When Feminists Stop Playing Nice

"I am the feminist who is out to ruin your life." So begins Mickey Randleman's spoken word poem "Feminist." And the rest of the poem gets no less awesome.

Every woman who identifies as a feminist has probably fielded some variation of the question, "Wait, so you hate men?" Or else has had to take other kinds of heat for all the ways that feminists are supposedly awful people. Televangelist Phil Robertson famously once said that feminism "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." And for some reason a lot of people seem to also think along those same lines.

And it gets old after a while, reassuring people that no, you love men, you don't want to kill babies, you aren't opposed to people getting married or women shaving their legs and yes, you do wear a bra. Unless you don't wear a bra, and then you get to explain that, too. But all the constant convincing that we really aren't threatening or scary gets so frustrating sometimes.

Sometimes, you just want to be like "Screw it," and tell people that actually, you are scary. Your mission is to challenge their status quo. You are out to take away the unfair advantages they mistakenly think are rightfully theirs. You don't care about their feelings, you care about equality. You absolutely are, "the feminist who is out to ruin your life," as Randelman says.

And you know what? If the things Randelman mentions in this poem are really so crucial to your life that you perceive criticism of them them as attacks on you, then maybe your life needs a little ruining. It will give you some perspective.