9 Negative Adjectives Coined by Patriarchy, and Why They're Only Negative in Their Perspective
Involving yourself in controversial conversations, is never an easy sweet task –it isn’t always a radiant bold revolutionary aesthetic scene. In fact, most of the times it’s sickening to the core; expressing your opinions on topics such as equality, freedom and human rights often pour down into a still unpleasant lake of doubt and discomfort.
Opening up about feminism is a whole road full of thorns; you will usually be hit with mansplaining, and a ton of belittling labels stickered on your forehead.
Negative adjectives will follow you to grave as long as you dare not to keep your mouth shut. So, let’s play an interesting game! I’ve listed some of the ‘nicknames’ I could remember being called with –I really couldn’t recall all of them. I asked my friends about other "negative adjectives" they’ve faced too and some of them didn’t fail to surprise me, to be honest.
Grade yourself with this pretty checklist and see how far patriarchy has tried to pull you down!
#1 stubborn
I guess this is the most common one. “You’re such a stubborn whiny child, aren’t you? Why can’t you just soften yourself a bit and stop fighting against things which degrade you?”
The lecture doesn’t end here: “you’re too young to understand shit, I bet you don’t know anything and you’re just …
#2 going with the flow
The very civilized conversation will naturally lead to belittling you, your personality and beliefs. Some people observe feminism as a ‘trend’, and we (feminists) are blindly following this trend because we’re seeking attention (will be discussed later on) and because we’re just drooling over whatever popular opinion. Feminism is rising, and gaining popularity right now because we’re living in the age of rapidly-spread education, and it’s the normal flow of things since the dawn of humanity to evolve and grow throughout time.
#3 trying to grab attention… of men
Because, you know, girls breathe because they’re dying to seek attention from the universe’s center, aka men. “You’re trying to be different in order to stand out and someone will notice you,”
Highly contradicting with #2, yes, but it happened. Nothing makes sense when it comes out of patriarchal tongues.
#4 killjoy \ "nakadeya"
Thank you for being "nakadeya", there are so many of us and we should be proud, honestly. If you didn’t let a women-degrading joke or a sexual comment sugarcoated by ‘hey it’s a compliment’ go smoothly and didn’t laugh it off, then thank you again for making a big fuss. I’m proud of you. You don’t have to laugh an inappropriate comment off, it’s a big deal, and you are handling the situation perfectly well.
#5 self-centered
“Why don’t you fight for men’s rights too? You’re whiny selfish babies, all of you.”
#6 you’ve got no morals, and
#7 you want to tear society apart
The ‘morals’ mentioned here are the ones enforced by hereditary traditions (dear "3adaat and taqaleed", go to hell). So, yes, I don’t belong to this oppressive stack of traditions and this does not offend me. It’s a source of pride, actually.
Society is already torn apart because it is built upon rotten basis. I’m actually trying to fix all the damage running in society’s veins. The wrong ideologies have been living for so long that some people started to believe that these ideologies are correct –something called moral coloring. Moral coloring means that normalizing a wrong act goes through gradual stages, at the beginning it’s a flagrant red crime then it morphs into a green normal act through a seamless transition.
#8 do you want to stay single forever? nobody will like this.
If I didn’t find someone who will respect me, treat me as a human and has a healthy humane mindset –then yes, I want to stay single forever. Being single isn’t a threat, and I’m not going to alter my beliefs in order to have someone satisfied by me.
#9 you’re dramatic.
Gaslighting is one main component of this whole list, actually. Your ‘opponent’ will use the dirtiest weapon, aka making you doubt your sanity and the correctness of your thoughts and beliefs. Being called ‘dramatic’ or ‘overreacting’ is usually used to normalize harassment and to rip the victim from their rights. These adjectives are also used to minimize a real problem and ignore it.
All these heavy irritating labels are a sample of what we hear every time we open our mouths. If you’ve been ever called any of these things, I’m so sorry for you but please consider it some sort of a victory –your courageous words are negative actions in their smeared mirror.