgive him or he would commit suicide from the shame? Like I’m supposed to reach down into my abundant trove and give a fuck? Like the fact that he confessed somehow absolves him of the consequences? Yet, this same misplaced sympathy is always absent for women?
In 2021, do you not understand that when women suffer male violence, it has got nothing to do with what they did but everything to do with the entitlement men feel, backed by a society that rarely punishes such behaviour? Do you not understand that women wake up every day and have to factor in their safety in whatever decision they make? Do you not understand that just because you helped me carry my luggage upstairs does not mean that I now owe you and do you not understand that because you think I owe you something and we happen to live in the same building-heck the same world, I no longer feel safe in my own home?
Men sit in their comfortable corners of the world and tell me that all my feelings and reality are invalid because it is not their reality or they are not one of the bad guys. Look, there is no such thing as a gender war. People who talk about gender wars, want to play the ostrich instead of facing the reality of this world. Either that or, deep down, they are scared of losing the privilege that they have. They don’t want to ‘upset’ things because, how is it that my demands for equal opportunities, for equal rights and above all, for safety and well being have now been labelled a war against men? It is like comparing it to the situation with indigenous tribes around the world and saying that they have declared war for asking people not to kill and steal from them.
Women are scared shitless and exhausted. The least you can do is shut up, listen and learn but, no. You have to label it a gender war and cause chaos. I cannot understand how as a species, we have made so many advancements in technology, agriculture, entertainment etc. Yet, we are seemingly rooted in the same spot. But when I complain, you say it is nothing but a gender war and I am nothing but an angry woman. If that is the way you see it, then so be it.