I Am A Feminist Because I Believe In Equality
Time for a story. Nobody wants to hear it and it's told terribly, but whatever, I'm telling it anyway. Then I'm gonna play Settlers some more.
Anyway, back when I was in my late teens/early 20s, I fell into the whole 'anti-feminist' thing. I was severely depressed, full of self doubt, trying to figure out who I was (and not succeeding) and not really sure what feminism meant or did. The most interaction I had with women or girls was my mum and sister, who aren't the best models for what a woman is, and at uni interactions were amicable, but girls seemed to get away as quickly as reasonably possible. With all that, I managed to come to the conclusion that feminism was unnecessary and harmful to men.
After a couple of years of that, I started wearying of the concept of both feminism and anti-feminism entirely; although my head space was still truly awful, I reached a point where I didn't want to hear about it any more, regardless of what point of view it was.
After a year or so of nigh complete apathy, I began receiving treatment for depression, and found out exactly what it is that feminism meant. With a clearer head and actual definitions on my side, I started to see that I was wrong. Feminism wasn't evil nor harmful to men; at the (hypothetically) very worse it did as much good as it harm, and for the most part it was a net positive. It was also around this time that I joined EP, and within a year I even had an online girlfriend who I'd met on that selfsame site.
I'm not sure if I got the timeline muddled up there, because that whole time in my life is kind of a blur of malaise. I was also going to mention this girlfriend's name, but it seemed superfluous. She's a story in herself which I might tell if anyone actually reads this one and wants to hear about her. It's doubtful though.
Now I'm going to go and play Settlers and maybe cry over that girlfriend a little. If this seemed like a waste of time, then at least know that this is helping me to deal with an issue I've long suppressed as a flare of stupidity (and I may have used the wrong flare/flair there, so please correct me if I did).
Anyway, back when I was in my late teens/early 20s, I fell into the whole 'anti-feminist' thing. I was severely depressed, full of self doubt, trying to figure out who I was (and not succeeding) and not really sure what feminism meant or did. The most interaction I had with women or girls was my mum and sister, who aren't the best models for what a woman is, and at uni interactions were amicable, but girls seemed to get away as quickly as reasonably possible. With all that, I managed to come to the conclusion that feminism was unnecessary and harmful to men.
After a couple of years of that, I started wearying of the concept of both feminism and anti-feminism entirely; although my head space was still truly awful, I reached a point where I didn't want to hear about it any more, regardless of what point of view it was.
After a year or so of nigh complete apathy, I began receiving treatment for depression, and found out exactly what it is that feminism meant. With a clearer head and actual definitions on my side, I started to see that I was wrong. Feminism wasn't evil nor harmful to men; at the (hypothetically) very worse it did as much good as it harm, and for the most part it was a net positive. It was also around this time that I joined EP, and within a year I even had an online girlfriend who I'd met on that selfsame site.
I'm not sure if I got the timeline muddled up there, because that whole time in my life is kind of a blur of malaise. I was also going to mention this girlfriend's name, but it seemed superfluous. She's a story in herself which I might tell if anyone actually reads this one and wants to hear about her. It's doubtful though.
Now I'm going to go and play Settlers and maybe cry over that girlfriend a little. If this seemed like a waste of time, then at least know that this is helping me to deal with an issue I've long suppressed as a flare of stupidity (and I may have used the wrong flare/flair there, so please correct me if I did).
