Randolph For the last month or so, my Twitter feed has been inundated with vicious hatred, towards feminists in particular. Whether it’s related to this hashtag is immaterial: bullying is wrong. Rape- and death-threats are wrong. Doxxing is wrong.
As a feminist myself, I didn’t think I’d have to speak publicly on the matter, but here goes:
Equality is a basic human right. Equal rights, equal pay, equal everything. Equality. It’s that whole “do unto others” bit we remember from Sunday School.
In fact, this whole controversy (in 2014, for goodness sake!) has made me think hard about my own hypocrisy. I needed a course correction, and this situation has helped.
There are some misogynist jokes that I’ve removed from my site, as well as tasteless, thoughtless blog posts. It doesn’t matter that I taught underprivileged children, or was on the Johannesburg Pride committee, or that my family fought against Apartheid, if I can’t support equality on my own website.
Sometimes a joke is a joke, but even in my no-holds-barred Humour section, I felt discomfort reviewing some of the content. That is now gone.
And, of course, I’m going to continue being a feminist by default.
EDIT: 25 October 2014
This person gets it.
