I’ve read one type of statement very often and I felt the need to adress this.
As a woman, I have had so many bad encounters with men in my life. Yet still, when I talk to my boyfriend and my brother, they have a very valid concern that “sexism” debates annoy them, because they feel like they receive a lot of blame for being men and it is assumed that they are creepy and sexist, simply because of their gender. Sometimes feminism doesn’t sound like “we want equal rights”, but more like “men make our lives worse”. Hear me out.
So many men on this earth view women as equals and act accordingly. It’s a few rotten apples that spoil the whole basket, so to say. So while discrimination of women is very real, and it is unfair that we have to fear going out alone at night and are sexualized on the daily (in advertisement for example), it is not justified to blame men as a group for that. A single person doing injustice is always accountable for their own actions.
Then women can be sexist all the same. If a woman expects another woman to do all the household chores because she is a woman, that is sexist. Or a woman can shame another woman on her body for not fitting the stereotypically beautiful body type. Also sexist. The idea that a man demands sex and a woman is the gatekeeper, is sexist. The idea that a woman is a slut when she had multiple intimate partners and a man is a hero if he had sex with many women, is sexist.
It is not “the men” who are to blame. It’s not that “men are pigs”. No person has fault by the gender or body they have been born with. It’s a societal problem. It is patriarchy as a system. Made by men and perpetuated by women and all of us, by our parents, grandparents, politicians and advertisers and sometimes ourselves. A system benifitting men in many ways, which is super problematic. Such as gender stereotypes are problematic for all humans, including men. It is harmful. And if we want people to listen to our demands for a fair and equal world for all genders, we need to stop blaming individuals (or groups of people) and find collective solutions instead.