Here Is The Post Where I Piss You Off: Why I Have Problems With The Current Feminist Movement

FYI: This is sexist too, you know.

We were probably long overdue for a post like this anyhow; Those few, those faithful that have stuck with and followed us from the start of this blog and our novel writing, you've been great. And if I lose a few of you from this, I do apologize. If you stay, that's pretty great too. And if you suddenly start paying attention to us BECAUSE of this post, that's even better. Even still, I realize that someone, somewhere, is going to get their feathers ruffled by this post. Now, if you're still here, here's where the warning pops up:

I am going to talk about subject matter that makes people emotionally charged. I will be using words that may be considered inflammatory (but only within the context of EXAMPLE, and no further than that). I will express things that you MIGHT not agree with. 

Furthermore, I may use broad terminology for the sake of making a point. Terms such as "sometimes," "often," "frequently," and more. these words should be treated as SUCH. Notice that none of those words are synonyms for ALL, EVERY, ONLY and related terms. Don't get them twisted. What I say, is exactly what I mean.

The next thing you might be wondering is, "What the hell does this have to do with writing?! You said you weren't pushing an agenda!" I'll tell you. This is absolutely related to writing, because of one key thing: We write about people. Human beings. Observing pattern and behavior amongst people and discussing those things are paramount to our art. Not only was it a key topic and one of the core principles behind Rabbit in the Road, it is also a core principle behind the upcoming Twisted World series. It's all about the people, and that's what I'm going to talk about. The people.

Before we get further into that, I'm going to lay down another disclaimer here that I want you to remember the entire time that you're reading this, because I don't want you to lose sight on perspective:

I am a heterosexual, African-American (or black, if you want to be cool about it) male. What this means, is that as a under-represented class, I feel qualified enough to speak on circumstances that are SIMILAR to mine. This topic happens to be one of them.

Now, since we're on the topic of sexism and feminism, let me lay out in PLAIN ENGLISH what my beliefs are, so you don't get confused in the slightest, in a nice little bullet point list so nobody gets it twisted in any capacity. I believe in:

Equal pay for equal work.
Equal opportunity based on skill, merit, and the ability to perform a job to a predetermined standard.
Being judged on the content of your character.
Equal human rights for people, no matter their color, gender, sexual preference or anything inbetween.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH. EVERYONE is entitled to their opinion, bottom line. The ACTION they take based on that opinion, is an entirely different matter altogether.
The freedom to CHOOSE WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE, and no one else's.

Now, here's where you're just going to be confused. I believe in all the things I said above. Here is also what I believe in that nobody will like, but MAKE SURE you pay attention:

 I still believe that abortion is murder. After all, if a rose by any other name is still the same flower, a rose seed is still a rose, it's just not as pretty as we'd expect all roses to be. However, I BELIEVE IN MY BODY, MY CHOICE. Hey, it's not my body. But I can still have an opinion on things you do. I'm just not a fucking asshole about it. It ultimately DOESN'T AFFECT ME. What you're doing with your body is your OWN FUCKING BUSINESS.
I don't agree with homosexuality, and not because of some religious belief. I don't agree with homosexuality just as much as say, a homosexual doesn't agree with heterosexuality. But ultimately, homosexual people are still just that. PEOPLE. Furthermore, who you're fucking really isn't any concern of mine. What you're doing with your body is your OWN FUCKING BUSINESS.

Do you see it and understand now? You can have opinions on things without being a prick. I don't have to AGREE with you in order to respect you and your life choices. I blame that on being black! After all, when you get shat upon most of your life, you kind of learn how to recognize when someone else is getting shat on, too.

That's not necessarily a bad thing; it helps me recognize and internally validate the plight of others more easily. Hell, I have family members who have gone through abortions, family members that are homosexual, incredibly close and VERY DEAR friends who are homosexual: I don't value them any less. They're just LEADING A LIFE DIFFERENT THAN ME that doesn't actually INTERFERE WITH MY ABILITY TO LIVE MINE. And since I've touched base on that topic of religion (I was raised a Seventh Day Adventist christian, just for note; I don't participate in any organized religion anymore), just as an aside; Who the fuck am I to judge whether or not someone is going to go to Hell based on those things? I'm going to have my hands full trying to get my own damn self into heaven, let alone anyone else. I don't think  anyone on this planet can speak on behalf of God or The Flying Spaghetti Monster or any deity, for that matter.

Now, with all that aside, let's get down to brass tacks. This current feminist movement, and why it is dangerous: Because it is short-sighted, and inflammatory. Let me explain WHY I feel this way.

