Dear Feminists: Be Meaner

When Patriarchy Wants Us to Be Nice, It's Time to Be Mean.

Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto

(Note: a draft link of this essay went out on Twitter a couple of days ago. If you’ve already read it, thank you!)

One of my most hated aspects of female socialisation is “be kind”: this idea that women above all must be nice to everyone around them. Polite. Docile. Empathic above all. Is a man making you feel uncomfortable on the train? Just be nice! You wouldn’t want to offend him, make a scene. Want to say something opinionated? Just be nice! Why should you speak your mind when you could say nothing at all? Want to tell a man he hurt you? Just be nice! What if you hurt his feelings? Think of it from his perspective! Want to… You get the picture. 

The point is, kindness has been weaponised by patriarchy, used to manipulate women into putting themselves second. It is a way in which patriarchy has us gaslight ourselves. 

Women are told to be nice because it makes us docile. We are told to be nice because it makes us more malleable, more easily folded and tucked away. Kindness makes us easier to manipulate. And that’s what patriarchy wants. It wants us meek, passive, submissive, easy to handle, and easy to abuse. 

So. To all of that, I say: fuck that. Absolutely, 100%, fuck that. 

To me, the most important fight in feminism right now, is teaching women and girls that it’s okay to be mean. 

Yes, women and girls need to be meaner. Be blunt, say what’s on your mind, don’t hesitate, put yourself first. Don’t be afraid of being seen as rude, opinionated, angry, mean. Be honest about your emotions, especially anger. 

And I think the fundamental thing that we as feminists need to be doing is this. We need to be modelling for women and girls how to be constructively meaner. What do I mean by that? I don’t mean living life like you’re Regina George from Mean Girls. I certainly don’t mean bullying other women, or shaming them. I mean being mean in service of feminism, in service of women, in service of your own personhood, in service of emotional honesty. 

I mean that we need to tackle female socialisation head-on. We need to be showing women and girls that it is okay to put yourself first, it is okay to be forthright, opinionated, strident, passionate, blunt, angry. All the things that women are told not to be. Let me give you an example. 

The other day, I saw a video of Germaine Greer’s iconic interview for the first time. In it, after Greer makes a controversial statement, the interviewer asks her, “do you understand why some people would find that offensive?” And Greer, incredulous, responds, “…I don’t care!” 

I don’t care. Three very simple words that set my heart racing a bit. Because we don’t say that enough. As women we are taught to care. About everything except ourselves. So it’s jarring to see a woman say that—and mean it. 

Let me give you another example. There are women on radical feminist Twitter who are some of the meanest, crudest, most foul-mouthed women I’ve ever encountered. They’re also the most honest. The first time I saw their tweets, I couldn’t believe any woman would speak like that. It was shocking. And I remember my defences going into overdrive. Are they allowed to say that? Is that counterproductive? Are they alienating people with their rhetoric? If they’re nicer, maybe people will listen! 

Then I realised that that was my internalised patriarchy going into self-defence mode. I was rationalising my way back to kindness. 

Guess what? Being nice has gotten us nowhere. If anything, it’s made things worse for feminists. In the name of being “nice,” we’ve ceded all our space in feminism to other causes, created an illusion of feminism that is really just a false flag operation for patriarchy. Feminism should include men and their toxic masculinity! Feminism should include all the genders! Feminism should put women last in the name of other injustices! Hello, that’s just patriarchy running interference on our progress. (More on that here.) 

But I digress. Back to these wonderful women on Twitter. Seeing them be so honest—be mean—was liberating in a way I never imagined. And it isn’t so much what they say—though that is brilliant too—as how they say it. They do not care about the optics of what they say. They just speak their minds. They expresses their rage without any equivocation, and in that way, they’re fighting female socialisation, they’re leading women, and modelling it for other women. And I don’t think they realise just how inspiring that is. I don’t think they realises just how much seeing them be honest to themselves makes every woman around them stronger. 

By witnessing them, I was able to access a part of me patriarchy had shut down. 

And it got me thinking. So much of my feminist journey has been shaking my female socialisation. And so much of that process has been witnessing women’s anger. Being unafraid to state plain truths, to be honest about my anger, and to put myself out there with confidence. 

Because being mean is a muscle. It is something you have to work on, and it actively fights your female socialisation in a way nothing else does. It feels liberating because it is. When you’re constructively mean, you liberate yourself from patriarchal expectations on women. When you’re constructively mean, you are being honest about your emotions, namely your anger, and expressing it without apology. I remember how fast my heart was beating when I first began flexing those muscles. The first time I told a man to mind his business, without equivocation. The first time I told one that his behaviour was unacceptable and I wanted nothing to do with him. The first time I told a fauxminist I wouldn’t apologise for offending her.  

(I’m aware that in many situations this isn’t possible to be honest, for one’s own safety. I don’t mean that women should make themselves unsafe, at all, and I certainly don’t mean that you should feel bad if you can’t flex those muscles. Always put your safety first.) 

But that had to be modelled for me. I had to see it in action to truly understand it. And when I was stuck in fauxminist world? It was never modelled for me. I never saw it. All I experienced was female socialisation taken to an extreme—women bending over backwards to include anyone in their feminism until it wasn’t feminism at all, but rather a Trojan horse for patriarchy. I experienced women going out of their way to be caring and gentle, create safe spaces for everyone else, putting themselves last. 

It was only once I encountered my first radical feminist space that I saw constructive meanness in action. And I have to be honest. It was jarring. I was scared of these big old feminist meanies. Didn’t they know how mean they were? Didn’t they know they were scaring off men and even other minorities? Didn’t they know? Yes, they knew. They didn’t care. 

So I stuck around. And as constructive meanness was modelled to me, I began to understand it. I began to realise that what I saw as mean was just women being honest in a way I wasn’t used to. Think about it. People think radical feminists are mean for not being nice all the time. I think that’s remarkably revealing of how women are expected to be the equivalent of a customer service rep to everyone, all the time. “Sorry to hear that sir, how can I make it better for you today?” The customer is always right! 

It’s only now that I realise that fear of radical feminists was my female socialisation. It was my internalised patriarchy in a furious battle for its own self-preservation.

My point is this. Right now, we need to be in the trenches of daily life, modelling constructive meanness for women and girls. We need to be flexing those muscles of meanness in a way that inspires other women. In our everyday lives, in our personal lives, on the internet, to our nieces and daughters, to our friends who may be struggling with their female socialisation. Everywhere. Showing women that it’s okay to be blunt, mean, strident. To put yourself first. To say, “I’m more important than anything else right now.” 

Because here’s the important thing. I don’t think any feminist strategy can truly be feminist while it’s catering to not “alienating” anyone. I think for an act to have a feminist end, it must be feminist itself. Which is to say, for an act to be feminist, it must centre women. And any strategy that centres men, male behaviour, or masculinity (in men), is by definition not feminist. Yes, by all means, men should indeed teach men to process their emotions in a nonviolent way. Men should teach men to not abuse women. But that isn’t feminism, and it isn’t our job to do it. That is the lowest possible bar of male activism to protect women. 

We cannot in any realistic way prevent billions of men to suddenly stop being patriarchal. But we can model for women and girls how to put themselves first, so that they can say “back off,” or “go away,” or “I don’t care.” And by getting girls to care less about being “kind,” by getting women to understand that there’s nothing wrong with being mean if it means putting women first, we create feminists, we create stronger women who can join a battle to actively tear down our oppression. 

So here’s my plea to you, the woman reading this. Flex that muscle today. Help another woman flex that muscle today. Model constructive meanness to the women in your life. Maybe one of them will feel the way I did, when I first encountered it.

Inspired.