Women come to feminism through many different paths. Some people come to feminist thought before they ever know there’s such a word, others come to it in forums like online discussions or even in school. However you come to it, there usually are similarities. You saw discrimination and injustice of one form or another with women on the receiving end of the exploitation and went like… what? Why? Hello, feminism. Recently, different women on Twitter in response to a prompt shared the information they found while on their feminist journey that triggered them the most.

My story

My Mom has always been active in the community and people come to her when they’re in trouble so my childhood was and adulthood is steeped in people’s traumatic stories. In one of my earliest memories, there’s a knock on the door at the ass crack of dawn on a Saturday morning. It was a tiny house so we all get up. In walks a woman, her face so swollen you can barely distinguish her features, and so bloodied she’s basically red and black. I can see it now. She’s carrying one baby and holding the hand of the other who’s about three. My sister tells me she remembers rain. Later that day, a man comes to our house and takes off his black worn-out shoes at the door. So worn out they’re basically grey. His face is relaxed and calm, almost friendly. In his hands is a plastic paper bag. After the adults talk, he reveals the gift is a pair of shoes for the woman, his wife who last night he beat up to within an inch of her life. She accepts the gift. They all go home together. My sisters and I tell my mom we’ll never listen to her when it comes to marriage.

This was one of my earliest realizations that men hate women, and I am a woman and they hate me. They hate me. Over the years there were many other women; rich women, poor women, educated women, beautiful women, not so beautiful women. All of them living evidence that men hate women, and I am a woman and they hate me. I was no different from those women.

Recently, my mom told me another one of her real-life horror stories. This one reminds me that #YesAllMen even your father, even your husband. A man killed his wife and my mom had to break the news to their high school child, a girl. The girl was then taken to her maternal grandmother to stay there during the funeral preparations. Except it appears there are no funeral preparations to speak of. In Luo culture, once a woman is married, her husband has all the rights to bury her. The murdered woman’s mother wants to bury her, but her husband, the murdered woman’s father has said no. He is not burying a married woman. Because it’s his family and his land and he’s the head of said family, his wife, the mother of the murdered woman has zero options left. This man who murdered her is going to bury her. And everyone, everyone in the family and the greater village community with the exception of the mother who lost her daughter seems okay with that. This is what it means to be a woman.

Twitter Stories

Patriarchy and misogyny

Patriarchy is a system in which men hold power and women are excluded from it. Misogyny is the hatred of women. So much in our society is rooted in excluding women, demeaning them and evidence of the hatred society has for women. These views of women as somewhat less than affect every single relationship women have from their relationships with each other to their parents and partners. Women internalize it and everything is tainted with it. Men matter and women don’t. Medical research prioritizes men and men’s issues. The way doctors readily dismiss women’s concerns.

There’s such a power imbalance in the relationships between men and women evidenced by things like men controlling the money and women being forced to bear much of the domestic labour a child-rearing all while being required to be subservient to men. Women are the ones who quit their jobs to focus on child-rearing, they are the ones who care for the sick and elderly and when they get ill, they are often left by their husbands.

Women, being aware of these disparities have been struggling for inclusion and their rights, yet the gains remain so precarious, men in power can easily withdraw them as evidenced by things like the repeal of Roe v Wade in the US, and the loss of freedom for Iranian and Afghan women because of a change in the people in power.

Violence

For many people, the violence visited on women and children at the hands of men with near-non-existent repercussions was their most triggering realization. The fear of sexual assault is one that most women live with. Younger women are often tricked into believing there’s a way to protect yourself, for example by dressing appropriately and not going to places like bars etc. Eventually, they realize there’s no protecting yourself from it and if it ever happens, the world will blame you not your attacker. Marital rape is all but legal. Gender-based violence is one of the leading causes of death for women and has been classified as a pandemic. These are the realities women are forced to live with.

Every feminist has a story about something that was especially triggering on their feminist journey. Here are just a few select stories.