Feminism Has Abandoned Women
I don't leave feminism. You do.
Saturday, 7 October 2023. I heard about the rocket strike over lunch, but no one could expect what happened next: Murder, rape, and abduction of scores of Israelis. Hamas, classified as a terrorist group by most Western governments, understands that infantry attack is more effective and deadlier than bombs. Pakistani terrorists started the trend in Mumbai in 2008, where they could hold on for three nights and inflicted more deaths than any explosive could. Al Qaeda and Islamic State ravaged Paris twice in 2015, and lucky for Indonesians, an IS attack in Jakarta in 2016 was quickly defeated.
The first impressions on X seemed logical. Hamas would be universally condemned. This was unjustifiable. This was bad for Palestine's cause. Centre-left and centre-right Western parties would unite to condemn Hamas. All the right observations had it happened in 2013 or maybe even 2018, but not in 2023.
I understand when the left-wing youth argue that this is what revolution is like. I understand when Western leaders needed several hours to compose their statements. But I had a bad feeling when my old feminist friends were silent on Saturday.
On Sunday, 8 October 2023, all bets were off. After the news had broken out, after the videos showing bloodied and terrified Israeli women and children abducted, and after Western leaders condemned Hamas, pro-Palestine rallies were held in Western cities. In Sydney, London, and New York City – organised by the Democratic Socialists of America, an ally of the American ruling party (this decision is criticised by the Democrats). There was no such rally in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur.
Then it happened. My old feminist comrades returned to Twitter with their takes. No condemnation against Hamas. No sympathy for Israeli women. Not even a call for peace. Instead, justification for violence against women, in the name of decolonisation. It had come to this.
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Feminism saved my life ten years ago and gave me a new purpose as a writer. I came to find my community, found new friends and contacts, and learned to love myself. I had to learn so many daunting and complex lessons. The concepts and theories. The dos and don’ts of interacting with women and the dos and don’ts of writing about feminism. The precariousness of being a straight guy (or a heterosexual male, now a cishet male) in this circle.
Meanwhile, online feminism had changed from the adorkable, girlboss optimism of the mid-2010s into the great disappointment of autumn 2016. After that, Women’s March (which was also held in Southeast Asia) and MeToo. Yes, I believed I was a part of the Resistance.
The show ended in 2019, and indeed things got strange in 2019. In Indonesia, a feminist was expected to dislike President Joko Widodo and his voters, even though this was never the case – most feminists still voted for him in April. In the West, turned out the radicalisation of media began in the summer of 2019. Perhaps since it was clear that Trump couldn’t be impeached, the old blue checkmarks blamed each other for the failure. Or more left-wing writers in their 30s had gained executive positions by that time. To put it in a crude term, Marvel feminism had reached the endgame.
In the 2010s I wondered if there were conservative feminists, and found some in 2021, from websites like UnHerd and Quillette. Most of them don’t call themselves feminists, but they write about women and women’s issues, and they are well-versed in women’s studies and gender studies. That’s feminist writing in my book.
On the other hand, I saw more feminist websites, whether in the West or Asia, were turning away from women and publishing more pieces on men and women who identified themselves as queer. By 2022, trans became the new trend, especially straight men who dressed as women and called themselves “lesbians”.
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I returned to cyberspace in January 2023 where the landscape had become so different to 2018. I’m not sure if politically active women still call themselves feminists. What’s clear is everyone had become crueller, intolerant, and petty. In the name of…nothing. No more self-care, no more kindness, no more joy. Just spites all around.
At least they need something to sell. Review and critique. Anti-disinformation. Solidarity with Black struggle. LGBTQIA+ cause, including against TERF (the most famous terf remains J.K. Rowling, followed by Martina Navratilova). Indigenous sovereignty and decolonisation. And yes, that one. Palestine not as a future neighbour of Israel but as the successor to the State of Israel.
I keep believing in the old things. Women’s rights and safety. LGBT rights and safety. The Economist liberalism, perhaps. But now they are…outdated. Now white men get the free pass while white women are condemned as transphobic and racist thieves. Asian, Latina, and Black women are ignored if they are assaulted and even killed by Black men. Words are violence, but actual violence is decolonisation. Or darker, actual violence is performative joy.
This didn’t happen out of nothing. On New Year’s Eve 2016, male refugees sexually assaulted German women in Cologne, and German media hesitated to report the incident. When it came out, I read feminists tweeted, “Such things also happen during the Oktoberfest, but we don’t talk about Oktoberfest”. They never talked about Oktoberfest either, whether in October 2015 or October 2016.
Then the blind eyes against violence against women, as long the perpetrator wasn’t a cishet white man. The normalisation of harassment of gender-critical feminists. Constant misogyny against White women. Dismissal against mothers and women who worry about safety in their neighbourhood. Just years after “Take Back the Night” and “End toxic masculinity”.
The great irony is this heterosexual man still believes in feminism after it’s lost its meaning. Long after feminism means laughing at women being abused and harassed. Long after feminism means condoning rape and terror. Long after feminism says, “Well it’s your fault.”
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What happens here? I’m not sure if after all, this is what competition among women is like. Despite “Stronger together” and “We contain multitudes”, women might not be different from men in taking out the competition and shunning outsiders. Maybe this is the consequence of digital life: You must be synchronous.
Maybe your life is at stake. If you listen to your own heart and speak your own mind, be prepared to get cancelled. Lose your commission, and your social network, and have your next employers blacklist you as a Zionist, or a TERF, or a Nazi.
I dreaded thinking of myself as a conservative. A conservative is a MAGA, an incel, a conspiracy theorist, a red flag. But it doesn’t matter if I’m a conservative or a liberal. I cannot rationalise violence against women. I cannot lie. My beliefs come from the heart, not the mouth.
To everyone who justifies what happened on 7 October 2023, I can no longer accept you as a friend, and I expect the same from you. You cannot talk about violence against women while justifying actual violence in the names of struggle and revolutions. Still, it’s amazing everyone could ditch feminism when it didn’t suit their careers anymore.
Now we have known each other’s hearts and may your careers last. Even when it takes hundreds of crying women and girls to keep it.