Despite feminism becoming more popular among women, it also means more people want to be negative towards the movement and have their opinion on feminism. Writer Jess Bourne spoke to Sarah, a feminist, TikToker and author, about the patriarchal society
You start posting TikTok videos to spread information and awareness on feminist issues. You think you’re going to be able to educate people on what needs to change, but you never expected to receive death threats.
You get sent a video of a woman, helpless and alone, while blood is shot at the screen.
And the only reason why you’re seeing this video is because you’re a feminist – a loud and proud one.
This is Sarah’s reality.
“Instead of threatening, they say women deserve stuff like this to happen to them, which just proves the exact point of why we need feminism,” Sarah says.
Even when she makes a video about rape, her comment section is filled with men saying: ‘You don’t have to worry about being raped because you’re ugly.’
Despite feminist activists having to deal with misogyny and discrimination, theirs is very rarely a deliberately chosen pathway.
“I never made a conscious decision to do it,” she explains. “I just learnt lots about what was happening around the world, specifically to women and just naturally fell into calling myself a feminist.”
However, with TikTok being such a large platform, everyone can have an opinion without consequences.
“There’s definitely an element of danger that comes with being a feminist on TikTok,” she adds.
It’s been seen time and time again where social justice issues go in cycles. There’s a wave where everyone agrees with each other and then shortly after, the hype surrounding it dies down.
“We’re seeing it with all forms of social activism with people saying LGBTQ+ people have too many rights and people of colour have too many rights. They don’t, of course. That’s just mad to even suggest that,” Sarah explains.
Despite social media allowing ideas to be spread far and wide, it has also meant that false news spreads quickly and it can be hard to get it under control.
“Before we had social media, men would just be in their town ranting, but now they have access to huge audiences, and they can sway movements quickly – and in a bad way.
“Sometimes men treat us like we’re children, like we don’t understand, or we don’t have basic concepts. I don’t think that it’s something that we should be accepting but unfortunately, I think it’s so common it happens to us every day constantly,” Sarah says.
Feminism isn’t just a one-person fight, it involves several women coming together to fight for what is right, and in order to know what to fight for. Sarah understands that education is vital to the movement.
“Everything I’ve learned has been from someone else. None of it is original thought. We learn off each other, we grow through each other, and we choose which direction we want to grow in,” Sarah says, as she thinks about what she fights for. “And I hope that I can pass on my knowledge to other people so they feel like they can fight the patriarchy.”
