Feminism, Forgiveness, and my ongoing battle with anxiety, inadequacy, and inconsequentialness.

You know I’ll be the first to say that feminism comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s not that stereotypical militant, let’s kill all the men, no more stay at home wives and mothers, no more men taking care of women bullshit.
Someone once said to me: “The feminists made it not okay for a woman to want to be taken care of by a man… I like when my husband takes out the garbage, and the feminists took that away”
When did they do that? Dude, I hope someone takes out the garbage for me every day for the rest of my life. The feminists made it okay to want something different. In my mind, and I hope in the minds of others, feminism promotes the thought that being any kind of woman you want and having any kind of relationship you want with another man or woman is your right. Stay home and cook and clean and raise a beautiful family. If it’s what you want, do it. Do it alone, do it with another woman. Don’t get married, become an astronaut, spend the rest of your life finding life on Jupiter. Marry a man whose dream is to stay home and raise a family. Marry a man who works, get the amazing job of your dreams, and maybe you’ll have kids and maybe you won’t. It’s up to you. If you want to be in a relationship where the man is sexually dominant, do it. Sometimes the woman will be sexually dominant. Either way, for either party, it’s never demeaning if it’s what you want. Feminism is just an equal playing field, and there’s no right or wrong way of “doing it”.
Why am I discussing this?
I feel that I’ve always had a very idealized theory of “what is right”.
Recently I saw the pseudo bane of my existence Tomi Lahren blast the women at the women’s march, stating that they were horrible examples for their children. She showed children holding signs depicting Trump in the toilet, signs cursing potus, and suggested the women get mirrors to point into. In this very specific aspect of what she said, I’m on her side. Now, I don’t like Trump. But it is not okay to teach our children to put people down, especially in an important public forum such as that, where all eyes are on us, where the main focus should be positive. I’d be more moved to see a child with a poster asking Trump to pass DACA than with a picture of Trump with x’s for eyes. I want to see children at that march with signs raising women up. With signs asking the president for help. With signs depicting positive messages and spreading love, not hate. Otherwise, we’re the same as what we’re fighting against. Another time I was surprised by Tomi was when she discussed leaving access to birth control alone, because she doesn’t want the government to tell her what to do with her birth control or her fetus, just like she doesn’t want them to tell her what to do with her guns. It’s not all black and white. It’s just not.
Ok, again, wtf am I even talking about?
This lengthy and babbling intro is just a launching point for my latest moral quandary: Me, too… and I forgive you?
There are two men who have taken advantage of me in a sexual way, and I forgive them. Disclaimer: I was not physically hurt in either situation.
They were both close to me, not strangers, which is usually the case. One was genuinely an issue of mistaken consent, very Aziz, if you will. The other is someone who I know was weak and would genuinely never try to hurt me. In both cases, “genuine”. In both cases, oh, I know them, they’d never hurt me. Oh, he’s a really good person. I know he didn’t mean it. I know it was a mistake.
But wait – are you reading this and thinking : “wtf you Tomi supporting, S&M loving (I hate it, tbh), wanna be feminist hero freak!”? Oh, me, too.
Anne Frank said it first, “Despite everything, I believe people are really good at heart.”
It’s not like these guys were Nazis! These are good people. They slipped up. One I truly believe was an accident. The other made a mistake in a weak and dark time in his life. I’ve done that! Haven’t we all? Isn’t that truly possible? I’ve made genuine mistakes. Not mistakes that should be written off as general flaws of my gender and species. Mistakes and even choices that have hurt me so horribly once I made them, because I knew I hurt another person I cared about.
I want to be clear that there is a separate person who was close to me that took advantage, and I will never forgive him, or trust him ever again. So I swear that I can be discerning!
I forgive these two people. And I’m worried that it’s the “wrong” thing to do, regardless of their merit. Hi, I’m Hanna, and I’m a huge hypocrite. What a goddamn dumb thing to say. But what about all the strides we’ve made in becoming voices for consent and voices that won’t take crap and voices that share in each other’s suffering and say “you’re not alone”? We don’t forgive, we keep fighting.
That’s bullshit, too, right? Militant, women don’t stay home, cut off the dicks bullshit?
We forgive and we keep loving and we keep fighting. And we don’t question if we’re right or wrong because we’ll never be objectively sure. The only thing that is objectively right in this world is love. It is the only thing that will keep this world good (I’m having such a Wonder Woman moment. You can call me Gal, if you’d like.)
Life, politics, feminism, people, love… these things are not black and white. Well, love is love is love, but that’s for another time. I just don’t want to ever be made to feel bad for forgiving someone, same as I don’t want anyone to feel bad for wanting to be a stay at home mother, or for anyone to feel bad for liking to be spanked during sex, or for being made to feel bad for those things. I don’t even want to feel bad for liking something Tomi said.
I’m being the hardest on myself though. Because all those things are okay for other people. But come on – say it with me – Feminist Hero.
My therapist says that if other people give us permission to feel okay about something, they can easily take it away at any time, along with our self confidence. If we give ourselves permission, if we give ourselves self confidence, we can never lose it.
We will now practice what my therapist said: it’s okay to like yourself, it’s okay to be happy with yourself, it’s okay to be strong in your convictions, it’s okay to not care about what anyone else thinks, it’s okay to be different, it’s okay to think differently.
And you know what? Even if these things weren’t “okay”? That would still be okay.