Every day, I'm talking with friends and acquaintances, just like everyone else does, right? Either through face to face, or through our favorite social networks, or the phone, so on and so forth. You get the drill. Needless to say, I have a LOT of female friends, and some of them are as dumb as a box of rocks. Some of them are some of the smartest, most intelligent and well-thought individuals I have EVER encountered on this planet. Guess what? I have a lot of male friends too, and some of them are as dumb as a box of rocks, and some of them are the smartest, most intelligent and well-thought individuals I have EVER encountered on this planet. So what does it mean?

It means that DUMBASSERY isn't tied to a gender, a color, a sexual orientation, or anything else in that vein. Anyone can be a dumbass regardless of any of that stuff.

I constantly hear screaming and yelling, and brow-beating about feminism all the time on my facebook newsfeed. Quite frankly, I'm a little sick of it for one reason; Because all I ever see is not women campaigning for equal rights, to be treated as a person with potentially equal or even superior intelligence, skill or thought provoking content or amazing character. No, that's not what I ever see. Here is what I see happening, constantly:

Women who are constantly berating and being just as abusive to men as they feel they have been treated. 

This is what disgusts me, sickens me, even. I see just as bad, hypocritical behavior out of many (there's one of those words) self-proclaimed feminists as I do horribly sexist men. I see these particular women scream, rant and rave at the top of their lungs about a supposed injustice done to them (often times no actual injustice has been committed in these cases; often times, they were in fact being treated EQUALLY as their male peers would be), and then the real kicker is they immediately turn to name calling and male bashing. Heaven forbid you should bring up something thought provoking or logical in the sake of furthering gender discussion; You almost immediately hear "WELL YOU'RE MISOGYNIST!" or something along the lines of "You don't agree with me, therefore YOU'RE MISOGYNIST!"

This is where I drop a bombshell on your head.

Not every man is out to get you, just as much as not every white person is out to get ME for being black. 

Mindblowing, I know. Are there still racist people out there, of every race color and creed? Absolutely. Are ALL of them racist? Absolutely not, and I have no right to assume as much.

Another part of my problem with the current feminist movement is that there's a distinct lack of humor in it. You might be scratching your head here, but allow me to continue and I'll make my point.

Some time ago, I was having a discussion amongst my circle of friends, and it was ALL very silly. And that's the thing with humor. Humor is one of our most important defenses as human beings and dealing with abstract concepts; Humor is a POWERFUL TOOL to take horrible things and depower them, to make them palpable. When we can tear down the awful walls of a terrible thing, we take AWAY its ability to hurt us, and soon we render it powerless. This is why you hear black comedians use the word nigger, and you'll even hear homosexual people jokingly refer to each other as fags. They're TAKING AWAY THE POWER of hurtful language through humor.

So, it came as a huge surprise to me when we're all sitting there conversing, I'm "the token black guy" in the group and we're all making black jokes and just being silly. Why? Because we all KNEW NOTHING WAS BEING SAID SERIOUSLY. Amongst the circle of friends, we had what I would call a Super-Feminist. And when I say Super-Feminist, I mean if someone even mentioned anything about women, she was on top of it as fast as Batman would show up after the bat signal would turn on. Before I continue, I might add that this discussion was equally populated with both men AND women, all amazing people.

So naturally, the topic gets on the subject of "women in the kitchen, barefoot with a baby on their hip," that classic women stereotype that is so extremely outdated and silly that we now make JOKES about how dumb it is. It came up that that would be a hilarious bat signal for her to respond to, a woman in a kitchen making a sandwich, and that was when said Super-Feminist friend LOST IT. Freaked out, started calling people sexist and how we all just treat feminism as a great big joke and WE'RE the ones that are what's wrong and how we're the reason no one takes feminism seriously, we treat her like a sideshow act, and because we're all men and we think that anything concerning women is a joke to not be taken seriously (even though there were, as stated, women involved in this conversation).

At this point, I WAS THE ONE who then became offended. Firstly, because of the broad (and quite serious) sweeping generalization of not only her friends, but also all men. Second, because of the fact that everyone KNEW that it was a joke in the vein of "nothing said here is being taken seriously by anyone involved" and it was literally all in good natured ribbing. You know the kind, where we poke and prod at the quirky little things about our friends that we find strange or quirky or different, yet simultaneously interesting and makes them unique, not unlike a "roast." It was particularly upsetting, because this person is yelling at people who sing PRAISES about how proud of her we are for standing up for her beliefs and rather than being apathetic, actually being active in making changes that she thinks are better for herself and potentially others. Many of our friends were in agreement with me when I made that statement.

