I wrote a pretty divisive post yesterday explaining my feelers about the YesAllWomen Twitter onslaught.

A lot of you were supportive, even if you didn’t agree with me. I don’t necessarily want you to agree with me. I mean, it’s nice if you do, but I’m not trying to bring you over to the dark side. I’m not looking to convert or convince anyone. In fact, I welcome varied opinions and polite disagreement. If you resort to name calling or rants, well, I probably won’t approve your comment, but genuine, reasoned disagreement is more than welcome. I encourage it. I want you to speak your mind. I want to hear why you don’t agree, not just that you don’t.

My interest here with this blog is mainly selfish. I started this here fishbowl to give myself someplace to put the words I pry out of my head. I never expected anyone would ever read it. I still typically write as if I’m in a vacuum and no one will see it. I’m still not used to the fact that I have followers now. I suppose, in a way, that’s a good thing, because I’d hate to censor myself. I want a place where I can speak my mind, no matter what’s on it. I will continue to write things that some people don’t agree with, and that’s fine with me.

The reason I’m writing this is as sort of a disclaimer on yesterday’s post. As I said in one of the comments over there: “I was afraid that if I wrote a post like this that it might be taken as an anti-feminist slant. It’s not. I very much agree with having the conversation. I just wish we did it with less name calling.”

I am not anti-feminism (although I’m not fond of the word as it has too many connotations). I am not against women speaking their minds. I am not even necessarily against doing it on Twitter.

I am against generalizing both genders. I am against finger-pointing based solely on gender. I am not a fan of slacktivism, as if sharing that you agree/don’t agree with this or that, makes you an activist. Sharing is not caring. Caring is donating time or money to a cause you believe in.

That’s why I wrote that post. Well, that and, because I do have my very own vagina, I felt that I could speak to the unfairness of generalizing all men in a way that they couldn’t. I doubt that anyone would ever call a woman a misogynist. I’m not, by the way. I’m as grrl power as anyone, but I can, and do, only speak for me. I do not speak for anyone else. I don’t want to anyway. I sit inside my brain with my life experience, which is not the same as yours. I can only share my view and I’d appreciate the same courtesy in return.

I lost some Twitter followers yesterday and I gained a few more. I don’t know if it was an even trade. I’m not sure that dipping my foot in those tricky waters was even worth it. Just as the YesAllWomen campaign was essentially ineffectual, so was my post about it, but that’s alright, too. I would rather speak my mind and get called out for it than keep silent. I kept silent for too long and so have a lot of my fellow women folk. We shouldn’t be silent. Whether we agree with each other or not, we should be shouting.

That’s what I do here. I shout in my own ineffective way from a very small rooftop to a very small audience. Thank you for listening and keep on shouting.