Read, reblog, and resonate!
I saw a post asking about whether there was a woman or women in your life that changed your view about misogyny in society, or made you realise that women needed feminism, and I immediately thought of my abusive mother, the woman that gave me the CPTSD that I still struggle with.
She was the one that gaslighted me to avoid apologising for something that she had done wrong, but cried and apologised to my brother.
Where I was abused, my brother was excused, and when he stood by me and supported me, that was still my fault, and I was punished for it.
She was the one that eagerly bragged about being supportive of gay men, but was quick to share how disgusted she was by bisexuals, particularly bisexual women, and lesbians.
She was the one who screamed and beat me if I ever tried to stand up for myself, but when my brother stood up to her, she beat me again for not telling him to stop - and then absolved him of his words by deciding that he had been possessed by the ghost of her own abusive mother.
I was the one broken down and trapped into being a carer and homekeeper to take care of the family, and gaslit into believing that I was lucky to be able to be able to do that in the first place.
Feminism doesn't absolve women of their crimes. I'm glad that she's dead and gone and won't forgive her memory. But that wasn't random abuse. I was treated much worse than how she treated my brother and her husband because I was a girl and then a woman. She quite literally deluded herself to create excuses for my brother to forgive him and attack me. Even though she abused them, too, it was still nothing compared to what happened to me. The abuse had misogyny baked all the way through it.
I can't blame her for hating women, considering the patriarchy around us and other personal circumstances where she learned that hatred, and understanding just how strong and ingrained misogyny is, but I will blame her for her choice to abuse, because it was a choice. I think that sometimes, there's a belief that feminism means needing to protect or defend every single woman, even the most disgusting and evil women, and that isn't true at all. Evil women deserve liberation. No woman, whatever she does, deserves rape or abuse or oppression. What they deserve is to face true justice instead.
So yes, a woman made me rethink misogyny around me and the need for feminism, just not in the way that others would expect.