And that's that thing I was talking about; Humor is the bane of hatred. Humor is joyful and full of silliness. This is why we use humor; we use to it DEPOWER THE HATEFUL NATURE of humanity. No matter what your walk of life is, no matter who you are or what you do, you love to laugh. We all do. Humor brings more people together in harmony than anything else, in my opinion. Or, let's look at it another way:

If people are going to watch Blazing Saddles and laugh at all the black jokes in there that Mel Brooks made at the expense of black people (and don't get me wrong, that movie is fucking HILARIOUS), you better believe that I'm going to laugh at jokes about anyone else. Nothing is sacred in the realm of comedy. Although I suppose this lack of humor is more a symptom of the problem, than the actual problem itself.

I know some pretty important ladies; The movers, the shakers. The dreamer of dreams, the music makers, as Willy Wonka might say. I've had the good fortune of being able to have conversations with Jeri Ellsworth, if even so briefly. The woman is a fucking genius, and is a laugh riot. She's done more for women in the field of technology than I can even remember anyone else doing for the past 10 years. And self taught, to boot. I know a good lady (whose name I won't post here because she might not approve, but if she reads this, she knows I'm talking about her) who works for a well known game company as Social Media Specialist and is a self-proclaimed feminist. She's a bit older, but she's sharp as a fucking tack and comedy gold. She's a great lady, and I've actually gotten to see her rise up from being a community representative at a separate company UP to the position she is in now. And why? Because she's got hustle and works her ass off, that's why. And she's ALWAYS smiling.

And I will make sure to mention two VERY important women to me, personally (again, I will not mention them by name) whom I met through the National Conference for Community and Justice when I was a camp counselor way back in the days of yore. These two women opened my mind up to other religious concepts, but also understanding. I would not be the man I am TODAY if it were not for these two highly intelligent, wonderfully talented and thoughtful ladies in my life (in fact, I'm going to have coffee with one of them on Monday! YAY!) And the beautiful thing about all of them?

I NEVER SEE ANY OF THESE WOMEN BERATING MEN. 

I suppose that is really the meat of the matter. We've now got two types of feminists: Feminists with good, true, honorable and RIGHT intentions, who are fighting not to be better than someone else, but to be treated FAIRLY and JUSTLY for who they are as people, like those ladies listed above.

And then we have the horrible, dark and ugly side of the fence:

The Super-Feminist, that treats all men as the enemy and any comment said as some slight or threat against them, even where none EXISTS.

It's very easy for me to see this hyper-feminism in action. It very closely mirrors the differences between say, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X and/or The Black Panther Party.

That shit is DISGUSTING. You don't fight hate with hatred; You fight hatred with good ol' fashioned logic, patience, understanding, and education. Not through spiteful hate filled bile. They have become the exact opposite of what good feminism stands for; They aren't fighting for equality, all I see here is flat-out raw misandry. And THAT is what I have a problem with. Because now we're seeing men being attacked based on one principle: The fact that they're men. 

Susan B. Anthony was an amazing woman that I wish I had had the good fortune to meet. That lady made some amazing shit happen, because she pointed out the glaring logic holes in not allowing women to vote, to not let them have a place as equals in society. And she was right, from top to bottom. But she didn't do it by pointing out that men were evil; She pointed out the flaws in the system through straight mental power and why it was nonsensical in the first place. That is a lady to be admired, and respected.

Day in and day out, I see many of these so-called super feminists and others rant and rave about how sexist men are… yet they do very hypocritical things. Examples of shit I see in my newsfeed (sometimes as pictures, or other times as status updates):

"God gave men a brain and a penis… but only enough blood to run one at a time!"

"Men are only good for what's between their legs, and most of them can't even do that right!"

"Men are pigs!"

And much much more.

That is, by its very nature, the definition of hypocrisy. So it's not okay for men to say, "Oh you can't do X because you're a girl" or "All women should cook and clean and be homemakers", but it's perfectly okay for YOU to make horribly sexist and hurtful statements? It's not okay for a man to call a woman a bitch, but it's PERFECTLY fine for a woman to call a man a pig, an animal that rolls around in its own feces?

I don't think so.

It is THESE types of women who are destroying the feminism movement, THEY are the ones preventing from any true ground being gained. And it fucking sucks, because they are the ones who are screaming the LOUDEST. That fucked up, vocal minority that makes everyone else groan. The vocal hypocrit.

The ones that are just as horribly sexist as the very people they claim to despise. Archie Bunker would like to say hello.

When Danika and I sat down to write Rabbit in the Road, we wanted to tell a story. We wanted to tell a story about people. A story about FUCKED UP people. It wasn't about whether or not one of them was male or female; That just happened to be the circumstance at the time. And I think we did a pretty good job, too. This isn't a story about about a hero versus a villain; It's a story about a villain and another villain whom you can sympathize with to a certain degree. Neither of the characters was in the right, per se; But one at least had some justification for their actions. It was the extent of those actions that pushed her into villain-hood.

