I’ve made a few posts around Reddit about this subject but I just want to discuss it with like-minded people. When we talk about women‘s rights I see us expressing that we don’t want our rights “taken away” or the idea that they were “given” to us by men and it’s always niggled at me because that means our rights aren‘t inherent to us. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used the same language myself. When we frame it like this I think we’re doing ourselves a disservice. I notice that misogynistic men seem to be really hung-up on the idea that they gave us our rights because that gives them power over us. So here’s where I‘m at:
I believe our rights are inherent and can’t be given or taken away, only suppressed. We need to stop thinking of them as something that men gave us because they did not. Nor are they something we took from them. They are something we forced them to recognize just as they recognize their own.
They never question where their own rights come from or if they do they assume they are god-given or inherent to themselves as humans. Perhaps they believe they are granted by government, but even by that view, their rights are no more superior than my own. Many of them will just argue that might makes right and that their ability to suppress makes them the granter of rights but it only makes them an oppressor. It doesn’t take anything from me but suppresses what is already there. Whatever perspective they take, I view my rights as valid or inherent as theirs.
There’s this expectation that women should be grateful towards our oppressors for deigning to give us rights when we were the ones that fought so hard to end our oppression. They do not get credit for our victories. I’ve had men get angry at me for pointing this stuff out and question what I will do when they take my rights away as if they’re not already trying to do that. My answer is always to fight and protest like I do now.
I’d like to see us start talking and thinking about our rights as something that is part of us and not something that can be given or taken from us, only suppressed. We give men too much power and credit we view them any other way.