I feel like there’s a lot of pressure among activists to be the perfect activist – the perfect feminist, the perfect vegan, the perfect campaigner etc., who never puts a step wrong, only furthering their causes constantly. In reality, as much as everyone would love to be perfect at what they do, this isn’t always realistic and can be damaging to expect that of people.
I have seen many people being ripped apart on social media (Twitter, I’m looking at you) for tiny mistakes that could easily have been a slip of the tongue, a spontaneous thought, or something that may not even have come across their mind. And to me, that doesn’t seem so healthy. What’s the point in yelling (figuratively) at someone when they’ve done something wrong – the offending person will just get defensive, and then they won’t learn and no one will be better off, only perhaps worse as that person may now be put off from listening to the reasoning of anyone who calls them out. This is why we need to have a more relaxed, less shouty approach to calling people out. Through a calm debate and discussion, we can get people to understand why their comments or action were so insensitive to others, which they can then let other people know and apologise properly, rather than being forced into an apology they don’t understand. Surely that’s more beneficial to an overall cause.
My god, I would love to meet the perfect feminist. How incredible would that be? But as flawed humans, everyone will naturally be a flawed feminist. That, I think, is why the Guilty Feminist podcast is so popular. It recognises that, while we strive forwards in the name of feminism, we can’t always do everything in the way we would like to. And that’s okay – as long as we accept it when we get called out, learn from it and move on so that one day we could
It’s okay not to be perfect, as long as you’re doing the best you can.
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