Yes, I read the #YesAllWomen Twitter thread. And, yes, many of the same things those women are tweeting about happened to me too. What didn’t happen to me was… I didn’t get stuck in it. Lessons learned, I moved on. I refuse to let fear govern me or my circumstances. And I refuse to live in bitterness and resentment. Forgiveness is key to moving forward, even when you’ve been wronged.
Lest you’ve been living under a rock or are simply Twitter challenged, the #YesAllWomen thread was a Twitter conversation launched (as a reaction to the Isla Vista massacre and anti-woman manifesto by Elliott Rodger) by a woman who felt vulnerable to violence. It caught on and is now being touted by women as one of the most important trends this year (possibly of all time.)
Heather Wilhelm over at The Federalist summed it up nicely, here are a few excerpts:
Let’s make no mistake—sexual assault is a serious problem. The sad reality is that women have to take more safety precautions than men. But #YesAllWomen, when it comes down to it, isn’t even remotely about sexual assault. It’s not about feminism or empowerment, or practical solutions to crime (like, say, concealed carry laws), and it certainly has nothing to do with a deranged college student killing six people. It’s about taking a tragedy and turning it into “I Want To Talk About Me.” In fact, #YesAllWomen might end up being the most narcissistic event of 2014, which is saying something, given that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West just got married.
Why, in our age of unprecedented plenty—and, at least in America, unprecedented power for women—is victimhood so appealing to so many? When complete strangers were murdered on the West Coast, why do hundreds of thousands of people, healthy in body if not in mind, enthusiastically latch on, insisting that they were victims too?
Feminists think they’re empowering women with the #YesAllWomen campaign, but from this vantage point, it looks like they’re just pointing out why they should feel victimized without offering any solutions. Does that really help anyone?
You can read Heather’s entire article here and feel free to leave me a comment below.
Photo credit Paula Bailey
