Do We Need Feminism?

This is one of those more mature discussions. If you only come here for gaming or paint talk then you might want to skip this blog post. This post contains none of that though I am writing a follow up blog post right now that will contain hobby talk. This is my personal blog. There may be times I openly share things other people consider personal. This is one of those times. Some may also consider this post to be disturbing in nature. If you have any doubts, then please look at the tags before reading to see if you want to read on those topics or not. I am uncertain how else to preface this to warn people that might not want to read it.

There's an internet meme I see from time to time where males share a picture of themselves holding a sign with a pithy phrase along the lines of, "XXX is why I need feminism." The idea behind the meme is an interesting one that is clearly designed to grab attention, but does little to really get into the details of why these men feel the need to do this.

I grew up surrounded by women with the only men around being those I had seen in school which were few and far between from my scattered memory. Both my mother and step mother were strongly independent women that proved to me time and again that men were not needed. I never felt the desire to really get to know my father outside of a passing curiosity so never understood the need of other children for that connection. My sisters have all grown into radiant women I am intensely proud of. There are many good things I have learned being brought up in this manner.

One downside however was that I grew up feeling there was something fundamentally wrong with me. This was not the fault of any individual, but an accumulation of years upon years of never quite being as wholesome as the people around me. I came to believe there was something inherently evil about myself.

There came a point in my life when I spent some time with a person that grew up being abused. The fact she was a female was often times used as a focal point for that abuse. I had maleness directly pointed out to me as the cause of many of humanities troubles. I had never associated with other males outside of other children in a classroom setting so there were no examples of either good or bad men in my life for me to compare myself to. This individual still had a lot of hurt from growing up female, and events from her life as an adult did not help matters.

I came to believe that my sex was a problem. Not just for myself, but potentially for society in the future as well. I became extremely despondent as I could not think of a solution to the problem. Suicide was not an option because that would leave others to clean up my mess after me. Being male was my only option no matter how wrong it was.

We were talking one time and it was another discussion on how males cause many of society's problems. I sank further into myself so I would not have to face my own wrongness when she put a knife down in front of me. There was a solution. We talked for a long while after that. I did not even realize I had picked up the knife until she was taking it away from me. I had not yet earned the right to cleanse this evil from myself.

This happened on more than one occasion. Each time I would be talked into picking up that knife or a pair of scissors. Each time I would come away ashamed that I was still unworthy to remove this sin from my body. I truly did come to the point where I felt I would never be a whole individual as long as I had a penis. It was not a desire to be a female so much as it was a need to no longer be male.

A couple of years ago somebody posted a news article on some forums about a woman castrating her husband. I made an off colour comment about how all men deserved it at some point or another in their lives. It was not until people responded to that post that I began to realize that not everyone felt that castration was a viable option to the problem that is men. Not only that, but manhood in and of itself is not a sin.

Thankfully, I was amongst friends whom I was able to openly discuss things with so I could more easily understand where they were coming from. I went from childhood up into my thirties believing that castration was not only an option, but something to strive for and actively earn. I never truly realized how alone I was in feeling this way. I understood on an intellectual level that castration was illegal, but beneath the surface I still believed that all these men walking around were carrying the same shame I had for all those years. That is what being male meant to me.

There are many things that people never talk about. Most of them are uncomfortable topics. Some of them are so common that everybody assumes these things do not need to be talked about while others are so uncommon that most people never experience those things at all. If you never talk about these things then it is hard to know which is which so you can come to the assumption that something you take as common is an experience not shared by many. The inverse is true as well. Just because you are going through something does not mean you are experiencing it alone or that there is not somebody available to help. Find somebody, anybody to talk to about anything and everything. I did not even realize how deep my issues with my own sex went until it came out in the open.

I do not know what it is like to be a woman having never been one. I do know what it feels like to be made to feel like there is something innately wrong with yourself due to your sex. I also do not know if feminism is something the world needs or not. It is a step however, and we need to take steps to move away from where we are at. I definitely prefer feminism over standing still. If feminism makes it to where fewer people grow up feeling their sex is a vile thing to be ashamed of then I am for it.

Oh, and before it comes up, the person that intensified and focused my feelings on maleness being a blight upon the world was not a feminist. She was an abused individual that needed help and was reciprocating her experiences back into the world because it was all she knew. I can hardly blame her for amplifying my own feelings at the time.