The Boys Are Back From Jupiter

Whenever I talk about feminism I usually get enthusiastic faces from the women and eye rolls from the boys. Yet, I find myself being friends with a lot of guys. I feel like I fit in better with them. I feel I can be relaxed, down to earth, and use my dry humor and sarcasm around them. I actually quite enjoy being “one of the boys” and soon it became a personality trait of mine. I told myself it was because I could use my personality to educate men about feminism in a way where it didn’t seem as though some crazy chick is trying to advocate burning all men. However, I noticed that when I did try to bring up feminist ideas or correct some of the misconceptions they had, I would get responses such as “quit being a feminazi Aarya” or “relax relax I’m just kidding.” And soon I just stopped saying anything. I’m pretty disappointed in myself actually. There were many times when my guy friends would make crude comments about their female classmates’ bodies or speak ill of their female teachers. It bothered me but I kept quiet because I liked being “one of the boys.” Instead of trying to explain and teach the men around me, I would just say “god I hate men” and move on. Assuming all men are hopeless, I gave up faith in men all over again. Until I met someone who reminded me of everything I stood for.

I recently committed to college, and joined a large group chat of newly admitted students. When I introduced myself I decided to take a risk and tell them about my website and podcast. Immediately many girls responded saying how cool it was and how much they loved it. This triggered a long conversation about feminism in the group chat of 500 kids. Some of the girls talked about how they talked about slut shaming in their college essay and I told them about how my top ten list (this college made you come up with a top ten list of anything as one of their questions) was 10 of the most sexist things men have said to me. I was surprised to see that a guy had responded to that message. He asked me what number 1 was. I told him it was “are you on your period or something.” He agreed that he’d heard that a lot however it was what he said next that made me drop my phone. He said “I don’t understand what slut shaming is to be honest and I would like to learn about it” My mind did a double take. Did he just say that he doesn’t know about something and is WILLING to learn? He soon became pretty popular with the girls and explained that he’s from Alabama so his life has been an echo chamber of the same views. I was shocked but more importantly I was mad at myself because I became what men think feminists are. An angry woman who just threw around phrases like “men suck” or “men are trash” without attempting to understand why they think that way or what I can do to change it.

Ladies, I know we sent all the boys to Jupiter to get more stupider, but they’re back. And they’re actually willing to learn. We can’t blame men for their ignorance because they were never taught any of it. We learned because we’re living it. Men don’t know when they’re being offensive or ignorant. We need to be patient with them and teach them. Trust me it’s fun to hate men it really is. “Ugh men.” “I just can’t with men anymore.” “I hate men.” It’s fun to laugh at their stupidity and criticize them. But right now we’re stuck in a loop of feminism and empowerment. Women are empowering each other and we’re taking notice of the issues in society which is great. But we need to work to make sure those words don’t even need to exist, and the best way to start is to teach.

Now the funny part of this story is this boy was actually criticized later by another girl in the group chat for being a conservative feminist. Check out my next post to read about our conversation on conservative feminism.