Why am I a feminist? (spoiler: not because I hate men)

With Women’s Strike in Poland there are a lot of discussions arising about what’s appropriate. Public means devastation, cursing etc. Why women do that? It’s very aggressive and masculine, they must be very hardcore feminist who want to ruin the world.

Do they?

Women traditionally stand for equality, empathy, family values and you know what? A vast majority of them do, I would even go as far as to say that 99,999% of them care about these subjects.

The problem begins when they can’t focus on family and community, because the men is not there. And I’m not blaming here. Everyone has their own struggles.

When men went to war, what women had to do? Leave their families and go to work.

When men are prisoning their relatives, what do women do? Start NGOs to save them.

When men are destroying environment, what do women do? Start NGOs.

All this work, it’s not a choice. I wish we lived in a world where men would work, women would stay at home, take care of children and build family and community bonds, but let’s face the truth — how many families can now afford that?

Also, how many marriages survive? With the instability of everything around us, women can’t rely on a men to provide, because they had learned by examples and know they can stay alone and broke anytime.

Women were forced to go out there and find their ways in a “men’s world”. It wasn’t their choice.

When we think were are we as a society now, the picture is far from perfect. Wars, hunger, environment catastrophe at our doorstep, economic collapse around the corner, so many people addicted to drugs and alcohol. Does that look like a place that needs no change?

What is missing are values traditionally connected with women: empathy, understanding, building communities. We didn’t value them, because they didn’t bring economic profit and now the world is suffering.

I do believe that solutions would be to bring women to manage the world. Bring “womanly” values to mainstream. Build stability, equality and empathy worldwide. LGBTs, refugees, disabled they would all be appreciated and given place within community. Beautiful world full of respect and cooperation. But how could one do that?

Well, definitely not by asking. If has never worked, it doesn’t work now. Even with threats behind our backs power is too tempting to give up.

So women founded NGOs, they tried to climb the political ladders, they fought for parities, they built their companies to compete with men and maybe win.

Is it women like to compete? I don’t think so, but what other choice do we have if we don’t agree with where the world is going? Peaceful protests don’t work either.

I do believe men in the past tried their best to provide for their families and their countries. Were they blinded by greed and power? Probably, but I think everyone is prone to that, so I’m not about throwing stones at anyone.

We have to face the truth — previous ways of doing things brought us to a verge of a catastrophe. Well, they brought many catastrophes already (i.e. wars), but this one might be the last.

I want us to be able to live and enjoy life on this planet together. That’s why I’m a feminist. I’m a feminist because I am certain that things need to change and the way to change them is by opening ourselves to other human beings and cooperating. The “women” way.

And we don’t want do it alone, but we’re ready to if you leave us no choice.