I've had a mostly feminist ideology since I was a kid.
However, I started consciously calling myself a feminist about five years ago.
Being a feminist meant that I couldn't turn a blind eye anymore, and I had to practice what I preached. That resulted in the ending of friendships and companionships, and also blocking/deleting a lot of acquaintances on social media. Not to mention the online arguments. Oh, the online arguments! What a toll did those take at me!
During that journey, I felt and hoped I could find support and sisterhood in feminist pages.
I could not have been more wrong.
My first ordeal was with a very well-known USA feminist page. I got chewed up and spat like a chewing gum pretty quickly. You see, USA feminists more than often are not very knowledgeable on European politics and culture. At least not as knowledgeable as European feminists are on USA culture and politics. And with that came a lot of ignorant comments and responses towards me, and consequently, a lot of hate. And so I left.
Then, a few years back I discovered a few feminist pages from my home country. I cannot begin to describe to you the relief, the peace I found through these pages. I had to leave one of them as the responses were too aggressive to my liking. Aggression seemed to be a common denominator on the responses in most pages I've been (feminist or not), and it is something that makes me very uncomfortable. Nevertheless, my desperation to find a feminist nest urged me to ignore certain aggressive outbursts as long as they weren't directed at me (how hypocritical, I know), and as long as they were not a daily issue. But then, what should I do when the admins/page followers start having an attitude towards me as well? Or when the aggression and rudeness becomes an everyday thing, a pattern? There's not much to do I guess, apart from leaving.
And here I am, not part of any community again, a lone feminist, too feminist for society, and too 'soft' for feminist circles.
