Why Nobody Needs Feminism

One of the big things about feminism that everyone immediately recognizes are images of women holding up cards saying 'I need feminism because...' and then whatever they put down. Recently, some women who do the same thing except with the word "don't" thrown in there have been catching a relatively small amount of flak from the feminists. I read this article and now I have to put my tiny, ant-sized foot down on this issue. Go read the article. No seriously, read the article. There's no point in my criticism of something you haven't read about.

First off I want to say that the author of this article is definitely correct about the horrors that many women face in the world, often at the hands of men. The stories recounted in the article are horrific, and sadly they happen quite frequently in many parts of the world. This is despicable and, while I don't condone murder, nobody would miss the people who commit any of the heinous acts described in the article. However, the whole thing comes down to this specific line:

"So before you hold up your anti-Feminist placard proudly and smile at your own sense of empowerment, think not what Feminism can do for you, but what it can do for that one girl."

The cold hard reality is that no movement or ideology will save those women or protect women in the future. Feminism can't do shit, Liberalism can't do shit, Conservatism can't do shit, Libertarianism can't do shit. But let's focus on feminism, since that's what's being talked about. Feminism is an ideology, a thought, words. That's it. If words were all it took to keep you from being assaulted then rape, assault and murder statistics would be minuscule because people could just shout "Swiper no raping/murdering/assaulting!" three times and the attacker would be stopped. Sorry, feminists, you're out of luck. Better go back to ranting about patriarchy on Tumblr.

So what CAN we do to stop these acts of pure evil? We can educate. That is it. These acts are acts, and an act can't be stopped by anything other than another act. Those men who were beating that woman on the bus could've been stopped if someone had pulled out a gun and defended her. Someone could have started throwing punches to save her from being beaten, I don't know. Somebody should have been able to recognize what was happening and that it was wrong and tried to stop it. Someone should have acted to save someone who legitimately could not have saved herself. But they didn't. And feminism won't change that. Feminism is not encouraging women to arm themselves, to learn how to fight back, how to properly defend themselves, feminism is teaching them to play victim. Well, guess what women? YOU'RE STRONGER THAN THAT. If you are legitimately afraid of violence being directed at you - for any reason - ARM YOURSELF. GET AWAY FROM FAMILY MEMBERS THAT WILL HURT YOU. Do not listen to feminists who tell you that just because you're not doing anything wrong that you shouldn't remove yourself from a dangerous environment.

Now comes the responses galore of "But not all women CAN remove themselves", "not all women can get access to protection" etc etc. Okay. That's horrible. My many sympathies to the women stuck in those scenarios. But feminism still does not have an answer. Feminism isn't doing anything to stop what's happening. Feminism is doing one thing, it is giving some women in other countries the anger to group together and use that anger to overcome their fear and push back. That, admittedly, is better than nothing. I would rather see a few Indian feminists fighting (sometimes literally) against the actual oppression in India where it exists than nothing at all. But I would humbly propose another solution. Another ideology. Voluntaryism.

Basically, you respect another person and their property. If they harm you or your property, you are free to use appropriate force to get them to stop. I would absolutely love to see Pakistani women given handguns and trained how to use them. Then they could act much more freely without having to worry about men led by irrational religious bullshit trying to hurt them for not submitting to whatever god's will. THAT would be doing something. Feminists, please just shut the fuck up about the poor women in other countries. If you ACTUALLY cared, you would be helping those women to do something to enforce their self-ownership, not just sniping at girls holding anti-feminist signs on the Internet.