Feminism versus Humanism

For years now I have been calling myself a feminist, believing that women should have the same rights as men, believing that women should be treated the same way men are treated in any form of interaction.

For years now, I have put the focus on women and not men, even developing some kind of hatred towards men, and even feeling some kind of frustration as soon as men behaved as men. It is the word feminist, who strongly focuses on females that made me feel the way I did. I even wrote a blogpost about it a while ago, almost being mean towards men. Was it fair? At that time, it was because I was standing for something. Probably not for feminism however.

See, if feminism is about equal rights both for men and women, then why does it have the word female in it? Does the word live up to its definition? I believe not.

What I truly believe in, is that everybody should be treated in a nice and kind way; in a democratic way, in a way where there is no distinction between race, age or gender. Each individual should be free to express his identity, and be respected for it, but at the same time this identity should include being respectful towards the human kind.

I have come to terms that equality does not exist. If I treat every single person the same way, then this means that individuality does not exist. It means that men, women, children and even plants and products have to be treated the same way. How is that possible when everything and everyone is 'born' differently? What makes someone unique if we treat everybody equally?

Society has forced us to put everybody in different boxes and objectified human beings. There is a guideline on how men and women should behave and should be treated. If this never happened, would feminism even exist?
The funny part of all of this is that the more I have been working on projects that emphasises on women and the female body, the less I believe in such thing called feminism. In the end it is about (self) respect and projecting how you want to be treated.

Today I can proudly say that I'm a humanist, not a feminist. I am a humanist who believes that each individual, despite race, gender or age should be treated in a humane way.

I didn't mean to offend you

For years I have been trying to keep my opinions about men for myself. Sometimes I find myself in a situation where I can’t help it but make a nasty comment about men –yes, even when they are around. And that when this huge feeling of guilt comes in, because I didn’t mean to offend those nice guys that I’m hanging out with. I sincerely like them and my comments certainly don’t apply to them.

As long as they don’t make any moves towards me, they are not classified as ‘these men.’

I know I’m going to take a big risk with this post but after reading this post I feel a huge, enormous urge to speak out. If you are reading this and you are a man, this isn't about you. Or at least I didn't mean to offend you.

1. It’s impossible that you don’t have anything on your mind. Aren’t you thinking about the offensive thing that a certain person said to you? Or how your day went? Or what you have to do next week?
How can a brain think NOTHING?

2. Giving hints is our way to see how well you know us. Not understanding them means you don’t understand us meaning that you don’t know the woman you are in relationship with meaning: do you love us at all?
Oh, and this is our way of being polite.

3. We love you this much that we want to involve you in anything in our lives. Asking for your advice on clothing, talking about nail polish or anything as such means that we are very comfortable with you. Take it as a compliment.

4. We don’t want you to be rational when we are being hysterical. We need you to listen and tell us that you are going to shoot that person and that we have the right to feel this way.
Come on, it’s not so hard to play along. We will let you know when it’s time to be rational.

5. WHY IS CRYING SO SCARY FOR YOU? We are not going to kill you I promise.
Our crying is your hitting stuff and screaming to the television.

6. How can you watch cartoons like Southpark at the age of 26? Are you ok or did it go wrong somewhere while you were growing up? We are here to help you if you need to talk about it.

7. We want you to be clear to us and we are definitely not scared of rationality but take our emotions into account too, please?

8. Sometimes we are just pushing to see how far we can go until you break. So we keep crying (yes, it’s our powerful source to blackmailing, but not always!) until we get what we want.

9. Stick to your promises. Note everything down if needed, what is said is out there now and you can’t get away with it anymore. We remember EVERYTHING!

10. In the end we love you and we are trying really hard to understand you to understand if you understand us.