Danika was the lead writer on Rabbit in the Road; She had a very specific tale in mind, and I fucking loved it. As I've mentioned to people before, we started working on The Dusk Harbinger almost 2 years ago; Danika brought me her notes on what would become Rabbit and I looked them over. It was choppy in places, but she HAD SOMETHING there. There was an amazing story wanting to be told. I believed in the story she wanted to tell so bad, that I stopped everything on The Dusk Harbinger and said, "We are working on this. This is fantastic, and I can't wait until we get to share it with the world. It's going to turn people on their ear."

That's what we're about here, really. Making people with different thoughts, feelings, and actions than ours. The characters in Rabbit in the Road do things that we would NEVER DO. EVER. And we're pushing that line even further with the beginning of The Twisted World in The Dusk Harbinger.

I have very carefully over the past two years built and scripted characters for The Dusk Harbinger; to my surprise, I noticed that I had written more female characters than I had male characters. It wasn't intentional, I just happened to have lined up more interesting female characters than male ones. Now, here's the real crazy kicker:

Danika has written more male characters for the story, and less female characters.  

It's really incredibly interesting, because as we're putting together these characters, it's easy as hell to just turn to your writing partner and say, "Would this be realistic behavior for a woman/man to do?" and be able to get a solid, objective answer based on THAT person's experience as being that gender. It really is a marvel, and I wish other people got to experience it that easily. It is truly a pleasure and privilege to get to be able to do so.

And that's the really neat part about everything: I've had to sit down and look at all these viewpoints between the relationship between men and women when developing these characters, and they fit all different kinds of personalities and beliefs: The woman who wants a man because she loves men, the woman that doesn't need or want a man but certainly won't turn him away, the one who feels useless if she doesn't have a man, the woman who doesn't care about men in the slightest, and so many more. Hell, I've even written one of the most IMPORTANT CHARACTERS IN THE ENTIRE LORE of the Twisted World as a lesbian. Why? Because for this character and what she needs to achieve, it makes ACTUAL SENSE. And if you  remember from up above, I don't personally approve of homosexuality. But I can't imagine this character in any other way. In fact, I'll even argue that she's the coolest character out of all characters created for this world so far. I love her to death, she's fucking AWESOME. And I wouldn't want her any other way. That's what we're exploring here, really getting in there and exploring the dynamics of what makes this… arrangement we have on this planet work, and WHY it does and doesn't work at times.

It's going to be even better, taking these characters through our new test reader group with Dusk Harbinger (I took a count yesterday; Of the 16 test readers, 11 of them are women, and they were handpicked by me), because they're REALLY going to be able to tell us if they're working correctly or not. I'm incredibly excited to be working with them, too.

When Danika and I sit down and write, it's not about the differences between us that makes it difficult to work. Our differences as male and female is what makes our bond as a writing team STRONGER, because we're able to share those perspectives with each other and interject that into our work. Danika does not walk behind me, because she is not my follower. She does not walk in front of me, because she is not my leader. She walks beside me, because she is my partner and we work TOGETHER on making awesome content. I couldn't ask for better than that.

We as a people spend so much time fighting about our differences, especially now in this post millennium gender arena, that we're failing to see the big picture:

Equality is NOT ABOUT one-upping the other side, it's NOT ABOUT being better than the other side. It's about raising us BOTH up to new, greater heights. When Dr. King made his "I Have a Dream" speech, it DIDN'T include "Little black boys beating the shit out of little white girls, berating them, and making them feel lesser than human." No, he talked about them playing TOGETHER. In harmony, as EQUALS. That speech still stands as true today as it did then.

Ladies, gentlemen, dudes, gals, chicks, bros. We've gotta stop this shit because we're all stuck here together, on this planet. And we need to do two very important things:

1) Grow the fuck up.

2) Get the fuck along.

Because this current "cold war" ain't workin'. If we don't start getting along, we're all going down. Nobody wins. And that is just plain ol' fashioned shitty. Us guys, men? WE ARE NOT YOUR ENEMY. I will tell you who the enemy is.

Dumbfuck closeminded bigots are the enemy. And right now, they're sitting on BOTH sides of the fence. I know it's not a problem we can fix overnight; Most problems of this magnitude are rarely solved quickly. But goddamn it, we have to at least TRY.

I don't care who, or what you are. I don't care if you're gay, or straight. I don't care if you're a guy or a gal or anything in between. If you're a cool, interesting person, I'm going to want to talk and hang with you. It shouldn't be anymore complicated than that. And if you don't want to be treated poorly based on your gender, don't treat me poorly based on my gender, either.

Or else it's all just fiddlesticks.

~Oliver