Got into a rather lengthy debate tonight with a feminist and an equalist. Let me tell you that is some crazy yelling matches. It wasn't until I gave the Feminist a reason to believe I understood her that she was able to listen to my opinion, and with the equalist the clarity of of my position for her to trust my words. They both began by yelling at me with a curse word laced vitreal often attributed to extremism that I had no right to believe anything because I was a privileged white male. That I had no idea what it was like to be a woman. To which I naturally agreed. How could I know anything about what a woman goes through on a day to day basis. I can no more empathize with this than I can the feelings of a dog whose owner has left. We are different at our core. However, I can sympathize with their plight. While they screamed at me, I listened to their words, cut through the clutter and found at the heart of what they wanted to tell me was just a desire to be understood and not have a man's opinion shape their view. It wasn't until I waited for the Feminist to stop long enough to hear my words that she wound that I have been and probably will always be a feminist. That I have many feminine aspects about myself even down to having dressed in girls clothes. Slightly transvestite if you will. After she learned that I had literally attempted to put myself in the position of a woman to understand them better did she respect my views. Nothing wrong there passion is often held up to a point of defense. So often we jump to defense on the assumption that we are being attacked by a different point of view. It takes time to listen, it takes even more time to hear. The equalist whom was also highly educated felt the feminist was off her rocker and so was at odds with both of us. Until she understood that I was also and equalist. No one label for me. Truthfully I probably wouldn't fall fully under either. I am at my core a humanist. I believe in people. I believe we have the ability to accomplish whatever we set our minds to do so long as we never stop pushing ourselves forward. In this day an age of true entrepreneurship where what ever we dream we can become. Especially in America the only excuse you have of not moving forward is your own decision to quite. Worse still to believe progress is moving backwards slowly.
