Equalists are shit

After reading this I decided to write an article about being an idiot in the past (this is not a blog revival so blog zombie hunters lower your weapons).

I was an equalist, I was also an idiot.

I was on a date with a woman a few years ago and the discussion changed to feminism. The woman was a feminist and strongly resented being discriminated against at work, as she answered phones in a hospital she was often talked down to to the point it harmed her work. I listened attentively, nodding in appropriate places, broadly agreeing, before replying with 'well I'm an equalist'.

Being an equalist should not be a bad thing, wanting people to be equal regardless of their gender should be normal. But being an equalist, like proudly proclaiming you're the smartest idiot, is a bad thing, because it dismisses actual discrimination in favour of a theoretical one and, more than this, doesn't actually help anyone.

I read this piece by Emer O'Toole which simplifies the issue perfectly in my opinion. Do you believe everyone should be equal? Yes. Do you believe women are discriminated against more in society? Yes. Then you are a feminist. In my view that's as simple as it should be.

I said I was an equalist to this woman because I was being defensive or attempting to look like I was above the issues raised. Individual cases of sexism didn't interest me because a broad, in my view perfect, future was entirely equal. Women who willingly wanted to segregate at events was as bizarre as men who refused to let women join in.

But this isn't the case. Women willingly want to segregate at these events because they are victimised and discriminated against at these events, it's not a secret cabal to overturn anyone it's a desperate measure to maintain some degree of basic comfort in an otherwise hostile environment. That's not something that should be fought in any way shape or form, especially by people who claim to support equality. You can argue these events are specific to a certain audience, but this discrimination pervades through society.

Equality will come when people are genuinely open to the idea. Women are discriminated against more than men, and until that's an accepted fact and accepted for what it is rather than taken as an attack, no progress will be made.