You shouldn't apologise for being passionate - and I will always debate people as long as they don't attack me personally. You're passionate and you're angry and we disagree - so there's no need to apologise.
I think there's two things I want to highlight based on what you said - because I want to unpick it a little and try and explain past the frustration and get to a place where we can agree.
So let's talk about RBG first, she was able to get women to have their own bank accounts, to stop women being dismissed for being pregnant, to secure rights for men and women to have carers allowances and gave women an opportunity to attend certain male only establishments. These are things that were rolled out and then not rolled back - because the arguments she made were made in law at the supreme court. The system was and still is, stacked against women... but that system can be changed and is being changed - by both women and men. Feminists with all genitals pushing for things to change.
The #MeToo movement was a populist movement; it wasn't a legal movement. It was a breakthrough in the narrative and was catharctic - but it didn't have a purpose, strategy or direction. You're probably already firing up to kick back at that - but hold fire.... because no matter how it felt, the important thing is what it did (or more importantly failed to do).
Where it succeeded was in toppling hugely famous and dangerous men like Harvey Weinstein. I am 150% behind that. Most feminists would be. A legal case was brought and he was thrown in jail. Same with Epstein. It was great.
When it moved into the Aziz Ansari phase, or into the Johnny Depp is a wife-beater phase... that's when people like me started saying... "this needs to be sorted in the courts". That's when we tried to drag things back into the legal arena. When the hashtag #BelieveAllWomen arrived, people like me warned against it - and we were duly labelled misogynistic. Why? Because it didn't fit the established narratives and the echo chamber. No amount of pointing to such a binary view of truth as overly simplistic or human psychology as complicated made any difference.
The backlash began at those points, because of those missteps. The backlash wasn't about ignoring women's pain, certainly not on my part at least - it was, and is, about finding a way to ensure that the issues can be raised in a way that it'll stick. In a way that's more like RBG.
And that's why I struggle with Valenti et al. Not because I'm dismissing the pain of women as as a group - but because these authors consistently voice a way forward that will not work. Or, more often than not, no way forward at all. They're backed vehemently by people who are passionate and frustrated, but that's not a strategy. It's noise. Angry frustrated noise. Feels good, gets a lot of claps, makes the world worse.
I firmly believe that the answers will always be found in changing the system from within and I'm hopeful that it can be. Consider how much the world changed since RBG was 25. Not how little the world has changed in the last 5 years. This newest wave of Feminism needs to look at the mistakes its making in real time and how quickly its vehemence and outrage is undermining the importance of the message.
This has been an interesting debate. And rest assured, you are being listened to. The system does very much work against you - but it's the only system that we have. Until we can replace it, or we can amend it, it binds us all to a social contract. RBG made the world a better place for you and there will be others like her - why? She secured their right to exist and thrive. It gives me hope for the future, for all of us.
